[ale] Segue from MS threatening the community

[JK]

Rev. Johnny Healey wrote:

> Virtually anything can be patented in the US, including the user interface.
> One-Click is a good example of this; you don't need to see the source code
> to know that the patent has been violated.

IATotallyNAL, but I suspect that, while this may appear to be the
current state of affairs, it doesn't reflect legal reality.  For
example, it's my belief based on, basically, me reading Groklaw
a lot, that reverse engineering has always been explicitly
*permitted* under US patent law.  IOW, if you can figure out how
to do what a patented product does, more power to you, as long
as you don't actually *copy* the patented product.

I suspect that something like One-Click, which takes the average
web-aware developer about 75 milliseconds to "reverse engineer",
should qualify as "obvious" even under the current US patent regime,
and therefore shouldn't have been granted at all. The strategy of
choice seems to be, "file patents (pat. pending) for everything (pat.
pending) in sight (pat. pending), and count (pat. pending) on the
patent office review process (pat. pending) to drop (pat pending)
the ball (pat. pending) sufficiently often that you get a few
granted."

I think there are a few ideas in software that legitimately
deserve(d) patent protection (for a brief period!).  The notion
of function calls implemented by a stack, for example, is
brilliant, fundamental, and not totally obvious if you don't
already know about it.  However, most software behavior, if
you describe it to an experienced developer, she'll be able
to think of two or three implementations for that behavior
in ten minutes or so. Such things ought not to be patentable,
IMO.

-- JK

-- 
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be
dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens