I’m willing to accept the idea of software patents, provided they follow the premise of “novel to an expert in the field”. So if you walk up to a software engineer, ask them how to do something, and they cobble together something that more or less performs the desired task in a similar manner, then the patent is rejected.
I figure 10 or 20 software patents would have made it past this kind of test. Rounded corners on rectangles? No. Gif compression algorithm? No. But maybe there are 10 or 20 truly novel ideas that were patented.
I’m willing to accept the idea of software patents, provided they follow the premise of “novel to an expert in the field”. So if you walk up to a software engineer, ask them how to do something, and they cobble together something that more or less performs the desired task in a similar manner, then the patent is rejected.
I figure 10 or 20 software patents would have made it past this kind of test. Rounded corners on rectangles? No. Gif compression algorithm? No. But maybe there are 10 or 20 truly novel ideas that were patented.