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RE[7]: My two cents
by Alfman on Wed 10th Oct 2012 04:14 UTC in reply to "RE[6]: My two cents"
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"The main problem with software patents is that unknowledgable civil servants don't know they already had an algorithm for solving a square root in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. The civil servants should be more knowledgable, that's all."

Sure, patent workers may not have sufficient training and resources, but that isn't at all what I was trying to convey by my comment. To reuse your specific example, I wouldn't care whether anyone had an algorithm for solving a square root prior to me or not, every developer who is capable of deriving such an algorithm should be entitled to use it. Is it ok to step in and claim ownership of the algorithms that are the product of our own thought processes? Subsequent devs may even be more talented than the first one, their only fault by the patent system is that they weren't earlier. I say the "first" guy deserves a creditworthy mention in computer science journals, etc, but neither he nor his employer should own software algorithms at the exclusion of others who have a similar thought process. There's no reason to treat software algorithms like physical property since they aren't a limited resource needing to be managed through governance nor economics.

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