28 years ago today: World's first software patent successfully filed

we are all a bunch of nerds...but this is most interesting...

KOJIMA COUNTDOWN SITE IS......

Hanging at 00:00:00..............

http://www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/next/index.html

THE WAITING IS KILLING ME!

As for this, funny how things pan out

Why is the 28 year point so important? I don't recall a post last year celebrating 27 years.

http://img37.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kojima.jpg

that and the letter "R" was all that was added from what i can see in the new countdown :)

Odd, I'm currently reading a piece about the copyrightability of software. Software really is an intellectual property enigma. Programmers know that there is a lot of art and skill that goes into writing source code, which lends itself to copyright protection. Users care only about how the software functions, which lends itself to patent protection. Copyright protects against competitors heisting source code to input the same functions into their own programs. Patent protects against competitors creating the same functionality in a program, regardless of how that function is coded.

Also of note: December 12 marks the 29th anniversary of the date the Copyright Act was amended to recognize the copyrightability of source code.

I enjoyed the read, Ben. Very informative. Excellent article.

Does the stiq not have a proof reader? Reading the article makes it seem like 6 years after the patent was approved it was filed. Then 7 years later (13 after it was approved) the court decided he can patent a computer program. I know everybody hates the grammer police, but this is different. It really does make the narrative of the story hard to follow.

It's unfortunate that software patents exist.

I don't support what this guy did/does.

First, I have to preface this by saying that I am not a patent expert. So, that said, here are some reasons:



Virtually any algorithm is currently patentable, as the Patent Office doesn't know enough to tell if an algorithm filed for patenting is non-obvious or not, and so they grant patents when they should not. This problem cannot be rectified, either, as government moves far slower than technology.

And besides, I'd wager that virtually none of the software patent applications they receive are actually for new and non-obvious algorithms. One of the requirements of a patent is that the idea is non-obvious to others in that field. The types of algorithms that get patents today are absolutely not non-obvious to any decent programmer.


Furthermore, if only specially privileged people can use any particular algorithm, this severely holds back the overall state of software development. As software has gotten bigger and more complex, it has, for all intents and purposes, become impossible to design a piece of software without infringing on others' patents, as new software, by its nature, is often composed of various bits and pieces of pre-existing software. Finding equivalent or better algorithms to replace those already patented is unintuitive, overly costly, and in some cases impossible.

It is no exaggeration that new software development as a whole could stagnate into oblivion if we continue to give every single idea out there its own patent.


Here's more:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fighting-software-patents.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent_debate#Arguments_against_patentability

You could have mentioned the fact that its only the US that allows such ridiculous things to exist.
Sadly, this holds the rest of the world by its balls too, grinding all progress to an inevitable halt.

Also, Namco patented the minigame-on-loading-screen. Thanks a fucking bunch.

I don't think anyone else checked out his website:

http://www.ourpal.com/

Wow, that's some epically bad HTML.

Sorry, but you are mistaken here. The very first software to be patented was a peice of sheet metal nesting software used by the Trane Corp in their manufacturing process in 1968. It was written in fortran, and used do loops to ascertain the least wasteful way to cut the sheet metal components used in manufacturing air conditioners, etc. The creator of the software, who worked for Trane at that time was given the grand sum of $1 for his patent ( in addition to his salary of course). His name was Ronald S Williams and he was a mechanical engineer and inventor. Among his other inventions were his first, the machinery used by Ford to apply thier logo stamps on their seat belts in the early 60's( he did this while going to college), and his most recent patents include machinery to be used in the automotive industry. He is now retired and travels continuously, but was recognized by Trane in 2005 for his contributions to the American manufacturing industries. Too bad those industries are all but gone here.