DISQUS

Technology Liberation Front: Software Patent of the Week: The Threat to Open Source Software

  • MikeT · 3 years ago
    What we need is a law that says that if you sue someone for a patent violation and it's frivolous, you lose your patent. Even better. If you use the patents as part of a SLAPP-style lawsuit to shut down a small competitor, the competitor can claim some of your patents as part of the spoils.
  • Ned Ulbricht · 3 years ago
    I think this is a big part of the reason.

    Wait a minute... your "this" reads to me as an ambiguous reference. In the preceding paragraph you're talking about prior art and obviousness. But in the next sentence you're talking about a problem with collecting royalties. So which one do you think is the "big part of the reason"?

  • Tim Lee · 3 years ago
    I'm sorry, by "this" I meant Perens's broad point about the threat software patents pose to free software. Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity.
  • Steve R. · 3 years ago
    Cnet has an artilce titled "Newsmaker: Have patent, will sue". Needless to say, I do not agree with the position of Paul Ryan the CEO of Acacia Technologies, but it is worth reading the views of the opposition.
  • Gary McGath · 3 years ago
    If encapsulating database records in objects is a patent violation, then all the code I've written this week is in violation. Why don't they just say that writing software is illegal, rather than make it piecemeal impossible to write code legally?
  • Jerry Kew · 3 years ago
    I can't stand the use of Patenting for *obvious* stuff, and am fed up with that, however, we have developed a non-obvious, very interesting new interface for a market. We would like to get the benefit of that in one of our markets before the big boys simply copy it and flatten us, a patent seems to be the way to go to protect us *for a while*, however, I would be happy for it to be only 3-5 years, giving the chance for us to make a name with what we innovated, then unbundle it. That would help me get investors over the next year or so, knowing we had an "incubation window" for our idea.
    thoughts?
    J
  • short url · 2 years ago
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