They sound pretty good to me.
If you're a designated inventor of a patent or a patent application who opposes patents, you could publicly state your support for patent abolition at the Inventors Against Patents site: http://inventors-against-patents.org
#2 If someone isn't infringing, then sure - troll should pay. But a lot of unknowns could invalidate a patent, perhaps just decidedly not detailed enough by a judge who ends up reviewing it, which I don't think makes sense to be a point of having the troll pay for it. If a patent is seen as invalid, then it can no longer be used to sue people.
#3 Agreed.
#4 It would be impossible for either party to prove, so then this just leaves costs open ended for the person who owns the patent.
#5 This is confusing. They seem to be trying to deal with a problem not directly associated with patents themselves? More they just want more information to make it easier if it'd be a good idea or not to infringe? You could always send an email and ask if what you're doing infringes - assuming you're not trying to patent something on top of existing patents further. Though I imagine that's not a tactic most people would be comfortable with.
#6 Define what a small fraction is, vs. how important something is in an application; It could be the most valuable piece in some overall 'bloated' scheme
#7 If you look at benefit to the economy, currently measured by GDP, any money being spent (on lawyers) is positive for GDP, and therefore for the economy..
In conclusion, I think these suggestions put forward by EFF are meant to deal with stopping the damage and strain trolls put on the system, though not fairly take into consideration real innovation, that actually is created, and used. Things like "swipe to the right to unlock" - I don't think that's complex enough to consider it patentable - but it is patented (I believe) - but never should have been. I am sure there are much more complex systems that people can come up with, that might take many years to develop or discover - but once known and concepts turned into something tangible, it would not take long to re-engineer, so there may not then be any incentive to attempting to develop said system; It could even take years of looking for someone to fund what you want to create that you have a patent on, especially if it's "so far out there" that people might have trouble understanding its value. Anyway - it'll be interesting to see where it all goes. I think all patents, software and not, should be thrown out. Other mechanisms would surface to allow innovation to move forward.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
#3 sounds good, but how do you stop people from submitting code written in Brainfuck or TECO or something?
Five years seems like a very, very long time, it leaves all the short term benefits in place, e.g. muscling out the less-innovative competition. I guess this is by design.
The whole proposal sounds very moderate, really.
Also, I wonder if they intend on the working code examples to be included with the public patent after approval? If so then this would in a sense make all patented software open source, albeit with a very restrictive license. Still, that could vastly accelerate innovation and streamline arbitration.
In the end I think item 7, the proposal to research whether there is any economic benefit from software patents, is the most important and they should narrow down their scope to just that.
I've been working on a pro bono project where a small town is suing a big company for industrial pollution. It's a very hard case to win--the town has already given up a lot of arguments by having waited too long (believing that the government would protect them), and the other side has a ton of money. But being hard doesn't mean it isn't meritorious. This is a suit that needs to be brought and deserves to be brought, but never would in a loser-pays system. And maybe that would be okay in Europe, where they pay for a big government to enforce these sorts of things, but we don't do that in the U.S. Instead, we depend on private litigation to enforce peoples' rights.
Notch just fights back.
The bold move is declaring it openly, but it's not really that bold considering it is a very publicly favorable position at present, and it is in Notch's direct interests as he is creating but doesn't hold US patents.
In any event, I believe the EFF is pretty much a global charity at this point? I just donated to them also with the latest Humble Bundle, and I'm not in USA.
Edit: Apparently wikipedia really does have a page for everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_S...
Worse it's a waste of time, money and valuable attention. If you want political action and have the money and resources then why not form a single-issue political action group, get involved and do something?
This is just writing a check and getting your picture and name in the media, something by the way at which Mark Cuban, whose hypocrisy knows little bounds, excels.
https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/04/19
That is the type of work the EFF does. I do not see how this is not part of its mission.
It's easy to see how you could argue that this is exactly the EFF's core mission, the link from software patents to digital rights is hardly ephemeral, and the EFF has a history with the (since expired, the system works!) GIF patent. I think that an opponent argument is conceivable, but you haven't made it.
And why would you form a single-issue political group, when you could join ranks with a sympathetic existing political organization, which brings enormous resources, relationships and standing to the table?
I could see taking on a case on behalf of someone who is a victim of another abusing the system say by an NPE troll. Wading into legal reform and becoming a lobbyist organization is another matter entirely in my mind.
Generally speaking from the evidence we see around us on a daily basis, the EFF is failing to hold the line in its mission as it is. They have no easy task. I don't really see how biting off yet even more than you can chew and becoming further diluted helps. Should the ACLU be active in environmental causes? We can agree to disagree about how best to achieve political reform and maintain credibility. There are indeed many ways to skin a cat.
Its mission is to protect against abuses of civil liberties in the digital arena. To protect against govt malfeasance. To protect and aid people who are being abused by willful ignorance of the law and miscarriages of justice and to inform the public about these wrongs.
Btw, I think we can all agree that it is failing in these goals. So now is probably not the best time to widen its umbrella.
I fail to see how the legal use of patent law is a miscarriage of justice. I don't disagree that the system is in need of reform, the EFF should be focused on its aims rather than trying to expand them.
[...]
To that end, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will: 1. Engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications. 2. Develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society. 3. Raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media. Support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology. 4. Encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation One Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 577-1385
eff@well.sf.ca.us
(A site operator here; the site was launched a few days ago. The idea is that anyone campaigning for a patent reform can use support by designated inventors as a presumably convincing argument in the eyes of the general public.)
Edit: As Richard Stallman points out in a comment at EFF's site, abolishing software patents can be easier than shortening the period during which a monopoly is granted to 5 years as EFF proposes; he cites a requirement by WTO that all patents are granted for a period of 20 years.
The nice thing about publicly supporting abolition is that you automatically support "less radical" proposal's like EFF's 5-year reform, and you support all of them at the same time just once and all campaigners can use your support. DRY :)
Quake 1 had better graphics and editors eons ago
I am not condemning this move, I am really curious about how this stuff works.
Anyone know?
If it is effective, I'm sure there are a variety of ways to continue to fund the initiative.
