Re:Abstract Ideas Don’t Deserve Patents
by AnthonyMouse on Sunday March 30, 2014 @07:49PM
(#7498516)
> Is this retroactive, i.e., all software patents filed and granted in the past too are abolished?
It seems to me the way to do it is to establish that software alone (or software in combination with a prior art computer) cannot infringe any patent.
> If 'yes', what happens to all the money companies have already spent on the patents they currently have?
The assumption is that abolishing software patents will have a net positive result. Practicing entities thereby have more to gain by avoiding the future costs of zero sum patent prosecution, licensing negotiations and patent litigation than they have to lose in sunk patent prosecution costs.
The hardest hit would of course be patent trolls with no other line of business, whose dissolution into bankruptcy can only be celebrated. Your concern is like being concerned for the costs incurred by kidnappers in purchasing unmarked vans and securing abandoned warehouses when the day comes that we abolish kidnapping.
It seems to me the way to do it is to establish that software alone (or software in combination with a prior art computer) cannot infringe any patent.
> If 'yes', what happens to all the money companies have already spent on the patents they currently have?
The assumption is that abolishing software patents will have a net positive result. Practicing entities thereby have more to gain by avoiding the future costs of zero sum patent prosecution, licensing negotiations and patent litigation than they have to lose in sunk patent prosecution costs.
The hardest hit would of course be patent trolls with no other line of business, whose dissolution into bankruptcy can only be celebrated. Your concern is like being concerned for the costs incurred by kidnappers in purchasing unmarked vans and securing abandoned warehouses when the day comes that we abolish kidnapping.