[TheMagicHorsey]

Software patents are pitched as a policy choice that encourages programmers by giving them some financial incentive to invent more software.

That's how they have been pitched to programmers and the American people.

However, after having worked in the patent industry for a few years now, I can tell you software patents are really just a mechanism to redistribute the wealth of engineers to lawyers. Period. That's the end result. Nothing more.

I wish this was some sort of exaggeration. But it isn't in my opinion.

[WildUtah]

"Software patents are pitched as a policy choice that encourages programmers by giving them some financial incentive to invent more software. That's how they have been pitched to programmers and the American people."

And after all that PR and propaganda from the patent bar programmers are firmly and solidly against the existence of any patents that read on software. Too many are able to think logically about the consequences to be scammed.

Congress, on the other hand, is not so hard to fool. Neither is the Supreme Court. That's why the dirge of lies continues. The patent bar is still going on about how patents will eventually stop harming and start promoting innovation in software.

Meanwhile patent lawyers are the highest earners in the profession, don't have to deal with criminals and the indigent, and expand in numbers every year by exponential parasitism while the software industry lives in fear and hides innovative techniques out of fear.

[throwawaykf05]

Here's the thing: It's not us engineers who pay the lawyers. It's our employers. We don't even get a say in the matter, and over time various changes in the law have simply tipped the balance even more in favor of the employers. Your employer can file a patent on your work whether you cooperate or not.

And it's not like they are going to pay us more if they stop filing patents. In fact, many firms pay a bonus if your work results in a patent (or even a patent application.) Clearly they see some value in them, and they have reasons to.

And this is true of all patents, btw, not just in software.

[jaredhansen]

>And it's not like they are going to pay us more if they stop filing patents.

This is actually not true at all. The cost here isn't in the filing of the patents; it's in the nightmarish patent system that results in absurd litigation and related expenses. If the patent system were reformed to avoid this kind of expense, the company would have lower operating costs, which would be distributed in some way. While it's possible I suppose that 100% of those savings would be collected by shareholders as profit, it's much more likely that, like with anything else, the cost reductions would simply contribute to the size of the total pie, which would be split among owners and employees in proportions probably roughly similar to how it's split today.

[throwawaykf05]

That sounds plausible, but we all know that if there's a bigger pie, almost always the spoils go to the owners and employees get peanuts. Google and Apple are sitting on billions in cash and yet they colluded to essentially keep wages down.

[Guvante]

Short term profits are what firms live off. EBIT is sacred regardless of your cashflow. (I am in no way supporting this mentality, just re-emphasizing it)

[monochromatic]

> software patents are really just a mechanism to redistribute the wealth of engineers to lawyers

In some cases, probably true. But when big companies are duking it out, it's not the "wealth of engineers" that's getting fought over. It's wealth that would have been passed on to shareholders, directors, officers, etc.

[threatofrain]

Patent or patent, I don't see how engineers are going to get a bigger slice of the pie, no more than I can see how an artist should get a bigger slice of their pie. Those with leverage get a bigger piece of the pie, like the leverage you get when you control distribution or infrastructure of some kind.

That's why most music artists make little money. It has nothing to do with what % of a production the music artist is responsible for. After production there's also marketing and distribution. The same is for many engineered products.

[jMyles]

Sometimes, there's a comment that just so tersely and poignantly coalescences my objection to a public policy of enormous import but minuscule attention. This is one of those.

[bru_]

I read an article by the Economist a few years ago supporting a more general notion that the legal system is subject to a natural increase in the quantity of superfluous fees that are tacked on like pork due to the fact that the legal system is run by lawyers, who naturally like policies and systems that help lawyers make money.

[rtpg]

I wonder what the programming equivalent of such a way of thinking is...

[tadfisher]

It would be like programmers supporting policies that pay programmers per SLOC they write.