[citw150] CITW 150 L3 Q5
- From: Scott Sullivan <scottgregorysullivan@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: citw150@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:24:50 -0800 (PST)
According to the US Patent and Trademark office, a patent is the set of
exclusive rights granted by a government to a person for a fixed period of time
in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of the
invention. The person applying for the patent doesn?t have to be the person who
created the invention. Some large companies are known to abuse patents.
Software patents have become quite controversial, to the point where many are
fighting these types of patents. Microsoft specifically posses numerous
software patents. Microsoft says that they are merely protecting their
intellectual property rights, but are they? Microsoft has attempted many
software patents, but perhaps one of the most ridiculous attempts dealt with
Command Line Macros. More specifically, they were trying to patent the ?Method
and system for processing input from a command line interface?.
This is ridiculous because of just how basic this technology is. According to
their claims this patent covers any method for accepting input from a command
line interface where the input consists of a macro. This includes replacing the
macro with a command and executing the command. To put this into perspective,
the Bash shell commonly found on UNIX machines uses such technologies
frequently. For example a command such as ls ?script? would infringe on this
patent. This is because that command will execute ?script?, get the output, and
replace the back quoted parameter with that output. The subjective part is that
Bash has used such technologies long before Microsoft ever had. You can find
more information on this patent here:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220040216138%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20040216138&RS=DN/20040216138
This site has numerous examples of Microsoft?s abusive software patent
behavior:
http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/silly_patents_trix_are_for_kids/
Software patents are bad for numerous reason?s but the most important reason
(to me) is that it limit?s competition and innovation in the software industry.
Many software developers work for little or no profit such as open source
developers. Such developers don?t work for the money, but rather for the joy of
developing great software. A few good examples of such developers are the
maintainers of the Linux kernel, GNU developers, and the Mozilla Foundation.
These groups all are non-profit and just work to deliver great software for the
masses. Organizations such as Microsoft only file software patents to limit
competition. Microsoft relies on things like patents to ensure its monopoly,
rather than the quality of their own software.
--Scott Sullivan
"The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next." --Henry Ward
Beecher
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