patents

flipcode - Software Patents and Games

I ran across this old flipcode post I made and thought it was pretty cool.

>For example (WD40), you'd feel a lot different if you worked your ass off
>for several years to produce something like, say, MP3 compression only to
>have the algorithm "stolen" by everyone on earth who can then benefit from
>your labor for free. Would you honestly argue that something like MP3
>technology should not be protected?

Exactly how would your technology be "stolen"?

I have personal example of not being "protected". I spent a lot of time developing physics technology awhile back. I had some really innovative stuff for the time. I had these big plans of starting a physics company. So what happens as I am going along that path? All of that special knowledge I had spent a lot of time to develop started to become not so special. As many other people developed their own stuff, that knowledge started disseminating into the public knowledge. Now it is WAY, WAY simpler to develop your own physics because of all the resources available. Should I go whine and moan. Boo hoo. It's not fair. I should of been protected! No. That's how things are. You used the example of the mouse. Sure, some dude invented it first, but how long would of it of been before someone else did? 6 months? 2 years? I bet it was more like -2 years.

>Also, our industry tends to offer up a lot of technology out of the
>"kindness of its collective hearts". For example, OGG is a perfectly
>acceptable alternative to MP3.

If it was so difficult for MP3 to be created (ie, justification for a patent) then why was it so easy for OGG to be created as an alternative?

Software is horribly complex nowadays. Just because you have an idea does not mean it is worth anything. You have to execute that idea. MP3 was not some super amazing technology. It is just the one that caught on. That is where its value is. Just like anything else.