[wellylug] NZ Software Patents

[David Antliff]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 14:37, Peter Lynch<Peter.Lynch at acc.co.nz> wrote:
> Patents of any sort, including software, are based on keeping work secret.

This is not actually correct - in order to patent something, you have
to publicly disclose it. A patent is almost the exact opposite of a
trade secret. In fact, patents are meant to encourage inventors to
bring such secret inventions into the public arena so that society can
eventually benefit from them. In return, the patent holder receives
exclusive legal rights to profit from their invention for X years,
with the requirement that when the patent expires, their exclusive
rights are lost.

Without patents, many things would still be secret or lost forever. I
think patents, in general, are a good thing.

But software patents based on this old model are wrong. They don't
correspond with the original intentions of patents and have been
created for the wrong reasons. They create long-standing monopolies on
ideas and thought that last far longer than they should. We've seen
all sorts of ridiculous software patents being filed over the last
decade in the USA. We do not want that sort of rubbish here!

I understand that Business Process patents fall into a similar camp,
but I don't know much about these.

-- David.