Should softwares be patentable?

Discuss

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Of course. Inventors / businesses should have right to protect their IP.

Yes but that shouldn't prevent you from modifying it.
Out of all four essential freedoms, I disagree with redistribution part the most and I think it's ruining the image of the movement.

no.

and go do your own homework.

kys you tumor

No, because you don't create new things or solve mind-boggling problems, nor are you using anything physical. You can't forbid someone from having the same idea as you and writing it down. You could forbid someone from making the same machine you make (though I still disagree with that unless patents are only given to truly inventive new machines, not like how they're handed out in cereal boxes these days) because they're building a physical thing and selling it. Code is just a bunch of instructions that, when followed by a computer, lead to a desired outcome. You can't forbid me from duplicating a thought process and putting it into words a computer can understand.

Fuck the enterprise pigs who think they should be allowed to have possession of the moon, biological processes like respiration, and the perception of certain colors. Fucking disgusting greedy lowlives are holding back progress

Stallman has a talk on this: youtube.com/watch?v=aiKRt3-FbM0

Nothing should be patentable.

I think it is okay to copyright/patent a very specific implementation of something, but not a concept.

Patents are government intervention of the free market and are anti-capitalist.

Yes. I will now patent the mouse pointer and touchscreen input technologies

Why would something virtual be any less patentable than something physical?
Do you think because it's numerical it's less real?
There are software engineers working their ass off like other types of engineer do, and it is a science like the others.
Code can be sold, used and become obsolete, just like any physical product.
The distinction you make doesn't sound reasonable to me.
You can hate on patents, but there's no reason to forbid software patents if you allow them in other fields.


>Implying there isn't already a patent for these things
Can't tell if you're being ironic

No. Because everyone time you patent a piece of software, you're patenting a certain index and range of Pi.

Yes but within tight scopes.


You shouldn't be able to string together some vague words and then decide that it applies to every email program ever made 20 years later.

Also if no product is made than the patent expires sooner than if a product exists.

You shouldn't be able to patent software because all you're patenting is a concept. It seems that whenever someone copyrights or I dont know what some code, nobody else is allowed to write the same code. That's just bullshit, that's literally saying I can't tell my pc to perform a certain process I came up with just because you did it first. Basically what this guy said: Copyright the exact, complete implementation you wrote so people can't just literally copy it from you and pretend they made it, but you can't forbid people from creating a concept just because you created it first. You can't stop me from having a thought nor can you stop me from writing it down in words a pc can execute.

No.
Patents destroy the possibility that someone takes a shit product and makes something better.

this

patents are the worst progress blockers ever. They just monopolize a general thing since they're granted way too easily these days, prevent anyone from researching, improving, and competitively selling it to create competition and progress, and allow customers to be exploited by selling shit for scandalous profit margins. The worst thing imho is the expensive legal headaches they create (and for that matter, I think if society requires everyone to follow its laws, there shouldn't be any costs associated with getting the law correctly applied (i.e. lawyers) nor should there be any room for interpretation (i.e. lawyer argument fights)) and how they can basically ruin a newly created project just because they happen to write some code they came up with on their own that some asshole has"""""ownership"""" of through some shitty piece of paper.

If you think about it, it's inane. I understand copyright as in protecting your exact work from being 1:1 copied and remarketed as an original, but patents on general concepts are just fucking surreal.

just do your work in a gontry where patents don't exist (russia, china, serbia, iran, uganda)

If the patent system is such impediment for progress in software field why is US the number one in software? Most of the great companies come from US, the innovation comes from US. Success by other nations in software is few and far between. Following the logic Stallman uses on that video posted here , US aka "litigious society"-GWB should be suffering the most, yet opposite seems to be the case.
Why are countries outside US paying for US software that has all this patent bureaucracy built into the prices, why aren't they instead buying local software which is ultimately going to be cheaper because there is no extra overhead caused by the patent system?
Could it be possible that the software patent system as a form of property rights for the things digital actually creates the foundation in which companies can be built successfully.

>why is US the number one in software?
is it? [citation needed]

> Most of the great companies come from US, the innovation comes from US. Success by other nations in software is few and far between
[citation needed]

>Why are countries outside US paying for US software that has all this patent bureaucracy built into the prices, why aren't they instead buying local software which is ultimately going to be cheaper because there is no extra overhead caused by the patent system?
because companies don't make logical decisions, they make greedy business deals with whatever ulterior motives they may have. Besides, when was the last time a company's impression of the quality of what they're buying was correct? I get mad just thinking about the incredibly stupid decisions e.g. the bank I worked for made regarding IT and how much fucking money they hemorrhaged that way, thinking they were doing it right. They pay 12k a year for a single jvm instance to run just one of dozens of microservices of their system. Businessmen make stupid decisions all the fucking time because they promote kiss-asses to be their advisors, not people who tell them the harsh truth about their ideas.

>Could it be possible that the software patent system as a form of property rights for the things digital actually creates the foundation in which companies can be built successfully.
>is it possible patents create the foundation for being greedy sons of bitches, giving them the tools they need to extort the market

Newsflash: lots of software is also made without bounds to companies and nations. The whole linux ecosystem is international or rather unnational, made by people from everywhere, improving each other's work (and occasionally fucking it up, but shit happens), without a money-hungry governing structure. All you're looking at is national market numbers. Software does not work that way.

fuck (((intellectual property)))
the whole system is fucked up desu

pwc.com/gx/en/industries/technology/publications/global-100-software-leaders/explore-the-data.html
Way too much USA in this list for Stallman's thesis of software patents being harmful being true, at least on the macro level.

keep in mind the US is large, so absolute numbers will always be biased towards the US (haven't opened your link, I don't care enough about this and it's not like anyone is gonna sway anyone anyway). And for the record I give as much of a fuck about what stallman says as you do.

>top 100 by revenue

k, cool story bro.

It should be either patentable or copyrightable, not both.

Also, the USPO needs to hire some competent computer scientists because the morons who are approving patents can't even tell if something is an obvious solution or already has prior art.

this desu

Market numbers have more variables than just the skill level in software. SHit like marketing, dumb population, culture, etc all influence it

Point: The OSes this board loves came from a kernal named after a Finn, and are developed by hobbyists from around the globe.

Counterpoint: None of this would have been possible if it wasn't for Bell Labs and MIT nerds.

As for OP, ehhh maybe. I can see that you don't want someone ripping off your project (imagine if poojeet could just use your code without repurcussions and get paid for your work)
On the other hand, open source projects and the free software movement have produced/are producing incredibly good software because of their non-copyrighted nature.

Yes. I currently have several patents up right now just sitting there waiting for someone to infringe on them so I can sue for easy money. If anyone wants to make easy money on the side look into patents

Kek, are you actually being serious? Can you link these patents so we can have a look?

worse lowlife than domain name squatters or license ownership hoarders

Not really. It's legal , you're just an idiot who doesn't take advantage of what's in front of him.

Only novel applied mathematics should be patentable in software.
Companies should be encouraged to generate their revenues from services rather than source code.
The government should regulate software that directly generates revenue for the developers by selling or using any user's information or works.

Patents are a good thing, they allow individuals with little capital a way into a market and be able to compensated for their work. If there were none, then a company with a lot of capital could pump money into your idea and destroy you very easily.

Patent trolling is cancer though.

>no.
>and go do your own homework

Well done, my presentation is indeed due tomorrow.

Thanks for your input lads, that was useful.

I still think software should be patentable tbqh.

yes but only for 5-8 years.