What's behind Microsoft's fall from dominance?

[psxphill]

Could you give an example of such a hardware patent that could be replaced fully with pure software ?

Will this do?
 
http://www.google.com/patents/US5093831
 
This is part hardware and part software
 
https://www.google.com/patents/US5926786
 
Here is a bad circuit patent.
 
http://www.faqs.org/patents/imgfull/20110025518_01

[psxphill]

Takes two to tango, buddy.

Sigh.

[psxphill]

No, the fast hardware implementation part of the patent seems to an essential part of the patent so it should not apply to pure software solutions.

So if I design a CPU that has a couple of op-codes that are carefully designed to implement that functionality then because it uses software then it works round the patent?
 

I don't see anything in the patent where another design team with the same specs couldn't have come with the same solution.

With all patents it's possible for multiple people to come up with the solution, the patent system rewards the person who files first. It's assumed they are the ones that put the most effort and money into it.
 

Sure, but I don't see how a bad circuit patent would make software patents any better.

Because people talk as if software patents are the only bad ones out there, just because you can find a bad software patent doesn't mean that they are all bad.

[psxphill]

The thing about software patents (or algorithm patents in general) is that it comes down to letting someone lay full legal claim to a way of doing things. Not a specific design for a machine or a circuit, but an abstract, general sequence of steps for solving a problem. That's just all kinds of bizarre and wrong. I mean, should we be able to patent mathematical formulae?

Hardware patents are pretty abstract. You can't do force feedback with more than one balanced motor spinning an unbalanced weight without infringing immersion's patent. Nintendo only use one motor, so it's not affected.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony
 
To me that lays a claim to a way of doing things, rather than a specific design.

[psxphill]

I won't argue that hardware patents can't be bafflingly vague. Still, when you allow this kind of thing, what's to stop someone from patenting, say, the twelve-bar blues? (Other than prior art, that is.) It gets plainly absurd real fast.

Whether you think it's absurd or not comes down to whether you were the one that invented it or not.
 
Magic tricks are a bigger area that could do with some form of protection.
Patents don't work particularly well as the whole point of magic is to annoy people by not explaining how they work & you have to explain it to get a patent.
 
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/07/the-tricky-business-of-innovation-can-you-patent-a-magic-trick/

[psxphill]

No the hardware in the CPU falls under the patent not the software using the hardware; the people making the CPU have to license the patent. Or would you claim that one can't write software for this CPU without taking a license on the patent ?

I don't think the CPU could infringe without the specific software that makes it perform the same function as the hardware. So it would only be those two things combined together that would need a license. There is a similar situation with chips that support HDMI only needing a license if you add an HDMI connector to your design.
 

As said before, for software copyright is enough to drive innovation and lack of patents won't stop people writing software as they can't earn back their investment. In software, patents are hampering innovations and favoring the behemoths. Even very smart programmers don't need or deserve a 20 year monopoly on their ideas in the fast-paced software world.

20 years is too long for any technology related patent. Someone knocking up some irrelevant program in their bed room then copyright is enough.
 
IMO copyright isn't enough for an industry wide system like DVD. I don't believe the DVD CCA supplied the code that is used in all of the players, they may have provided a reference implementation as an example but their invention was a process. Implementing the software is easy, without the patent there is no barrier to entry & they would have no way to make any money back.
 
Sure it would be super cool if you could rip off their work without having to pay a license fee, but that would hamper innovation more. A hacker in their bed room isn't going to produce the next disc format. It's going to be some big organisation & they are only going to do it if they have a way of protecting their investment.
 
AFAIK Google have patented their pagerank system, I'm pretty sure they would be upset if Microsoft just copied how it worked.