December 04, 2003
Software patent fun

This is an amusing yet rather scary look at just how software patents might influence your average e-commerce website.

The evilness of software patents illustrated.. see this is why those who are proponents of such actions will go straight to hell to enjoy an eternity of programming Fortran under windows 3.1.

[via Justin]

Posted December 04, 2003 10:44 PM in Geek Stuff
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Comments
On December 7, 2003 12:27 PM dave added:

Since no-one else is interested in offering an opposing opinion, I'll try.

I have a hard time figuring out why RSA should not have been patentable. It seems to meet all the requirements: non-obvious, significant advance on the art, etc. The fact that we all want to use it for free should not be reason enough to deny R, S, and A the fruits of their intellectual labours.

So RSA is not, in my opinion, a good example here.

The US software patenting system falls down in two areas: (1) granting of patents for trivial crap, such as the 1-click nonsense frm Amazon, and (2) the complete lack of the technical knowledge in the USPTO that allows people to patent prior art, and puts the burden on the rest of us to prove them wrong.

(Disclosure: my name's on at least a couple of software patents; you can decide for yourself which category they fall in).

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On December 8, 2003 03:34 PM rainer added:

if this will come it will be like a brake for the Innternet. 20 patents in your sample - unbelieveable!

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