Working for Microsoft, a few things I’m working on are being considered for patents. As someone who believes that patents on software are a bad idea, I’ve got mixed feelings about this.
This paragraph from Lukas Mathis’ post "It’s broken“ pretty much sums up my beliefs about patents:
Patents make sense when there’s a huge initial investment, the resulting product is easy to copy perfectly, and companies can profit from reading a competitor’s patents (for example, in the pharmaceutical industry). They make little to no sense when the initial investment is small, the resulting product is hard to copy perfectly, and the patents rarely offer any useful information (which is typically the case in the software industry).
In today’s environment, companies like Microsoft need to hold and license patents for defensive purposes - not doing so would represent a large risk of costly settlements.
It’s somewhat heartening to know that with the notable exception of the case against SalesForce, Microsoft doesn’t have a history of suing for infringement. The cash payout we get for putting our names on patent applications also helps make this a bit less of a bitter pill to swallow.
See also:
- This American Life: ”When Patents Attack!“
- Marco Arment: ”Why software patents are not fixable“
- Jeff Atwood: ”The coming software patent apocalypse“
- Donald Knuth: Letter to the Patent Office
- Tim B. Lee: Study: Study: patent trolls have cost innovators half a trillion dollars