The problem with patents is that they are poorly adapted to the software world.
First, the overhead to use a software patent is far too large to be practical.
It isn't practical to search the entire patent literature just in case one of
your algorithms happens to have been patented; it would take much more time
than the actual writing and debugging of your program. That doesn't even count
the money for such a search.
Second, even without the overhead, software patents aren't terribly useful. If
you want to save your efforts, you need to buy a pre-written library (which is
protected by copyright); otherwise you might as well reinvent whatever wheels
you need yourself.
Consider: when was the last time you actually programmed a patented algorithm?
I don't mean using a library, I mean programming from scratch? And, of those
how many do you think wouldn't have been published anyway?
Finally, the overhead to routinely create and maintain software patents is also
too large (compared to the effort it takes to come up with them). Companies
mostly use trade secrets if they feel the algorithm is critical; university
researchers almost always publish rather than patent. Anyway, it is impractical
for everyone except major corporations and universities to routinely establish
software patents.
Because of this, software patents are basically a racket. They have no benefit
to society as a whole, they basically have the following effects:
give big companies who can afford to get and enforce them a stick to
beat others: leverage in deal-making so they can get cross-licensing
agreements for more patents...
creates the occasional time-bomb where some dinky company holds a
previously unknown and overarching patent that threatens lots of people
who never heard of it and independently re"invented" it for themselves.
generally make programming more risky, expensive, and difficult.
Bruce
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