[Commons-Law] Anti-Software Patent Book...

[Hasit seth]

Hi,

I haven't read this book, but it should be interesting. Usual
anti-patent tirade stuff must be in there.

Hasit

Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software (Hardcover)
by Ben Klemens

Editorial Review from Amazon.com
 Book Description
The field of software is awash in disputes. Market participants and
analysts routinely disagree on how computer programs should be
produced, marketed, regulated, and sold. On one subject, however, just
about everyone can agree: the current intellectual property protection
regime for software is a mess. At present, all of the traditional
means of delimiting intellectual property--patents, copyrights, and
trade secrets--are applied to software in one manner or another.
Congress has even invented a new type of law for cases in which these
may be insufficient, with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The result is widespread confusion, along with the proliferation of
nuisance suits. To date, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has
granted more than 170,000 software patents, some on applications as
commonplace as the pop-up window. Each of these patents gives the
holder the right to sue others where no such right existed before, and
so gaming of the system abounds. Software providers are forced to
funnel millions of dollars annually into defending themselves against
lawsuits rather than developing better software. The wave of
litigation may end up stifling innovation and hobbling the open source
movement, one of the most promising developments of recent years.

How did the situation arise? And where should we go from here? In Math
You Can't Use, Ben Klemens draws on his experience as both a
programmer and an economist to tackle these critical issues. The
answer to the first question, he explains, is simple: while patent
laws are intended to apply to physical machines, software is something
quite different. Software is not just another machine, and it is not
Hamlet with numbers. It is a functional hybrid that can be duplicated
at no cost, it is legible by computers in some forms and by humans in
others, and it has a unique mathematical structure. All of these facts
have to be taken into consideration in designing an appropriate
intellectual property regime.

Designing such a system is a more difficult task. Klemens considers
several alternatives, from modifying the existing rules to eliminating
software patents in favor of a copyright-centered regime. Ultimately,
he concludes, it is up to Congress to determine how software should be
protected.

About the Author
Ben Klemens is a guest scholar at the Center on Social and Economic
Dynamics at the Brookings Institution, where he writes programs to
perform quantitative analyses and policy-oriented simulations. He also
consults for the World Bank on intellectual property in the developing
world and computer-based simulations of immigration policy. He
received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.