Yes, Rani’s brother’s example is an excellent one.

And yes, plagiarism is a problem. I am hoping that it will change with more awareness and better technology.

But again on the flip side it has lead to unwanted plagarism.

As you say, the current patenting process atleast as far as software patents are concerned is clearly broken.

maybe a well-implemented patents regime is beneficial but we won’t know because of how the system is implemented.

I doubt if employees will have enough courage/incentive to revolt against such practices.

I think my view (of which i am not 100% convinced myself ) is that we are better off without patents because we may be more freely sharing intellectual property for the greater good. Having said that, my ambivalence comes when i look at the Google Pagerank algorithm that has been patented and is a genuine advance in the industry and they deserve IP protection. But maybe such cases are few and far between in the current patent regime.

Just commenting on the patents alone and that too from a software industry perspective, the system is broken and we should find ways to fix it, rather than eliminate it.

Patents serve the purpose of disclosure than encouraging inventions. Encouragement for new inventions comes from various other motivations. It seems like patents exist simply for the purpose of advertising your idea with no statement of intent to exercise the idea for any kind of benefit – personal or good of the society. This is what the patent trolls have taken advantage of, which in turn has led to proliferation of defensive patents.

And then there are the murky and iffy patents, where patents have been granted to the application of a well-known algorithm to a particular domain. Here is a made up example – “Applying binary search algorithm for traversing through a list of access control entities in an insurance application”

Of course, USPTO needs to staff up and improve its record on ‘obvious’ things that are patented. However, checks and balances needs to come from the judicial system. Patent trolls must be recognized and heavy punitive damages must be assessed on such trolls.

Or should employees revolt and refuse to patent the very obvious!!

Ganesh

Just commenting on patents alone and that too from a software industry perspective, the system is broken and we should find ways to fix it, rather than eliminate it.

Patents serve the purpose of disclosure than encouraging inventions. Encouragement for new inventions comes from various other motivations. It seems like patents exist simply for the purpose of advertising your idea with no statement of intent to exercise the idea for any kind of benefit – personal or good of the society. This is what the patent trolls have taken advantage of, which in turn has led to proliferation of defensive patents.

And then there are the murky and iffy patents, where patents have been granted to the application of a well-known algorithm to a particular domain. Here is a made up example – “Applying binary search algorithm for traversing through a list of access control entities in an insurance application”

Of course, USPTO needs to staff up and improve its record on ‘obvious’ things that are patented. However, checks and balances needs to come from the judicial system. Patent trolls must be recognized and heavy punitive damages must be assessed on such trolls.

Or should employees revolt and refuse to patent the very obvious!!

Ganesh