Red Hat CEO decries software patents

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I would tend to disagree.

[rant]
As a holder of few software patents, I truly believe that software is fundamentally
un-patentable. Because of the 10 of trillions of lines of code that exist out in the
open and behind closed doors (trade-secrets), it is almost impossible to search
every software patent against every line of developed code/simple algorithm/
indexing scheme against each other to make sure you are in the clear.

Likewise, enforcement is equally almost impossible because most of the time, it is
impossible to gain access code/algorithms used by some other company unless it
is an external interface such as "one-click" or some type of external packet
information. As for "one-click", can anyone say OBVIOUS. Variations of that have
been around for longer than the Internet. Heck, I remember seeing it on the
Internet before there was an Amazon.

But at the end of the day, it is almost an impossible task (read very very costly) to
make sure any software developed is not infringing on software patents because all
to often, the specifics discussed in the patents still leave lots to be desired, are
vague, to broad and (more often than not) intuitively obvious. The only thing
unique about most software patents is not that the "inventors" were the first to do
it, but rather the inventors were the first to think it was original.
[/rant]

Posted by: Bruizer   Posted on: 05/22/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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