Personally, I think patent law needs a massive overhaul; but I also think that the lone inventor should be protected - or why would anyone bother doing deep useful work? We would then only get the deep work (of academics) and the user-driven hill-climbing (of open source/big corporations).
I guess startups like Appjet (etherpad) are an exception... but, according to their early webpage, they had a software patent. Which Google may have wanted when it acquired them. I expect that Dropbox, which also has some cool proprietary technology, also sought to patent it, given pg's position http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html
While a startup can protect itself by growing and innovating fast, I have a soft spot for the deep technical innovator. I appreciate those incremental hill-climbing innovations; the cool stuff in the labs that never actually becomes usable; and the clever identification of markets and exploitation thereof. But the revolutionary stuff is what I love.
I'm always surprised that so many developers, who I would think are creative types, don't think deep innovation deserves the encouragement and reward of protection.
Note that Xerox PARC was funded by patents (on xerography); and Bell Labs' origin can be traced to a patent (on telephony).
Personally, I think patent law needs a massive overhaul; but I also think that the lone inventor should be protected - or why would anyone bother doing deep useful work? We would then only get the deep work (of academics) and the user-driven hill-climbing (of open source/big corporations).
I guess startups like Appjet (etherpad) are an exception... but, according to their early webpage, they had a software patent. Which Google may have wanted when it acquired them. I expect that Dropbox, which also has some cool proprietary technology, also sought to patent it, given pg's position http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html
While a startup can protect itself by growing and innovating fast, I have a soft spot for the deep technical innovator. I appreciate those incremental hill-climbing innovations; the cool stuff in the labs that never actually becomes usable; and the clever identification of markets and exploitation thereof. But the revolutionary stuff is what I love.
I'm always surprised that so many developers, who I would think are creative types, don't think deep innovation deserves the encouragement and reward of protection.
Note that Xerox PARC was funded by patents (on xerography); and Bell Labs' origin can be traced to a patent (on telephony).