Monday, February 26, 2007
Patents
I recently read an article in the European Wall Street Journal covering the Microsoft vs. AT&T patent case. I couldn't find a link to the specific article (because I read the article in print... how old-fashioned) but essentially, the case is arguing a technicality in patent law. AT&T holds a patent on a certain type of software (voice compression technology, if you're interested). Microsoft says it would be okay to ship a "golden disk" which has a copy of that patented software on it overseas, where it could be replicated. Those duplicate disks could be used to install the software on computers manufactured outside the US then redistributed to the US and elsewhere. The dispute is in the fact that Microsoft contends the "component" which has been patented is the physical disk, whereas AT&T contends that the "component" is the software itself, no matter what medium it's on. What struck my interest was when the article stated "This issue could have implications for other high-tech products that can easily be duplicated, such as bioengineered organisms." Technically an idea or a principle can't be patented - but is source code an idea or a component? The law is going to have a hard time keeping up with new technology and intellectual property issues surrounding it. I honestly don't know enough about the technology behind stem cell research to directly apply this to our discussion, but I thought it was an interesting concept.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The language of our patent laws specifies that one may acquire "utility patents" for novel machines and processes. There is a distinction here between copyrights and patents in that, while ideas may not be copyrighted, ideas may indeed be patented.
The Microsoft vs. AT&T case is just one example of attempts to exploit the nebulous field of software patents. By our current patent laws, the algorithm is the part of the product which may be patented. The source code which implements the algorithm is generally kept as a trade secret (closed source) or a copyrighted work with an attached license (open source). The program itself (not the source code) is also covered as a copyrighted work.
Good examples of this include (until just a few months ago) JPEG, the image format digital cameras often use, and MP3, which was the subject of a recent patent lawsuit against Microsoft. Both patents are for the compression processes, but there are many programs which perform this compression and decompression, and the makers of these programs had to license the technology from the patent holders.
The problem with software patents has less to do with what the patents apply to than it does the novelty of the algorithm that is patented. Frequently, these awarded patents are for ideas which would be obvious to any engineer who had the same problem to solve.
The biotech industry is, at least in my mind, a less ambiguous because of the large body of prior art that is nature. If treatments using stem cells are found and a pharmaceutical company finds a better way of cultivating stem cells, by principle, the patent should be awarded to the process. Likewise, if a process for treating Parkinson's disease is found, the patent should be awarded for the treatments, specifically the combination of possible surgeries and medications used to control the stem cells.
Correction: The JPEG patent did not expire recently. The patent for the GIF algorithm, which is frequently used on websites, was the one that recently expired.
Post a Comment