> I rarely see software patents that don't cite more than a few recently issued patents.
How many are patents by unrelated companies? That's where the real delays are.
> Nor have I seen much evidence of software patents actually stiffing invention
Video encoding has been held back a lot. And it's a bit different but troll lawsuits keep happening over super basic website features. And I'd call instruction sets software and those keep getting piles of patents, doing things like severely limit x86 competition.
And software patents get weaponized so often, there's a million stories about it.
If we have all this hassle and the best we can cite for advantages is RSA, then software patents are not promoting the progress of sciences and the useful arts. Unlike copyright, a more limited duration doesn't really fix anything. Just get rid of them.
How many are patents by unrelated companies? That's where the real delays are.
> Nor have I seen much evidence of software patents actually stiffing invention
Video encoding has been held back a lot. And it's a bit different but troll lawsuits keep happening over super basic website features. And I'd call instruction sets software and those keep getting piles of patents, doing things like severely limit x86 competition.
And software patents get weaponized so often, there's a million stories about it.
If we have all this hassle and the best we can cite for advantages is RSA, then software patents are not promoting the progress of sciences and the useful arts. Unlike copyright, a more limited duration doesn't really fix anything. Just get rid of them.