A few years ago I would have agreed with you on speed
of the computer field. I don't see the speed now. We are still
selling tools for processors whose instruction sets were
developed in the mid to late 70's.
One of my current projects started in 1998 and we have
support contracts to 2016 that are very likely to be extended
15 or 17 years is is not a long time anymore. It now takes
5-8 years to launch new processors and about as long again
to get them designed in.
A major reference document that we use was written in 60's
and revised in the 70's. It has a copyright and has outlived many
patents.
You are referring here to a tiny niche market. In the huge majority of
the software world, a couple of years is a long time. Support contracts
lasting as long as 3 years are extra cost. If you are a large company
and want long-term support from a small company with a great new
product, you can't rely on that company existing in a few years time -
you just buy the company.
If patents, and software patents in particular, were only given for
truly new, innovative and useful ideas, then I might agree with you
somewhat - there have been relatively few good "inventions" in software
(or processor design, since you mentioned that) in recent times.
There's been plenty of progress, but little in the way of revolutionary
ideas that justify a patent.
I don't agree. Patent's are far more protective of a narrow
range of claims that need to be predefined. The copyright
control of derivative works makes the copyright holder able
to control material in ways that were not even imagined
when the copyright was issued.
Patents are typically written as broadly as the author can make it.
When Jon says you cannot easily work around them, what he means is you
can do your own development totally independently of the patent -
typically with no idea the patent exists - and still fall foul of it.
And because of the way patents are granted, and the way the courts work
in the USA, it really doesn't even matter if you wrote the software long
before the person who got the patent. If the patent-holder wants to sue
you, it's going to cost you a great deal of money - whether you are
"innocent" or not, and whether the patent is valid or not. And that's
just because you came up with an idea that someone else also had.
Copyrights, on the other hand, are very much narrower - they cover an
implementation of an idea, not the idea itself. Thus you are perfectly
at liberty to do a clean-room re-implementation of the same ideas. Thus
you are not allowed to steal other people's work, but you /are/ allowed
to do the work again yourself.
Had the LCD control patent been a copyright there would
still be a lot of licence fees being paid. This patent was
organized the way a copyright could have been. LCD material
requires that the average voltage be across the material be zero.
The patent author detailed essentially all the ways an LCD
display could be driven or scanned and keep the average
display voltage zero.
Your example doesn't make sense. You can't copyright an idea, or a
method, or a way to control an LCD. You can copyright a datasheet or
instruction manual for the LCD. Patents and copyrights apply to
different things.
Note that I don't think anyone here has argued against the idea of
patents for this sort of thing. While many people (myself included)
would like to see wide-ranging changes to the way patents are granted,
the duration, and the way conflicts are resolved (in the USA in
particular, but also more generally throughout the world), I don't think
patents should be abandoned entirely. /Software/ patents should be
abandoned in the USA, like the rest of the world. But I see nothing
wrong with the inventor of the LCD (or its control mechanisms) having a
patent for that, for a few years.
Once usage goes beyond fair use a copyright can be powerful
protection. In general fair use does not allow someone to
profit from the use of a copyright they do not own. (I know
there are exceptions to this)
No one is arguing that copyright can give powerful protection - and that
one of the main aims is let people have use of the copyrighted material
without getting economic gain through its abuse.
The main point in this thread is that software patents are unnecessary -
copyright forms a far better platform for protecting the developers'
rights - and that software patents are directly harmful to developers,
innovators, small companies, and therefore consumers.
