[mbrubeck]

Many software patents I've read seem totally invalid. But there are a few I think may be reasonable. For example, many audio/video codecs like the ones in the MPEG standards are developed by companies who make money through patent licensing. And for the most the ideas in these patents are far from "obvious."

You could argue about whether these patents are good or bad for society, but at least in these cases the patent system is operating as designed: allowing companies to profit from novel research through a temporary monopoly on the results.

[DarkShikari]

And for the most the ideas in these patents are far from "obvious."

    predicted_mvx = median(left_mvx, top_mvx, topright_mvx)
    predicted_mvy = median(left_mvy, top_mvy, topright_mvy)

These two lines of pseudocode are patented. In reality, they usually are implemented in just about two lines. There's nothing non-obvious about it; if you take 15 minutes and go test the only two possible median prediction methods, this one comes up as the best.

And yet it's patented. And most video coding software patents are just like this one: stupid.

If you want even more ridiculous ones, just go look at motion search patents; they've basically patented everything under the sun.

Patents should be on implementations, not ideas. Algorithms are ideas, not implementations. People didn't do this decades ago; the inventor of Quicksort didn't rush out to patent it. But today, any time anyone comes up with an algorithm, they instantly patent it, because the system is broken.

[michaelneale]

I think DEC did have a patent on link lists in the 80s ;) - but still, your point remains. It wasn't the inventor that did it either (just someone having a laugh).

[launic]

The main point to argue here is that in this case the patents do not protect an invention they protect a "reasoning process", a concept (or several). In mathematics once you know and understand the solution, even for the most complicated problem, the solution becomes obvious. (The same happens with any cognitive process.)

If for example one of the days I teach my students the mathematics behind MPEG and if I am a good teacher, then the very next moment the MPEG algorithm is obvious to them.

On the other hand the implementation of an algorithm can be complex and laborious and it is worth being protected, but this is done by copyright. (Nobody should be allowed to copy-paste code unless the author permits it.)

But I must admit that I somehow understand your point here. Let's say that someone discovers such a smart concept that is worth being awarded with a temporary monopoly, even if we protect a cognitive process. But in this case he already has the monopoly! The only thing he has to do is not to disclose the idea to others. (The algorithm is a trade secret in this case.) Eventually the secrete will be revealed, maybe by reverse engineering, but the company in discussion already has profited on its temporary monopoly. (This is natural protection for software if I can say that. Not the same case for a device invented in 18th, at that time all you had to do was to open its box and copy the mechanism inside it. Here patents are fully justified.)

Trying to find out what is the exact patent protection period I have found what Jim Warren said on "Public Hearing on Use of the Patent System to Protect Software Related Inventions" Wednesday, January 26, 1994 San Jose Convention Center, and this is exactly my point:

"(6) Reduce the protection period. Issue a finding that 17-year software protection patents are clearly unreasonable where, in an industry where significant innovation can often be created in months, most innovation has minimal costs relative to traditional inventions, manufacturing and distribution is trivial, products can be shipped within weeks of being finalized, great profits can be attained in less than a year, the life of a product typically is only a few years, and all of the growth of the industry, from inception to Diamond vs. Diehr in 1981, was barely three times the 17-year monopoly period. Shorten the one-time protection period to no more than, say, two years. Sui generis is justified."

To conclude my long post, sorry for that :), I must say we are developing products that make use of audio/video compression techniques and I needed to develop and implement several such algorithms and I can say for sure that software patents were not at all helpful for me, on the contrary, they only gave us head aches.

[rwmj]

A good example would be Skype, who have defeated reverse engineering of their protocol, and benefitted from that temporary monopoly. (I'm using "defeated" in rather broad terms, since the protocol was eventually reverse engineered).