Orig Post Date: 2013.11.22
Source: InfoWorld
My Comments:
Interesting article about how large technology firms want to be free to troll their patents and at the same time be protected from smaller patent troll firms.
Personally I have never understood software patents since I've never understood how one can patent a thought process. When I write code I set down and analyze a problem and think of a way to calculate a solution to the problem. For example many years in the past if I needed the average for three numbers I might have devised the formula,
A = ( v1 + v2 + v3) / 3
Since this was a new solution I apply for and get a software patent for:
A = (v1 + v2 + v3 + ... + vN) / N
which is a general solution for solving an average. Sometime later when another coder independently writes an equation to solve an average for three numbers,
vA = (s1 + s2 + s3) / 3
which is extremely similar to my general solution. So I contact them and demand royalties for violating my patent. Now I realize this example is extremely simple but that is the principal and it makes understanding software patent difficult for me.
W.C.
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