Trivial doesn't mean valueless. A "1 click buy" patent is trivial, but forcing everyone to "invent something else instead" (e.g. 2 clicks) is stupid. And what if 2-click is patented? Then the next guy to come along has to have a 3-click system, or some obfuscation that convinces a jury.
Pretty soon, consumers are confused, because every website they go to has a radically different user interface brought on by patents on ideas that should be basic commodities.
When we had the guild system, we also didn't have universal public education, and instantaneous near zero cost publication of ideas.
Plus, you analogy makes pinch-zoom patents look even worse. You can keep how it is implemented a complete trade secret, and from looking at it for a few seconds, I can produce an equivalent implementation.
Apple has already obfuscated their techniques anyway. Why not release iOS as open source then, if it's protected by patents? The reality is, these patents are read by no one except lawyers, and in many cases, they under specify the implementation by being very abstract.
I really don't see how anyone who writes software for a living can defend these things and defend the status quo of not even supporting reform. You are asserting that something like an XOR-cursor (another dumb patent) is equivalent to a manufacturing process deserving 20 year protection?
> I really don't see how anyone who writes software for a living can defend these things and defend the status quo of not even supporting reform.
I agree that it seems like things are a bit screwy right now, but I don't claim to know what the solution is, and I'm not sure that things haven't always been a bit screwy (Alexander Graham Bell got the telephone patent because he was ahead of some other guy in line, Farnsworth died poor having invented TV).
Abolishing software patents is -- in my opinion -- not the solution since -- given the direction technology is headed -- this is going to be disturbingly similar to abolishing patents altogether. Most suggested "reforms" of the patent system seem to satisfy Mencken's criteria ("neat, simple, and wrong")
Note that genetic and chemical-engineering patents are pretty close to software too.
1-click is one of my least favorite patents, but it really comes down to an argument about obviousness -- an argument it appears to have lost in Europe (where the patent was never granted). The patent has been challenged, most of its claims thrown out, and its remaining claims narrowed:
I'd suggest that in the end its a question of application not theory. In this case the Europeans have arguably done a better job of applying patent law than the US.
The solution already exists, in parallel with patents. If the whole goal is to "incentive innovation", then there are many ways of doing this. And we've been doing it already. If all you wanna do is incentive innovation then just give innovators what they need to innovate. That's what angel investors, angel groups, startup incubators, accelerators and even kickstarter backers do.
There's absolutely nothing about the concept of "incentive innovation" that says you must punish other innovators by giving monopolies to each individual. Of all ideas for promoting innovation you can think of, granting monopolies are among the worst ones. If before the invention of Intellectual Property, if you asked people to come up with new ideas to incentive innovation, no one would come up with "let's promote innovation by punishing innovators to pay fees to a select few". And in fact, no one did, that's not how IP was invented, it was the other way around. It started with UK monarchy monopolies with the explicit goal to make money for the monarchy. The excuse that IP protects innovation was made up later by those who were profiting from it when the monarchy fell.
Solutions to replace patents always existed, still exist and are working great. YCombinator is a great example of that. If you think it's the government who should grant some kind of incentives. I don't know about the US, but in my country we have many government programs for innovative startups. Many high tech and bio tech startups only exist because of government granted funding, incubation and mentorship.
Humans will always innovate. Solutions already exist and are working. Patents just need to stay out of our way and the rest will keep working fine.
Pretty soon, consumers are confused, because every website they go to has a radically different user interface brought on by patents on ideas that should be basic commodities.
When we had the guild system, we also didn't have universal public education, and instantaneous near zero cost publication of ideas.
Plus, you analogy makes pinch-zoom patents look even worse. You can keep how it is implemented a complete trade secret, and from looking at it for a few seconds, I can produce an equivalent implementation.
Apple has already obfuscated their techniques anyway. Why not release iOS as open source then, if it's protected by patents? The reality is, these patents are read by no one except lawyers, and in many cases, they under specify the implementation by being very abstract.
I really don't see how anyone who writes software for a living can defend these things and defend the status quo of not even supporting reform. You are asserting that something like an XOR-cursor (another dumb patent) is equivalent to a manufacturing process deserving 20 year protection?