While this has no bearing on the law, I've always thought that works of software that represent an actual effort of development comparable to physical invention should enjoy the benefit of patents. This is precisely what the patent system was designed to do - protect large research investments.
The abuse of the system for things that really don't require research and development is at issue here. I think proposals to abolish software patents entirely are probably wrong - but granting patents on XOR, or 1-click, or doing something obvious but on a computer system, are equally wrong.
Put it this way: if I have a problem to be solved by software that is really hard (such as your algorithm), then I'm going to research it before spending five man-years developing it, find you guys, and happily license your solution. No question. And if somebody reverse engineers your solution and sells it, then by God they should be penalized for violating your patent. This is why we have patents.
But if I have an idea like 1-click and pay an Indian developer $10 an hour for a week to develop it, this is simply not worthy of monopoly protection; your disclosing your solution isn't that valuable. If, seventeen years from now, after I've built an online shopping empire while you haven't, you sell your patent to Lodsys and they sue me for a billion dollars out of the blue, that is highway robbery, and it's not in any way helping society - and that is the situation we actually currently have.
> I've always thought that works of software that represent an actual effort of development comparable to physical invention should enjoy the benefit of patents.
There is no "effort" requirement for patents on physical inventions. There's also no "it was done by experts" requirement.
The abuse of the system for things that really don't require research and development is at issue here. I think proposals to abolish software patents entirely are probably wrong - but granting patents on XOR, or 1-click, or doing something obvious but on a computer system, are equally wrong.
Put it this way: if I have a problem to be solved by software that is really hard (such as your algorithm), then I'm going to research it before spending five man-years developing it, find you guys, and happily license your solution. No question. And if somebody reverse engineers your solution and sells it, then by God they should be penalized for violating your patent. This is why we have patents.
But if I have an idea like 1-click and pay an Indian developer $10 an hour for a week to develop it, this is simply not worthy of monopoly protection; your disclosing your solution isn't that valuable. If, seventeen years from now, after I've built an online shopping empire while you haven't, you sell your patent to Lodsys and they sue me for a billion dollars out of the blue, that is highway robbery, and it's not in any way helping society - and that is the situation we actually currently have.