[pchelpers] Relatively technical article on software patents in the USA

Hi folks,

http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2005dltr0012.html

Abstract

A Winter 2004 article by Bradford L. Smith and Susan O. Mann of
Microsoft published in The University of Chicago Law Review suggests
that the development and growth of the software industry in the U.S.
is a direct outgrowth of the implementation of intellectual property
regimes, specifically copyright and patent, with respect to software
in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This paper suggests that such
patents were neither the sole nor the principal factor for the
development of the software industry, that concerns about patents
manifested prior to or soon after their application to software have
proven true, and that patents are, in fact, not serving the interests
of either the U.S. software industry or the consuming public. To that
end, this paper advances recommendations for reforming the U.S. patent
system as well as consideration of a new schema for protecting
software.

***********

Even Bill Gates recognized that software patents may prove to be
problematic when, in 1991, he stated in a memorandum:

   "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of
   today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the
   industry would be at a complete standstill today. . . . I feel
   certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing
   related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application
   extension or other crucial technique."5

...In 1991, when Bill Gates made his remarks, Microsoft had fewer than
50 filed patent applications; today Microsoft has over 4,000 issued
patents and more than 10,000 pending patent applications.7
   
-- 
Scott.




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