The Iron Yuppie

The open-source patent conundrum | Tech News on ZDNet

Patents are all the rage nowadays, especially in the battle between proprietary and open source. Mr. Perens, who is a key representative of open source, has a very interesting post on it. One take on this is that the developer sitting in a room working on a new memory model thought up that thing on his own, without searching through the USPTO to find out ways of implementing memory models. This seems to indicate software patents = bad. The other side is IBM works on a memory model which they patent and then that engineer talks about it with some friends who talk about it on their blog which makes it into a text book which a developer then sits down and reads and implements a memory model which infringes on the original patent. Does this mean that the developer should be sued? I think there needs to be a gray area. I definitely feel that patents add to the overall development of society if for no other reason than people are paid to sit around and think up cool things which can then be turned into money exclusively for the company that paid them. And those cool things filter out into the economy in countless ways. I definitely do not think it's a catch all, however, as there are lots of cool ideas being thought up by lots of people who are NOT being paid to do so and who will not seek patent protection for them, and these people should not have their thoughts stolen because of that fact. Maybe just having an open period for patent vetting would be the solution... someone wants to patent something and someone has six months to submit prior art. USPTO, let the blogsphere do what the blogsphere does well... your research for you.