Software patent reform just died in the House

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20/software-patent-reform-just-died-in-the-house-thanks-to-ibm-and-microsoft/

by alecco • 13 years ago

525 215 13 years ago

washingtonpost.com

antonpug3• 13 years ago

Why am I not surprised that IBM and "patent reform died" are on the same line?

Relentless.

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

Someone remind me why wealthy businesses buying amendments to legislation isn't criminal corruption? I have a hard time remembering...

ep103• 13 years ago

Because the founding fathers were exceptionally rich businessmen, and wanted to found a representative democracy of successful businessmen?

RyanZAG• 13 years ago

Hardly IBM and Microsoft. The headline should read "thanks to easily bought senators". IBM and Microsoft don't have any real say, only the senators do. If the senators choose to destroy their own country for monetary gain, it's still not the fault of anybody else. This blame shifting is getting old.

salient• 13 years ago

In cases of bribe, do you blame only the receiver, or the one who gives bribe, too?

And as a non-American I fully see this as nothing but bribing. The only difference is that in US paying money to pass or fail bills like this is "legal".

chadwickthebold3• 13 years ago

It's not quite that clear cut. In this case, Rep. Goodlatte probably considered how vocal opposition of the bill by large corporations could cast him as 'Anti-Business' by his constituency, or a challenger in an upcoming election. There is no mention in the article that IBM, Microsoft, or any other company offered to contribute to Goodlatte's campaign fund or support him in any other way in exchange for the removal of the CBM provisions.

While American politics is often seen as pay-to-play, especially after the 'Citizens United' decision by the Supreme court, it's important to differentiate situations where there is almost-direct financial ties from situations where it is more a question of political pressure. If some people (i.e. the tech-consuming public) elected to pressure our representatives more than large companies, this bill could have turned out very differently.

marcosdumay• 13 years ago

Depends on the kind of bribe. On this specific case, I'd blame both, but it's not a universal rule.

anoncowherd6• 13 years ago

> And as a non-American I fully see this as nothing but bribing. The only difference is that in US paying money to pass or fail bills like this is "legal".

You think it doesn't happen in your country? You can rest assured your government is full of corrupt shitbags too, just like the US. There's overt corruption, covert corruption, and lots of degrees in between.

tedunangst3• 13 years ago

Blame the receiver. They are the ones entrusted by the system to uphold the laws. We have laws (and lawmakers) precisely because we don't expect companies to always play fair. By contrast, once someone starts taking bribes, it becomes disadvantageous for a moral company to not offer bribes. Basically, hate the game, not the player, but hate the people who determine the game's rules most of all.

chadwickthebold3• 13 years ago

Do you mean congressmen?

eloff8• 13 years ago

That settles it, I was tossing around whether to get the Xbox One or the PS4. I'm voting with my wallet and getting the PS4. Fuck Microsoft.

csmuk• 13 years ago

Good for you. I threw my win phone out of my car in anger the other day and broke it. I will not be buying another.

I've already decided not to renew my MAPS and MSDN subs again in December thanks to the epic crack smoking going on.

mtgx• 13 years ago

Ever since Microsoft started extorting money from open source vendors/OEM's with bogus patents, I've started dropping Microsoft's products as soon as I could.

The only one left is Windows 7, which I can't wait to get rid of in 2-3 years, once either Ubuntu or Android come into their own as more mature mainstream operating systems.

Pxtl• 13 years ago

which I can't wait to get rid of in 2-3 years, once either Ubuntu or Android come into their own as more mature mainstream operating systems.

This comment was brought to you by the year 2006 and the letter Q.

RyanMcGreal• 13 years ago

I jumped ship from Microsoft when Vista came out, switching to Ubuntu in 2008. It was good enough for mainstream production use then, albeit with some warts - but it was already a hell of a lot more polished, functional and user-respecting than Vista.

Ubuntu has continues to improve in polish, stability and usability since then. There's no reason for you not to start making the jump now.

My recommendation is to start by replacing the applications on your Windows machine with cross-platform FOSS equivalents, if you haven't already. That way, the OS transition will be a lot easier because you will already be familiar with the software.

kshatrea3• 13 years ago

I am assuming you're changing your vote next time for the Green/Constitution/Libertarian party as well? Since I assume you'll treat the congressmen and their political parties who take the lobbying money the same way you treat the corporation that is giving the bribe.

eloff8• 13 years ago

I don't live in the US. I turned down a job at Google not because of anything to do with Google, but because it means living and paying taxes in the US. I work remotely from a tax haven, have no debt, and I'm on track to retire with a million in savings by my mid thirties. You'd have to make a quarter million a year to pull that off in the US. In Panama I can do it on a lower salary than what Google pays. I have freedom and you have big brother and big banker. You can't pay me to accept a green card to the land of "freedom and opportunity."

geoka9• 13 years ago

What if Sony was also in that bunch? Genuinely curious: I had to make a similar decision a year ago, and since Sony had been on my shitlist because of DRM-related prosecutions, I went for the Xbox.

eloff8• 13 years ago

Yeah Sony is evil too, but less so in my mind. Patent abuses are something that hits close to home for me.

shmerl3• 13 years ago

Do you think Sony is any better?

jorgem• 13 years ago

Yeah, but at least at Microsoft, no one is eating whales.

My point, is you can find something to hate about every company or group of people.

Why so much hate?

eloff8• 13 years ago

Patent trolls make me see red. I hate them with every fiber of my being. They're the bully that used to beat you up and take your lunch money. Except here it's worse, because you can't go the principal for help (here the principal is called the law and it is on their side.) You're left to fume powerlessly against the injustice being done.

Segmentation• 13 years ago

Or buy neither, as Sony isn't any better. PC game on Linux or OS X.

jcromartie2• 13 years ago

Apple is bordering on patent troll, too. They may not have bothered to oppose this legislation, but they recently exerted some of their patents via the Rockstar thing.

moocowduckquack2• 13 years ago

Sony did put rootkits on music cds tho. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...

mstromb• 13 years ago

... 8 years ago.

jeswin2• 13 years ago

I wonder how people associated with Microsoft and IBM deal with the morality issues surrounding them. What they are doing is clearly evil and detrimental to innovation.

Bill Gates receives a lot of credit for his humanitarian work; but at least part of that wealth seems ill-gotten. In my mind, real heroes are people like Torvalds and Stallman; relatively unknown but the impact of their contributions might have already superseded what Gates has been able to accomplish.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

I wonder how people working at Facebook and Google deal with the "morality issues" of peddling advertising to impressionable children and teenagers (while calling it "innovation") while consuming 10x as much resources per capita as people in China who actually build real tangible things?

NB: I don't want to give the impression that I think advertising is bad or anything. I think of it like porn: fine for adults, but not something I want my daughter exposed to until she can appreciate what it is.

zht• 13 years ago

has your daughter gone outside, watched a movie, watched a tv show, took the bus, went to a sporting event, etc?

saidajigumi2• 13 years ago

One of the best classes I had in college was "Reasoning and Critical Thinking", taught by the Philosophy department. A few friends and I took it to satisfy some degree requirement or other. Afterwards we reflected that wasn't enough -- we felt that a passing grade should be required for graduation for every single student.

Why? Because it was inoculation against bogus argument. It covered basic logic, logical fallacies, and gave students a solid footing in resisting and debunking nonsense in argument, advertising, and other communication. Really an invaluable life skill.

md224• 13 years ago

I don't want to give the impression that I think advertising is bad or anything. I think of it like porn: fine for adults, but not something I want my daughter exposed to until she can appreciate what it is.

That's an interesting comparison. One could argue that advertising is far worse than pornography, in the sense that pornography is usually being purposefully sought out when one is exposed to it, whereas advertising is often intrusive info-pollution, going out of its way to expose us to strongly-biased and/or manipulative rhetoric.

crusso• 13 years ago

I hear that complaint, but I think that my kids are growing up more savvy regarding the tricks of advertisers because they've been exposed to them at such a young age.

I would definitely distinguish it from porn in that heavy sexuality is way too able to psychologically scar someone at a young age -- but learning that the Barbie in the commercial isn't as much fun to play with as the girls in the ad made it seem isn't a bad thing.

antonpug3• 13 years ago

Yeah. Well, at least Facebook and Google try to innovate, and are quite successful at doing so. Microsoft, never mind IBM...these are old dying giants who will never budge in the name of innovation.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

There is not (edit: much) about Facebook that deserves the label "innovative." It's an entertainment product designed to sell advertising, no different than the Superbowl or American Idol. That's totally fine, of course, the world needs entertainment and I like using Facebook to send pictures of my kid to her grandparents as much as the next guy. I also loved the first four or five seasons of American Idol (it's gone downhill) and have a Superbowl party every year.

I feel like some people in Silicon Valley have this weird investment in the word "innovative." They have this need to justify making tons of money while essentially working in the advertising business. So they label every little engineering advancement "innovation" utterly diluting the word. But why is that necessary? There is nothing wrong about working in the advertising industry, or making a bunch of money selling people entertainment.

But, comparing Facebook to IBM (or even Microsoft) is absolutely laughable. IBM is pushing the boundaries of semiconductor manufacturing, designing new CPUs, building artificial intelligence, etc.

Google does innovate (Glass, cars, etc), but they don't make any money doing so.

heartbreak• 13 years ago

Kinect and Watson come to mind...

knackernews• 13 years ago

Microsoft, never mind IBM...these are old dying giants who will never budge in the name of innovation.

Not sure if naive or ignorant.

dagw• 13 years ago

This is probably one of the clearest examples of Poe's law I've seen in a long time.

skaevola• 13 years ago

IBM...these are old dying giants who will never budge in the name of innovation.
IBM has 12 research laboratories worldwide and, as of 2013, has held the record for most patents generated by a company for 20 consecutive years.[15] Its employees have garnered five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.[16] Notable inventions by IBM include the automated teller machine (ATM), the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, the magnetic stripe card, the relational database, the Universal Product Code (UPC), the financial swap, SABRE airline reservation system, DRAM, and Watson artificial intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM

ihsw2• 13 years ago

Bread and circuses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Some people look around the world and see the carpet being grabbed from beneath their feet, and the appeal of a roof and warm beds for your family is not easily ignored.

Most people don't have the luxury of sacrificing their lives for an ideology, and even fewer are willing to risk their family's lives.

mildtrepidation• 13 years ago

So you idolize people who create intangible things that don't make life any better for most people all over the world, but it's wrong for people to create intangible things that you don't approve of. I agree with your disapproval, just not your backwards hero worship.

And if you're going to lampoon anyone who uses "ill-gotten" wealth for philanthropy... I can't see how you'll ever be happy. People do or supervise things you consider "evil," then they turn around and work charitably, but no -- it's gotta be squeaky clean all the way down?

It may be time for a reality check.

thesimpsons10222• 13 years ago

so youre cool with hitler stealing money as long as he donates it after?

mistercow• 13 years ago

it's gotta be squeaky clean all the way down?

Yes. You seem to be implying that this concept is strange or ridiculous, and I don't understand why.

jeswin2• 13 years ago

Contributions from people I idolize help some of the most important projects pushing humanity forward; like Wikipedia SpaceX/NASA/ISS and LHC. Their work supports the largest computers used in medical research and weather forcasting. Not to mention every internet service we use; and some like Twitter were invaluable tools in Tunisia and Egypt.

I don't know what your definition of 'intangible' is, but people I idolize are doing some tangible, visible work.

gnaritas2• 13 years ago

And if you're going to lampoon anyone who uses "ill-gotten" wealth for philanthropy... I can't see how you'll ever be happy. People do or supervise things you consider "evil," then they turn around and work charitably, but no -- it's gotta be squeaky clean all the way down?

Good deeds don't erase past bad deeds. No amount of charity with a fortune you earned being bad makes you a good person or absolves you of past wrongs.

alecco• 13 years ago

I believe in the future things will be quite clear, without PR manipulated opinions. They will be remembered as sociopaths.

sergiosgc2• 13 years ago

History rarely corrects this kind of story. Gates will be remembered as an innovator and as a great man of his time, who was altruistic enough to give away most of his fortune and dedicate his latest years to humanitarian causes. The chokehold Microsoft created in the 90s IT industry will be a footnote in History.

For a reference of this kind of History effect, compare the common man views of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. They shared the same period in History, and worked in the same field (the electricity boom). Edison was the astute businessman with shady tactics but also with public success. Tesla, a brilliant scientist, produced the still unchallenged fundamentals for electricity transmission and for AC electric motors. Which one is considered the epitome of innovation? The shady acute businessman.

tedunangst3• 13 years ago

99,000 employees. That's a lot of sociopaths in one place!

shmerl3• 13 years ago

For some Bill Gates associates with his infamous letter which can be considered the cornerstone of all the IP crookedness which comes out of Microsoft (like software patents racket and so on):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

jim-greer2• 13 years ago

From the NYT:

Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html

shooper4• 13 years ago

That actually sounds logical to me, like Obama taking money from companies despite opposing the Citizen's United verdict. The rules are the same for all, and people take advantage of the rules.

It is also similar to Google warning about the patent issues with H.264 while pushing WebM and then later (through Motorola) asking for exorbitant licensing fees for H.264 patents, from Microsoft and Google. They got fined over the FRAND abuse by the courts.

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-motorol...

Hate the game, not the players.

philwelch• 13 years ago

It's hard to imagine the impact of open source software exceeding that of eradicating malaria and polio.

dwaltrip2• 13 years ago

I could see open software being more important on the 100+ year scale (I could also see it not). The work or Bill Gates is very high impact, though.

vijayr• 13 years ago

Agreed, even though I've lots of respect for BG's humanitarian work. Also, it is much much easier to do good when one has insane amounts of money, than one doesn't.

Today, almost every company thinks their first (and only?) responsibility is to their shareholders, and hence profit. That affects every decision they make, and they somehow come up with rationalizations for their behavior. Until this line of thinking changes, how can we expect anything nice to happen (nice for the common good, but terrible for short term profits)?

marincounty4• 13 years ago

His humanitarian work was out of your pocket.

jcromartie2• 13 years ago

the impact of their contributions might have already superseded what Gates has been able to accomplish

Oh come on. In the long run, the ideas of Free Software are hugely important. But for now, Gates is actually helping people not die through philanthropy on a level which, as far as I know, Torvalds and Stallman are not even remotely capable of achieving.

leal• 13 years ago

Technology does help people immensely, perhaps in ways less measurable than philanthropy. Consider medical devices, weather forecasting, medical research - all these significantly leverage GNU/Linux.

blahbl4hblahtoo• 13 years ago

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but saying that software patents are "evil" is hyperbolic.

The slave trade is evil.

Software patents are a real problem area of our law...but they don't rise to the level of "evil".

antonpug3• 13 years ago

Why am I not surprised that IBM and "patent reform died" are on the same line?

Relentless.

(deleted)??? no free speech on HN eh?

sp332• 13 years ago

You double-posted, about ten minutes apart. HN automatically killed the second post because it was identical to the first (before your edit).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6769490

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6769575

driverdan• 13 years ago

Singling out IBM and Microsoft is a bit disingenuous. IBM seems to be the vocal subject in the article but there are far more companies behind the opposition as shown here: http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/22/final_-_letter_...

The list:

ActiveVideo Networks, Inc.

Adobe Systems

Advanced Technology Ventures

Allison Transmission, Inc.

Architecture Technology Corporation

Beckman Coulter, Inc.

BGC Partners, Inc.

Bi-Level Technologies

Biotechnology Industry Organization

Boston Scientific

Brash Insight Corp.

BSA - The Software Alliance

Cabochon, Inc.

California Healthcare Institute (CHI)

Cantor Fitzgerald L.P.

Caterpillar, Inc.

Ciencia, Inc.

Cleveland Medical Devices Inc.

Colorado Technology Consultants

CONNECT

Cotera Inc.

The Cummins Allison Corporation

Dolby Laboratories

Domain Associates

Donohue Consulting, Inc.

The Dow Chemical Company

DR Systems, Inc.

DuPont

Eatoni Ergonomics, Inc.

Eli Lilly & Company

Embedded Systems LLC

Entrepreneurs for Growth

Entropic Communications, Inc.

ExploraMed Development, LLC

Fairchild Semiconductor

Fairfield Crystal Technology

Fallbrook Technologies Inc.

Flocel Inc.

Forsight Labs

ForSight VISION4, Inc.

Foundry Newco XII, Inc. (d/b/a Twelve)

Freescale Semiconductor

GearMax USA Ltd.

General Electric

General Nanotechnology LLC

Global Network Computers

Great Lakes Neuro Technologies Inc.

Holaira, Inc.

IBM

IEEE-USA

Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Innovation Alliance

Inogen, Inc.

Insight Legal

Interknowlogy

Inventors Network of the Capital Area

IP Advocate

IP Pipeline Consulting, LLC

Irwin Research & Development, Inc. eptember 19, 2013

Johnson & Johnson

Karbonique, Inc.

KeepSight LLC

Kovogen, LLC

Lauder Partners, LLC

Licensing Executives Society (USA & Canada), Inc.

Lightstone Ventures

MediaFriends, Inc.

Medical Device Manufacturers Association

MH Systems, Inc.

Micron Technologies

Microsoft

Miramar Labs, Inc.

Morgenthaler Ventures-Life Sciences

National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

Neodyne Biosciences, Inc.

NeoTract, Inc.

NeuroPace, Inc.

NeuroWave Systems Inc.

Nevro Corp.

NuGEN Technologies, Inc.

NuVasive, Inc.

OL2, Inc. (OnLive)

Orbital Research Inc.

Patent Office Professional Association

Power Auctions LLC

Precision Combustion

PreEmptive Solutions

Procter & Gamble

Prometheus Research, LLC

Qualcomm

Rearden Companies, LLC

Restoration Robotics, Inc.

Sapheon, Inc.

Software Partners LLC

Soleon Robotics LLC

Tessera

The Foundry LLC

TM Technologies, Inc.

Trading Technologies

U.S. Business and Industry Council

Vibrynt, Inc.

Xerox Corporation

sheetjs• 13 years ago

According to the article, IBM and Microsoft are notable for their portfolio size and lobbying budgets:

And few firms have larger software patent portfolios than Microsoft and IBM. These companies, which also happen to have two of the software industry's largest lobbying budgets, have been leading voices against the expansion of the CBM program.

I can believe that IBM does far more software patent lobbying than most of the firms whose core products are not directly software related

mathattack2• 13 years ago

I can believe that IBM does far more software patent lobbying than most of the firms whose core products are not directly software related

This is in part because they have a heavy patent culture, perhaps due to their legacy as a machines company.

shooper4• 13 years ago

According to the article, IBM and Microsoft are notable for their portfolio size and lobbying budgets

This is what tech companies spent in Q3 2013, maybe someone else can post IBM's stats but Microsoft's spending doesn't look all that high to me.

Google 3.4M

Microsoft 2.2M

Facebook 1.7M

Apple 0.97M

Amazon 0.78M

I think the real story is how cheap the lobbying costs are.

What I completely fail to understand with all the Snowden revelations and stories like this is that Silicon Valley tech folks have enormous salaries and high disposable income.

If they would actually contribute some of that to a PAC or to the EFF, it would be way more productive than sitting in Starbucks sipping a $5 latte and posting "Not going to get the Xbox from M$. Getting a PS4 for $400 + games for $60 each instead! That's going to teach them! And Bill Gates sucks despite helping the poorest people in Africa and India!" from their latest MacBook or iPad Air on HN articles such as these(you can see those posts below).

I guess gathering HN karma feels better and is cheaper than actually trying to make a real difference on issues that people seem to write emotional posts about.

Having seen a lot of such issues and discussions from my Slashdot days, my prediction is that nothing will come out of it except a lot of hot air discussion.

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

Thanks for the list. All companies I will try to avoid in the future. Look at all the LLCs and the obvious trolls on there.

rexreed• 13 years ago

Good luck - many of these companies form the basis for the products you eat or use (Proctor & Gamble), rely on (General Electric), or need in an emergency (Medical Device Manufacturers Association). A boycott here won't have much effect because in practice it's almost impossible to avoid using or relying on the products or services offered by these companies.

Rather, you should focus your ire and spending practices on the congress people that agreed to leave the CBM out of the legislation. They care more about what you think or care about.

Or give your money to folks like the EFF that will use their lobbying power to counterweight these other folks.

techscruggs• 13 years ago

What is the significance of LLCs being on the list?

Zoomla2• 13 years ago

I might be wrong but I don't think that the problem is with those companies trying to help themselves. Like many, I think that politicians should not be allowed to accept bribes from companies and that it might just solve problems like this one.

tedunangst3• 13 years ago

How much business were you really planning on doing with Caterpillar?

thrillgore3• 13 years ago

Might want to go off the grid, live off the land.

thrillgore3• 13 years ago

IBM comes to mind given that they like to sue you for patents out of the blue -- like when you're going IPO.

bitdiddle• 13 years ago

really? Could you cite an instance of this, where IBM sued a company over software patents right before an IPO.

mlinksva• 13 years ago

Want your company to not eventually end up on a like list? Sign it up for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_Patent_License before it gets big.

ddebernardy• 13 years ago

Interesting how some household names aren't on that list. Namely Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter.

amaks• 13 years ago

Because there are patent trolls, and there are truly innovative companies.

rgomez• 13 years ago

Look for who is behind BSA Software Alliance... http://ww2.bsa.org/country/BSA%20and%20Members/Our%20Members... Yep there's a big apple there... and others...

zmmmmm3• 13 years ago

All those companies are there precisely as cover for the few that really drive the lobbying efforts, so that people like you can pop up on the internet and say how it is not just a minority of companies perverting the law in their own favor. You can fall for it or you can see through it (assuming you are not a paid shill in the first place) - I think we should see through it and call it for what it is: a small minority of enormous companies manipulating laws in their own favor and to the detriment of the people.

lelandbatey2• 13 years ago

I guess that's one perspective. For those that do want a list of the "big" companies, here are the ones that I recognize and thought of as "big names":

    3M
    Adobe Systems
    Boston Scientific
    Dolby Laboratories
    The Dow Chemical Company
    DuPont
    Fairchild Semiconductor
    Fairfield Crystal Technology
    General Electric
    IBM
    IEEE-USA
    Johnson & Johnson
    Microsoft
    Procter & Gamble
    Qualcomm
    Xerox Corporation

This is probably not a complete list, since I am not very tuned in and may not be familiar with the "big names" that others are.

adventured• 13 years ago

Driverdan, the user you're responding to, has been here for nearly five years.

Insinuating that they may be a paid shill is truly obnoxious behavior.

Perseids• 13 years ago

I find having the list in full is great, because they need to be named and shamed, too. Each and every one of them deserves a negative business impact for signing it.

throwawaykf2• 13 years ago

Since accusations of "shilling" have been made anyway, check this out: Remember when the Judge made his "Name Your Shills" order in Oracle v Google? Guess what! The author of TFA was named in Google's list of shills! I guess that makes him a legally certified shill! And since you're so quick to support the author's viewpoint...

To be fair, I don't think the author's a shill. But I've been following him since he wrote for Ars (and he's also on HN sometimes), so I can tell he certainly has drunk some Kool-aid, and it has a slight Google flavor. He interned there after all, so that may explain why Microsoft was highlighted in the headlines.

But notably, he also is (or was) a "scholar" at the Cato Institute, which believes in "limited government and free markets" and seems to have anti-IP leanings. Unsurprisingly the author's articles (even this one!) often uncritically cite the works published by academics like James Bessen, which like to paint a "sky is falling" situation with respect to US IP policies, even though these works have time and again been strongly called into question by other academics. Given that he's a scholar himself, I'd be surprised if he's unaware of that, but his articles only ever present one side.

So the Kool-aid may have other, stronger flavors as well, but he's definitely drunk some.

phaus• 13 years ago

Why am I not surprised that Adobe is on the list. They are one of the O.G. patent trolls. RIP Macromedia.

pastycakes2• 13 years ago

How do you boycott Qualcomm? That's like saying don't buy a cell phone, ever.

Qantourisc• 13 years ago

Great idea, this way we also get to boycott phone snooping (NSA or your local spying agency)!

etler• 13 years ago

Why is Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble on this list?

acadien• 13 years ago

I can only assume that these companies have subsidiaries that have software patents. They probably own manufacturing patents not to mention patents in the tech and pharmaceutical areas, many of which could be software related.

djcapelis• 13 years ago

If anyone here hadn't already, this is yet another reason to drop IEEE memberships.

I dropped mine last year over their copyright policies.

fooqux• 13 years ago

Why is the IEEE involving itself in software patents to begin with? Or would this change to the patent system have affected non-software patents as well?

jarjoura• 13 years ago

Instead of "voting with dollars" because of companies' lobby groups, why not put your energy into joining EFF or other patent-reform groups?

shmerl3• 13 years ago

we’d be forced to oppose the bill

Did IBM become a legislator? Who cares if they oppose the bill or not if that's the right bill to make?

orthecreedence2• 13 years ago

Most big companies in the US are legislators...

kshatrea3• 13 years ago

Yes, these senators and congressmen are literally so impressionable that the very fact that IBM and Microsoft and other companies are objecting cause these political leaders to become nervous and kill the bills (to put it kindly). It seems to me that America is now on the same page as most other nations: your laws are also bought-and-paid-for by special interest groups in many cases, just like our more corrupt nations and especially mine. Very sad.

edit: grammar

sinak• 13 years ago

Just want to point out that patent reform is being voted on in the house judiciary right now.

Worth watching: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hclive02

jhprks• 13 years ago

long live all patents (software or hardware)! they fuel invention/innovation. Edison, Bell Graham, Nikolai Tesla, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, they were inventors/innovators that deserve to be highly credited for the contributions that they made to the society, and yet so many people are trying to view a few of them as "evil" just because they made their ideas into reality before anyone else did.

chris_mahan• 13 years ago

You forgot Nobel, who invented smokeless gunpowder.

orthecreedence2• 13 years ago

...or didn't make it a reality. What if Edison, Bell Graham, etc etc filed their patents and then never went into production. Then when someone else had the idea, they sued them for billions of dollars. Where would the US be now?

mathattack2• 13 years ago

While we support what Mr. Goodlatte’s trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we’d be forced to oppose the bill.

OK, so go on the record as opposing it.

iends2• 13 years ago

Isn't that what the letter was saying?

anoncowherd6• 13 years ago

What? No thanks to the thoroughly bribed government itself?

mrhyperpenguin• 13 years ago

The title of the article is really sensationalized. The resolution is still going to pass, just without the "covered business method" (CBM) provision. People in Congress support CBM and are actively trying to find a way to make it work. Plus we could always try and reform software patents at its source and make it harder to grant the lower quality patents.

asnyder2• 13 years ago

Most everything over the past 3 years have died in the house: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/31/wo....

PKop• 13 years ago

So raw number of bills passed is a good proxy for effectiveness as a congressman? I wonder if you think that number of pages per law is also a good measure of success... All things equal, I prefer the government passing less laws than more.

asnyder2• 13 years ago

Yes, when it deviates significantly with the historical record it implies significant obstruction.

jakejake• 13 years ago

We should change the word "lobbying" to "bribing" and then it would make more sense to the average person.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

We need to stop saying "reform". These people want more patent protection; those people want less. They both want patent reform, so we're gonna give it to them! Those people want to actively import criminals, these people want a 500ft tall wall encasing the US, they all want immigration reform - they have SO MUCH IN COMMON!

anotherhue• 13 years ago

Has anyone noticed that the IEEE appear on this list? They're a non-profit, and if I needed another reason to keep my membership expired, this was it.

moondowner• 13 years ago

My thoughts exactly. Glad to keep it expired.

studentrob• 13 years ago

Seems like software patent processing would benefit by some simple machine learning tools to help examiners identify similar content. Anyone familiar with what tools they currently use? Muddling about with the law will obviously take forever, the guys in congress have no idea what they are legislating, and the lawyers in corporations have no idea what they are lobbying for, aside from monopoly money.

shawn-butler• 13 years ago

Machine learning on that corpus would be extremely difficult task. This is what engineers don't really get about patent applications. We see the underlying technology or specifications and say, same thing-identical.

IP Lawyers, patent clerks look at the claims and see difference. Claims have two functions. Public notice and kind of a "patent scope" of applicability. It's all very obtuse and would not be very easy I think to attach semantics via ML alone.

There have been some crowdsource attempts: http://peertopatent.org https://www.articleonepartners.com

tzakrajs• 13 years ago

How much margin must a company make from their lobbying effort to make it worth destroying the ecosystem around them?

snambi• 13 years ago

Ah... too bad... this is how innovation is killed. Kill the big companies, it will foster innovation.

Software patent reform just died in the House

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