I have to imagine that whitehouse petition program is going to be its own pile of mess like the patent office.

Off-Topic: The signature limit is raised to negate silly petitions (already went from 5K to 25K. To be fair they need 150 signatures (electronic ones) to even get to the front page.

I was just pointing out there are a great number of people that don't like software patents. However pushing such a change would be prohibitively difficult.

I have to imagine that whitehouse petition program is going to be its own pile of mess like the patent office.

So far I think it's actually fairly successful. The responses are generally not very helpful and are very politician-speak, but at least it's a good way to show how many people actually support certain things. Worst case scenario for the petition program though is that you have to issue a response or ignore a petition. Worst case scenario for Patents is that somebody now has legal rights to the exclusive licensing and use of a specific technology.

Question. How can we better prove something to be "new" and "non-obvious"? I think that's where a large problem is with the patents (yeah, software patents overall suck but I don't think they're going to be outlawed anytime soon, so we better just focus on forcing them to be quality first). If there was a more rigorous method for determining something to be new and non-obvious and that we could use to get a more definitive "yes" or "no" it would help. I'm thinking but I'm not coming up with anything yet...

And then, to discourage crappy patents further, make it so that if a patent gets invalidated after going to court, require that all profits from that patent be paid as taxes. Because if its an invalid patent, there shouldn't have been any profit from the patent in the first place.

I disagree that we should blame people for taking full advantage of the system rather than the system. If the system worked Apple would never get this patent in the first place. I don't know where this expectation that corporations shouldn't do their best to increase their profits and protect those profits came from. You can only count on a corporation to do that; it's their nature. If the system is set up in such a way that corporations can take advantage of it to hurt the economy just by doing what is in their nature, it is a problem with the system.

Why should it be either/or? We can blame the system, but it's fair game for criticise companies for unethical behaviour too.

People had no trouble blaming Microsoft everytime they did something unethical. We don't excuse people as individuals, when they do something unethical, but may still be legal.

Plenty of companies seem to do fine without behaving like this.

But still, we agree that the system is broken - and highlighting ludicrous cases like this is one way to publicise it

Why should it be either/or? We can blame the system, but it's fair game for criticise companies for unethical behaviour too.

People had no trouble blaming Microsoft everytime they did something unethical. We don't excuse people as individuals, when they do something unethical, but may still be legal.

I wouldn't consider filing for patents unethical. Some of the lawsuits brought up by the patents could be considered unethical, but I wouldn't say just filing for the patent is unethical.

Plenty of companies seem to do fine without behaving like this.
[/quote]

Plenty of companies also get burned by not behaving like this. I think it was this thread that I posted the NPR link about patent trolls. It's worth a listen.

It's not so much of "we made it first, now we own it" but more of "Let's patent it as quickly as possible just so that it isn't someone else that patents it and potentially burn us for it". It's pretty ridiculous that you don't need to claim to be the originator of a product/idea to patent it. These software patents are little more than retroactive laws set by the companies that file them.

And lobbying is a joke. We should be voting for all things that government does.

[quote name='mdwh' timestamp='1321460091' post='4884601']
Why should it be either/or? We can blame the system, but it's fair game for criticise companies for unethical behaviour too.

People had no trouble blaming Microsoft everytime they did something unethical. We don't excuse people as individuals, when they do something unethical, but may still be legal.

I wouldn't consider filing for patents unethical. Some of the lawsuits brought up by the patents could be considered unethical, but I wouldn't say just filing for the patent is unethical.[/quote]I'm referring to Apple's past behaviour (fridge magnet power connectors, the Samsung Galaxy). Yes, there can be other reasons for getting a ludicrous patent - such as showing how ludicrous the system is - but given Apple's past behaviour, this is highly unlikely to be the case. Apple do not seem to be a company that merely patent things as a protection against other companies who might bully them.

Plenty of companies seem to do fine without behaving like this.
[/quote]

Plenty of companies also get burned by not behaving like this. I think it was this thread that I posted the NPR link about patent trolls. It's worth a listen.[/quote]Plenty of companies also get burned by behaving like this. Of course I'm aware that companies get burned - that's why I criticise software patents, and this behaviour. I'm not sure how you can turn that around to justify this behaviour!

Plenty of companies also get burned by behaving like this. Of course I'm aware that companies get burned - that's why I criticise software patents, and this behaviour. I'm not sure how you can turn that around to justify this behaviour!

I think patent trolling is unethical definitely. I just don't think filing for ridiculous patents in an environment where patent trolling exists is unethical until you start patent trolling.

Is Apple also gonna patent the look and layout of their stores? Because if so, [url="

]Microsoft's[/url] gonna be in trouble

[quote name='mdwh' timestamp='1321542654' post='4884983']Plenty of companies also get burned by behaving like this. Of course I'm aware that companies get burned - that's why I criticise software patents, and this behaviour. I'm not sure how you can turn that around to justify this behaviour!

I think patent trolling is unethical definitely. I just don't think filing for ridiculous patents in an environment where patent trolling exists is unethical until you start patent trolling.
[/quote]Which Apple have.