How should a "normal tech company" behave exactly?
I'm not disagreeing but your point is not very convincing as it seems to be a pathos argument based on your wording so far with the "patent sick" verbage.
I'll note, companies using patents are behaving rather rationally from the perspective of use it or lose it. Right now its advantageous to the patent filer to file patents, it doesn't absolve these companies of ethical issues arising from that but I don't label these companies as being "sick" due to it. Its up to us and likely the companies to ask for change if there is an issue. Let the patent suits continue to fly, once companies get hurt in the pocketbook enough things will change.
That said i still don't know what you're arguing for companies to do. As well as why tech companies should behave differently regarding patents than other industries that are less well publicized. How should companies that create an innovation behave with what they've patented? Ignore it and lose the patent? Then why bother with patents in the first place? I don't follow the logic about "defensive" patents as it seems to not address how patents are intended to function.
How should a "normal tech company" behave exactly?
Rather simple. It should have a base principle to be opposed to software patents. It should not patent trivial things, it should be opposed to functional claiming and etc. If patents are used, they should be used for defensive pools against aggressors, not to engage in aggression themselves. That's what I call normal.
Twitter recently adopted such methodology. Others before them are doing the same thing for a long time already (Red Hat for example).
Patents were never intended to function the way they function now. Firstly software patents shouldn't even exist. Secondly patents are supposed to help innovation and not to ban competition. The former is rarely the case, while the later is extremely common.
This is basically why I'm confused with the "defensive" patent phrase. It seems to completely ignore the whole purpose of patents in the first place. Either we get rid of software patents wholesale, or we accept the consequences of software patents are this.
Lets say a company develops a 5% increase in efficiency for an engine. They patent it, a competitor reverse engineers it and releases a product. Fundamentally this is the same protected thing that happens with software right now. How a "defensive patent wielding tech company" should behave here makes zero sense. Not asserting patent in this case, even if the 5% increase here say was to just not burn as lean or whatever (lets assume this is obvious but not often in use for this thought experiment), they were the first to market and seemingly have a patent right to a temporary monopoly.
I really think patents are overblown in the tech community, note I don't mean they aren't a problem for things like a small company. Their impact is very real and substantial. However my personal feelings for them aside on their ethical and societal impact, I don't see how companies should react any differently with our current patent structure.
You are confused because you assume that software patents are normal patents. They aren't. Software should not be patentable. In practice software patents cause more harm than any possible benefits they supposedly bring to innovation. Therefore companies should avoid using them for aggression.
Compare it to weapons. Weapons are used for warfare, aren't they? But do you think using nuclear weapons is a sane thing to do? No. But they are still weapons, right? Same thing with software patents. They are patents, but they are not sane to use. Today patents are used as weapons, therefore aggression / defense analogy is very appropriate. And aggressors are the bad guys.
I don't think all software patents can be lumped together.
Patenting an algorithm seems bad. Because it's not really a mechanism, it's discovered more than created.
But human-computer interactions seem more like mechanisms. It's software that requires a human touch, and it makes it more like dealing with a physical object. Software patents in this area seem more appropriate.
None of them should exist including those for human interaction with the computer. Do your really think such things like "pinch to zoom" and "edge bounce" deserve to be patentable? The problem is in defining what software patent is to begin with, which gives room for patent aggressors to bypass restrictions (like it happens in Europe).
> The mechanism by which patents work, though, is by (temporarily) banning competition.
Yes, for valid cases, since patent is a limited monopoly. Thing is, software is an invalid case to begin with for a number of reasons, including patent thickets issue.
No, the mechanism by which patents work is by temporarily banning others from using something an applicant has invented in creating. It by no means stops others competing, and it encourages innovation by making them come up with alternatives, which are potentially better, rather than settling for just the first solution discovered. Basically, I wholeheartedly disagree with your sentiment.
I'm not disagreeing but your point is not very convincing as it seems to be a pathos argument based on your wording so far with the "patent sick" verbage.
I'll note, companies using patents are behaving rather rationally from the perspective of use it or lose it. Right now its advantageous to the patent filer to file patents, it doesn't absolve these companies of ethical issues arising from that but I don't label these companies as being "sick" due to it. Its up to us and likely the companies to ask for change if there is an issue. Let the patent suits continue to fly, once companies get hurt in the pocketbook enough things will change.
That said i still don't know what you're arguing for companies to do. As well as why tech companies should behave differently regarding patents than other industries that are less well publicized. How should companies that create an innovation behave with what they've patented? Ignore it and lose the patent? Then why bother with patents in the first place? I don't follow the logic about "defensive" patents as it seems to not address how patents are intended to function.