Why software patents are no different than other patents

An abstract to a European paper that concludes that the quality of software
patents is little different from other technologies being patented, because
in the end, all of software is just another technology.

Greg Aharonian



"A Technical Critique of Fifty Software Patents"

BY: MARTIN CAMPBELL-KELLY ([email protected])
    University of Warwick, Department of Computer Science
PATRICK VALDURIEZ ([email protected])
    French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control

Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
    http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=650921

Date: January 2005

ABSTRACT:
The legal, economic, and technical literatures are replete with
discussions on the desirability or otherwise of software patents. But
each strand of this debate has some limitations. The legal literature is
for the most part based on case law, and thus is difficult to generalize.
The economic literature is typically based on the statistical analysis of
large numbers of patents, but tends to ignore the technical arguments
either for or against software patents. The technical literature
- frequently hostile to patents - is most often based on an examination
of a small number of pathologically bad patents, and thus like the law
literature does not shed much light on software patents in general.

This paper attempts to fill in these gaps in the analysis. We focus on
the technical merits of what, on the surface at least, should be good
software patents - a set of 50 most highly cited patents. Of course our
approach cannot address all of the controversies surrounding software
patents. Instead, we aim our inquiries on what insights technical
specialists might provide lawyers, economists, and policymakers studying
software patents. In particular, we ask, from a technician's viewpoint:

    Are software patents too obvious?
    Is the level of disclosure adequate?
    Are patents real - do they represent real innovations or are
        they strategic?
    Are software patents too broad in their technical coverage?
    Do software patents last too long?

We conclude that for the set of patents examined here: they are not too
obvious in general; the level of disclosure is often less than optimal,
indicating the need for reform; they are almost all for real innovations;
some are too broad technically but most are not; they do last too long,
but this has little to no apparent impact on the industry; and some
software inventions need both patent and copyright protection. Taken
altogether, software patent critics do have some valid points (especially
regarding disclosure), but the accusations that software patents are
generally obvious, trivial, and impede progress do not stand up to scrutiny.