I used to think they were entirely useless, but since then I've learned of many instances where a much better technology is developed because the first iteration is patented.
For example, the Wright brothers biggest contribution to aviation was suing everyone using wing warping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war) which greatly advanced the adoption of the much more advanced ailerons.
Software patents have a similar effect, for example Cisco's patent on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol led to the development of the more secure and more capable Common Address Redundancy Protocol (https://jacobfilipp.com/DrDobbs/articles/SA/v14/i05/a6.htm).
We tend to invest heavily in whatever we can get working first, but it's rarely close to an ideal way of doing something. By pushing every developer to find a newer, better way of doing something, patents prevent stagnation and lead to more advanced technologies.
This sort of benefit in software can be realized with much shorter terms. A 5 or 10 year term would accomplish pretty much all the same benefits. 25 years is just way too long for software.
Having people create new technology to avoid arbitrary legal hurdles instead of adopting existing and perfectly functional technology doesn't seem particularly efficient.
The intent of the patent system is to encourage publishing innovation in exchange for rights to it for a period of time, and then everyone gets to use it. IMO the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious. I get that there's a grey area there at some point, but "one click ordering" is one that comes to mind. Just because someone hasn't done it exactly like that before, should not make such a simple idea patentable. And I think patents should be on specific implementations, not general ideas. If I can implement the end-user experience of one-click ordering without substantially copying Amazon's underlying technology, that should be fair to do.
>the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious.
I don't agree that that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is that patents are abused to stifle competition by refusing licenses or putting untenable fees on them. No one would have cared about Nintendo's D-pad patent if they'd just put a reasonable license fee on it. On the other hand, a patent like MP3 I would argue is quite legitimate, but putting a patent on a coded just makes interoperability more difficult. If MPEG had charged licenses for decoding chips and explicitly allowed software implementations, that would have things so much more smoother.
> Cisco's patent on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol led to the development of the more secure and more capable Common Address Redundancy Protocol
This seems like a success story in spite of software patents, not because of them. Just because they were forced to develop a new protocol in order to avoid getting sued for using Cisco's doesn't mean that they wouldn't still have improved on what Cisco had if they'd been allowed to use and modify it freely. The lack of lawsuits hanging over everyone's head certainly hasn't prevented innovation from happening in FOSS.
For example, the Wright brothers biggest contribution to aviation was suing everyone using wing warping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war) which greatly advanced the adoption of the much more advanced ailerons.
Software patents have a similar effect, for example Cisco's patent on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol led to the development of the more secure and more capable Common Address Redundancy Protocol (https://jacobfilipp.com/DrDobbs/articles/SA/v14/i05/a6.htm).
We tend to invest heavily in whatever we can get working first, but it's rarely close to an ideal way of doing something. By pushing every developer to find a newer, better way of doing something, patents prevent stagnation and lead to more advanced technologies.
I don't agree that that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is that patents are abused to stifle competition by refusing licenses or putting untenable fees on them. No one would have cared about Nintendo's D-pad patent if they'd just put a reasonable license fee on it. On the other hand, a patent like MP3 I would argue is quite legitimate, but putting a patent on a coded just makes interoperability more difficult. If MPEG had charged licenses for decoding chips and explicitly allowed software implementations, that would have things so much more smoother.
Whether it's single passenger cars or AI, nobody really understands how inefficient they and their lives are.
This seems like a success story in spite of software patents, not because of them. Just because they were forced to develop a new protocol in order to avoid getting sued for using Cisco's doesn't mean that they wouldn't still have improved on what Cisco had if they'd been allowed to use and modify it freely. The lack of lawsuits hanging over everyone's head certainly hasn't prevented innovation from happening in FOSS.
Let say you come up with a patent. You let open source use the patent, GPL3 ..., for free why charging close source solutions.
That could go to funding the open source development or other gains. FANNG has the money, take it from the them by all means.