No patent if invention lies only in computer program, says Indian Patent Office

Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by chris_va on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @09:16PM (#11164040)

> As you said, the sauce is secret. I think the question of whether Qualcomm should be permitted to keep the sauce secret and how much the law should help or hinder this secrecy is worthy of at lease some debate.

This is going in circles. You cannot patent something without disclosing it. So, either Qualcomm has a patent, and it isn't secret, or they don't have a patent (nor can they ever, after 18 months) and the argument is moot.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by kuschku on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @09:36PM (#11164142)

> This is going in circles. You cannot patent something without disclosing it. So, either Qualcomm has a patent, and it isn't secret, or they don't have a patent (nor can they ever, after 18 months) and the argument is moot.

Yes, but then software patents should require you to release a full reference implementation with full documentation under a free (BSD, MIT) license as soon as the patent runs out.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by ianlevesque on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @09:55PM (#11164211)

If we were going to enforce the same transparency that non-software patents give then they'd release the full reference implementation right in the patent.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by ghayes on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @04:12AM (#11165479)

This to me is the sticking point. The biggest benefit to society for patents is: you get the formula (but can only use it once the patent expires). I would imagine that no one short of lawyers has ever bothered to read expired software patents. They are literal drivel and until they are useful to have disclosed, they should probably not be patentable, in my opinion.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by kuschku on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @04:09AM (#11165461)

Exactly — but for all practical measures, it does not differ if they release it in the patent, or only when the patent runs out.

Currently, they don't release it at all.

Additional regulation I'd like to see: Any neural networks trained based on data of users have to be completely public domain. If Google wishes to train recaptcha, they should either pay for people to train it, or give back to the public the value that the public created.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by mattlutze on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @07:05AM (#11166087)

It does matter, because if the publish it in the patent I can start planning to build something with years before the patent expires, or time improvements I make on it for that expiration.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by langarto on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @04:41AM (#11165582)

patents should require you to release a full reference implementation with full documentation under a free (BSD, MIT) license as soon as the patent runs out

Why not as soon as the patent is granted?

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by kuschku on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @07:33AM (#11166225)

Because that bill would be even less likely to pass?

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by chris_wot on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @01:06AM (#11164863)

It is indeed. You are arguing that the secret sauce is in the baseband, and yes you can't patent it if the competitive advantage is that it's hard to make so long as it is secret. It's novel, you don't need to patent it to make money as copyright takes care of that... And so to complete the circle patents aren't necessary, and don't benefit society in the scenario you present!

edit: you might bring up clean room engineering that AMD did in the 80s. Intel weren't effected, and are bigger than ever. And the pace of innovation is massive.

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Re:No patent if invention lies only in computer program, say... by mystikal on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @09:32PM (#11164119)

Yeah, in general stuff pertaining to software can be classified into one of four kinds of IP: copyrights, trademarks, patents, or trade secrets.

The date that matters for trade secrets with respect to patentability is the date that they are first published or offered for sale. I don't believe offering a binary for sale counts as offering the trade secret for sale, but insert usual disclaimer.

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