PATENT DOOM IS AT HAND!!!

Ok, that may be a bit strong, but there’s some serious cause for concern, at least for patents issued in the U.S. since 2000. As pointed out in this NY Times piece, a recent paper by law professor Jim Duffy reveals some serious problems with how patent judges have been appointed for the last 8 years. And those problems may lead to the automatic overturning of all such patents on procedural and constitutional grounds.

It’s likely that the Justice Department and Congress won’t let it go down like that. There are billions and billions of dollars tied to those patents, and business is not likely to lay down and let that evaporate. The lobbyists are gonna get fat on this one, folks. Most likely there will be legislation that will attempt to fix this, but that’s really just a patch and I would bet that someone will challenge whatever they come up with. Lawyers are also gonna get fat, baby!

Sigh.

via Boingboing

As of today, Adobe has removed all license restrictions on the use of the Flash SWF and FLV/F4V formats, as well as the AMF protocol. This is exciting news, since it means that more folks can get into the business of building Flash playback devices and systems that can talk directly to Flash. This may be a particular boon for F/OSS projects like gnash.

Of course, there are some real questions about how this will play out. Adobe is still in control of the formats in question; they haven’t announced plans to open the specification process to the public (at least not that I’ve seen). While Adobe pledged to keep the open standards up-to-date, failing to include a process for including community contribution increases the chance of forking the standard. And that dilution of Flash was the supposed reason for the very license restrictions that were lifted today.

In any case, I see this as a step in the right direction. Any Internettechnology wide-spread enough to be considered an de facto standard should be based on open standards. I applaud the efforts of Adobe in at least attempting to strike a balance.

Probably not. That, at least, is the opinion of Mike Masnick of TechDirt. Check out the latest entry in his series on “IP” and it’s foundations (and lack there-of) in US law. If you’re not familiar the difference between copyright, patents and trademarks, this series will give you some idea of how they all [are supposed] to work. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, this is good read on a dry topic. And for what it’s worth the law quoted here pretty much matches up with what was explained to me by an attorney during my own singular foray into the patent process (never again).

I’m not a big fan of software or business process patents myself and I think the protections afforded by copyright have been unbalanced in favor of corporate greed over public good and fair use*. I tend towards the idea that ideas are free and should be disseminated freely as often as possible. And I find it ridiculous that copyright now extends to multiple decades after the originally creator has gone the way of the dodo.

* Disclaimer: This opinion does not necessarily reflect the policies of Bit Group nor does it presume to state the beliefs of everyone here.