[denton-scratch]

> go trade secret and never let the ideas enter the public domain.

If you rely on trade secrets, then you can't sell your software without protecting it using a dongle or whatever; your "customer" might in fact be your competitor. It's not that hard to figure out how a piece of software works, and to write your own code that works the same way.

It's not hard to figure out how some novel machine works either; but how to fabricate it is often a tougher challenge. It's easy enough to explain how a transistor works; fabricating reliable transistors at scale is another question.

[DarkmSparks]

thats mostly why most software is SaaS now. No need for a dongle, the end user never gets near the actual software.

[denton-scratch]

Hmm. A dongle was used to protect trade-secret software in the days before software patents. Now SaaS is used instead; therefore software patents are still unnecessary?

I used to work for a firm that rented all its premises. My boss explained to me that the company's assets were its software, and nothing else. The patent portfolio is the physical manifestation of those assets - you can borrow against a patent portfolio, but not against a vault full of trade secrets.

You'd think he'd have mentioned staff; but staff can leave, and you can't secure loans and investment against employees.

Anyway, it looks as if that firm at least was using patents not as a way of preventing unfair competition and the stealing of inventions, but as a financial instrument. That's not what they're supposed to be for. And the fact they are used that way makes it horribly difficult to reform the patent system; if patents are like (e.g.) bonds, then reforming the patent system carries the risk of crashing the financial system.

[DarkmSparks]

Software patents include a detailed explanation of the way the technology works, in return for telling society how the technology works (so anyone can use it at the expiry of the patent) the government grants exclusive use of the technology - patents are a trade.

If an inventor keeps (can keep) their technology secret, it is better for them to not patent it - and they can keep exclusive use of it as long as they can keep it secret.

Trade secrets laws are far more brutal than patents iirc.

This is why I am undecided, there are no easy answers.