software, lawsuit, and patentable

Software patents have always been a controversy and much worse they are not understood by most of the people. Even the lawyers are paid to decode them. The most obvious reason is the way in which they are developed, maintained and shipped unlike the other products like refrigerators, motors etc..

Any standard or protection law need not go to the extent of encouraging innovation. But atleast it should not curtail it. The nature of software being such a fluid idea, lacks clarity even to the person who developed it, the idea is nothing but asking for trouble. And as Stallman says, it;s just a pure math and that math could be formulated in many ways resulting in similar ideas. So, taking the ownership for the way of math doesn’t make much sense.

And the idea of cross licensing is another matter of concern. It behaves simply as a trade tool and nothing else. Obviously makes the world of software a pure business that doesn’t give room for innovation or new ideas. More seriously, It affects the small companies entering the market. If i have to publish a software idea, there is most likely a similar math already patented. If i am a big corporation then i am likely to be noticed by the cunning patent holder but even in that case i can fight it out with my lawyers. It becomes a story of lawyers and lawsuit.

Registered patents under US Patent could be read online. Just a Google search will take you there. It’s fun to read them and definitely the inverse when we understand that we are troubled by the same.