[AnthonyMouse]

>R&D into new computer algorithms is a non-trivial investment, frequently requiring years and millions of dollars. There is a tendency among programmers to discount the level of effort required to develop a new computer algorithm that materially extends the state-of-the-art even though most could not develop such algorithms themselves and have never been involved in such R&D. Organizations that make this investment do so looking for a return.

I don't think critics of software patents are in the practice of claiming that software R&D is always quick or inexpensive. Rather, the claim is that the patent system is demonstrably incapable of improving that situation, and in the meantime has spawned enormously wasteful multi-billion dollar litigation between otherwise upstanding major companies and struck fear into the hearts of small developers who can no longer produce a successful innovative product without risking a shakedown by despicable parasites.

Companies expecting a return have numerous other, less innovation-damaging alternatives to software patents. First to market advantage, copyright and trade secrets cover the field pretty well on their own, and no one can accuse any of those things of causing the average software entrepreneur to lose sleep over the prospect of totally unpredictable ruinous litigation.

[coopdog]

The litigation is very damaging, it's also true however that research is being doubled/tripled/etc as it's done in private by multiple organisations and kept as trade secrets, which is inefficient when you consider the world as a whole.

It's just that we can't presently see any regulation based solution for that.

[AnthonyMouse]

I understand that duplication is inefficient, but how is the patent system doing anything productive whatsoever to address it in the software industry? If something with market value can be kept as a trade secret then the incentive will be to do so notwithstanding the patent system, and then to patent various other things for legal defensive purposes which are less valuable in the market but more valuable in the courtroom. And things which can't effectively be held as trade secrets won't be wastefully duplicated anyway because the first to produce such a product is by stipulation unable to keep the secret.

More than that, if we were at all concerned about the use of trade secrets causing wasteful duplication then we cannot consistently allow the law to protect them as something of value. If we are so keen on disclosure and reducing duplication then industrial espionage should be fully legal as an efficient means of distributing knowledge to other market participants, and holders of trade secrets should be directed to the Patent Office as their sole means of protection. But I think we are not so keen because the problem of duplication is not so large, and the incentive provided by the patent system would not compare well with the incentive provided by the alternative.