I think a good discussion is warranted, and I don't expect anyone to necessarily agree with me, nor do I think people care about what I care about. I was simply pointing out your analogy is horrible. Regardless what I think of patents, it is a horrible analogy. It does not make a "moderately accurate comparison." Nobody is doing anything illegal with patents, there's no abusive behavior that's been identified that needs to be curbed. Robbing banks and killing people are illegal regardless of whether there are cars involved - those moral judgments are completely independent of cars. The argument against software patents isn't about how they're used, it's that they exist (or are handed out so capriciously). That is why the analogy is bad. The only way cars/patents is better than an analogy to "eating peanut butter with a dipstick" is that people have moral judgments cars and patents, and eating peanut butter with a dipstick is just plain stupid. By all means, dismiss my pointing out that the analogy is horrible because I'm passionate about software patents. I wouldn't want to burden you with actually re-examining the foundation of your analogy. (and, yes, I realize this is all just a case of http://xkcd.com/386/ )

@Trey: I get that you've got your mad on about software patents but try not to fool yourself into thinking your view is everyone's view. If you're upset about the cars analogy feel free to ignore it. It's a moderately accurate comparison, unburdened by the level of emotional energy associated with guns right now. However, feel free to make your own analogies to guns or butterflies or whatever it is that makes you happier. Picking apart the analogy both misses the point that analogies are never completely identical, and misses the point that I use the analogy to highlight that it is precisely laws and regulations that curb abusive uses of cars. Thus, analogously, I believe we need better laws and regulations to curb abuses of the patent system. That's the point of analogy. You clearly have a lot of moral outrage about software patents. Go you. Do something constructive with it. But try not to confuse your personal moral outrage with anything other than the views of a small subset of a small subset of the world. Most of the world doesn't give a rat's ass about patents at all, even less about software patents and of those who do care about software patents a goodly percentage think they're just fine. And that percentage has the legal system on its side at the moment. So if you want to flail about immorality, go you. I applaud your passion. But don't make yourself look foolish by claiming that your passion redefines validity.

@Alan, so you admit you picked cars because they are not controversial and are generally deemed good, whereas patents are not. Yet we should think of them the same... How again is this analogy (cars/patents) at all useful? You just admitted they are nothing alike. You argue that cars can be used to commit crimes, cause deaths, etc. and that doesn't make us want to abolish cars. i.e. used in a "bad" way In the case of cars being used for bad things (crimes, deaths, pollution), there are already laws against those things. i.e. people were breaking laws NPEs are exercising their right to the IP, granted to them by the government. This is all completely *legal*, it is not at all illegal/criminal, let alone irresponsible or causing death. How, again, are cars and patents alike? And, yes, patents are considered valid, by definition. I'm not arguing otherwise. Alan wrote: "If we assume that the patents are good and validly granted then they represent the embodiment of innovation and hard work." In the case of software patents, that entire statement is laughable. There are so many bogus software patents out there, be they bogus because they are duplicates of pre-existing patents, because of non-patent prior art, or that they are merely trivial solutions to everyday problems. They certainly do not represent innovation nor hard work. Yes patents are valid, as in legal. That does not mean they are good, as producing net benefit for society. It's legal to chew with your mouth open or burp, but is generally accepted to be bad manners. And the fact that CopyTele used to *try* to produce products, big deal. When they were that, they were not an NPE, just a struggling company. Now that they've failed, they've admitted they can't make money by making product/selling services, and they've turned into an NPE. Yes, it's legal, it's still a drain on society. Nobody is arguing that CopyTele is doing something illegal, just immoral.

@Trey: I picked cars rather than guns (though I think both analogies are apt) because I wanted an example of a thing that exists in society because of government grants but is not at the core of a heated debate. All analogies are necessarily imprecise, to some degree. Factually, Denis is correct in that the patents in question are considered valid until invalidated by a court or the PTO. That's not my value judgment - it's just the state of the world. You (or I) may not like any particular patents, but that doesn't change their status. Also, again speaking factually, CopyTele used to try to produce products. As I described in the blog entry they failed at that and the question becomes what to do now. I think it's an interesting example of using an NPE that illustrates my point that the mere concept of an NPE is not evil. You are, of course, free to disagree.

Denis wrote: "I love the way you got that whole acerbic, right-wing thing working for you, dude." Love the way you got that whole clueless, don't-know-what-I'm-talking-about thing working for you. Yes, I understand the [cars are bad, it's what you do with them that is bad] point. One cannot realistically ascribe morals to objects. Did I ever say otherwise? My point is that the analogy between cars and patents is a horrible analogy. Given that cars are an every day, physical item, and patents are a set of rights granted by the government... there is very little that is the same between the two of them. Why did Alan choose a car? Why not butterflies? Why not banana splits? Banana splits are bad if you use them incorrectly. Software patents have divided the software industry into two, passionate sides, each of which argue using moral terms. There is no similar division amongst people about cars. This is exactly why Alan chose the analogy with cars - because he is arguing that patents are not intrinsically bad. Guns would be a better analogy, easily used for "good" or "bad". My guess is that Alan chose not use use the guns analogy because there is (among some) a negative association with guns. Yet it is a better fit, because guns, like software patents, are at the center of very heated debates. The point was and is, get a better analogy. As far as the rest of what you wrote Dennis. Your *having* a patent on a piece of software/business method prevents me from developing any software/business method building on that. Your *having* a car doesn't prevent me from doing anything (aside from driving your car). This is independent of any action on your part. Yes, I can infringe upon your patent, but then I'm breaking the law. If you have a car and run over my kid, you're breaking the law. In the case of the patent, I'm in the wrong, and in the case of the car, you're in the wrong. You got the argument bass-ackwards. Alan's article is trying to get people to feel sympathetic for the "little guy", an NPE. My point (which you so lovingly quoted out of context) about the fact that CopyTele Inc. isn't actually producing any products is that they're a bunch of moochers and are no benefit to society. Patent law was designed "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" - and NPEs are an abomination - they do not produce anything useful, nor do they even promote progress - they only restrict progress. Yes, the laws are written up in such a way that NPEs can rightfully exist, so what? That doesn't mean they fulfill the original intent of the founders of our country. How did this country get to be where it is? People came up with new ideas, and then went out and actually did something useful with those ideas. Apparently, Denis, you think suing people is useful. Keep up the good work, dude.

My friend used it for book publishing and loved the results so Im about to try it. Thanks for the helpful post.

Ludicrous decision. The only competitive advantage here is that of smuggling contraband. The fact that said contraband is a service is irrelevant.

May I just say what a comfort to discover someone who really understands what they are talking about over the internet. You definitely know how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More people should check this out and understand this side of your story. I can't believe you are not more popular given that you most certainly have the gift.

Way to flame 'em, Trey. I love the way you got that whole acerbic, right-wing thing working for you, dude. The point I took from Alan's analogy is that a patent, like a car, is not inherently bad. It's the way they are misused that is bad. I don't see your problem with this analogy. It's clean, clear, and concise. "My having a car doesn't prevent you from doing anything, whereas patents do exactly that." The only thing my having a patent prevents you from doing is infringing my patent, whereas my car improperly driven that runs over your kid in the crosswalk prevents you from enjoying the company of your kid for the rest of your life. In both cases an agent uses the patent or car in a way that causes harm to others. Why do you have a problem seeing that? "And your assumption of patents being "good and validly granted" is laughable -- " Well, dude, that's not Alan's assumption. It's the judicial/statutory assumption that the entire system depends upon. "My having a patent doesn't actually enable me to do anything" More hogwash, dude. Of course it enables you do do something: for one thing, it enables you to sue infringers. "And, if you're not actually protecting a product," Patents don't protect patents, dude. There is no law requiring that the invention be embodied in a product in order for the patent to be asserted. In the case of methods patents there is no product to protect. You need to read up on what you're moaning about before you light up your blow torch.

Your analogy to cars seems ... inane at best. My having a car doesn't prevent you from doing anything, whereas patents do exactly that. My having a patent doesn't actually enable me to do anything, whereas having a car provides very clear and tangible benefit. For me to take advantage of a patent, I must have the money/time/lawyers to (first obtain a patent, then) file a lawsuit to enforce the patent. And, if you're not actually protecting a product, but protecting your "idea" - how is that in the spirit of the patent framework? i.e. how does that do anything to encourage the development of new inventions? It doesn't. And your assumption of patents being "good and validly granted" is laughable - you full well know that many (most?) patents are ridiculously simple. Not to mention the fact, having an idea isn't worth the paper it's written on. You need to actually implement that idea and make something useful. I'm not arguing that patents should go away (though I think they should), I'm just pointing out that your analogy/argument is bunk.

The "working machine that demonstrates" requirement for patents went out a long time ago. Biopharma people don't submit molecules, they submit chemical descriptions of molecules and claims as to the molecules' effects. In order to make code the determinant of whether an idea has been reduced to practice and patentable you would have to submit not only your code, but everything else that is required to make that code run (hardware, OS, compiler/linker/assembler, makefiles, etc). The code itself may be desk-inspected to some degree but no program of any reasonable complexity can be fully understood that way. This would also bring in several weird peripheral effects; for example, if your code only works with a certain set of optimizer flags on gcc and fails with every other combination of flags does that matter? Have you really invented what you claim if you rely on a very specific set of factors to demonstrate it? Does requiring code as proof mean that I can't patent a method that only runs on specific proprietary hardware (e.g. a control system)? What if the code I sent in has a bug? Does that invalidate my invention. Et cetera. Code raises WAY more questions than it settles.

But code equivalence isn't the only reason to request source, right? It's also to prove that you can actually do the thing you claim you're patenting. It's the difference between claiming that you have code that proves P=NP and running the code that proves P=NP. If you can't implement it, why allow you to patent it?

Code equivalence is important because what the EFF is asking - where I think they get it right - is functional protection. If I take the typical C-language "Hello World" program and implement it in C++ or Java or Perl or whatever it's still the "same" program, in the sense that it performs the same function. If we imagine that I got a patent on Hello World and I submit my C-code example then someone else might submit a patent with their Perl-code version and unless we can say "these are the same program" then it's hard to determine if theirs is patent-eligible or not. Patents on (physical) machines must be accompanied by drawings to a certain standard and must expose and enumerate the parts and processes of the machine that are protected. Equivalence isn't important because of the functional nature of the machine patent. If I have, say, a patent on a rocking chair and I submit drawings of a rocking chair made of wood, then someone else's submission of a different isn't compared based on whether the machines are identical, but whether they perform the same arc-describable rocking motion. My argument is that removing source code and replacing it with a language-independent algorithm description is the same thing in code space as we already have in physical-machine space.

Why is code equivalence important? Proving that two mechanical devices aren't equivalent is also often an impossible task, but the patent office still required working models for them.

I don't drop a bunch of comments, however i did some searching and wound up here Another Step in the IP/Lifesaving Debate. Copyfight: the politics of IP. And I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you do not mind. Could it be only me or does it look like a few of the comments appear like they are written by brain dead visitors? :-P And, if you are posting on other sites, I'd like to keep up with everything fresh you have to post. Could you list of the complete urls of your social pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?

The core of your writing whislt appearing agreeable originally, did not really sit perfectly with me personally after some time. Someplace throughout the sentences you were able to make me a believer but only for a very short while. I however have a problem with your jumps in assumptions and one might do well to fill in all those breaks. When you actually can accomplish that, I would surely be impressed.

I think the main point that Mr. Flaherty is making is that many of these patents are on subsystems of a 3D printer. If someone wanted to innovate and create a new process for a 3D printer, he would only do it if it would profit him in some way. So as an example, imagine someone has a brilliant new idea that will change the industry. He makes this brand new 3D printer that has a new feature. The problem is that in creating a full printer he used a subsystem unrelated to his new feature, and that unrelated subsystem has been patented. If he releases his new 3D printer, he will be sued for infringement of that patent, so he will need to think of an innovation for that subsystem as well. The problem is that infringing subsystem is the most basic and logical way to do it. Any other way of going about it would be backward and stupid. With all of the subsystem patents on 3D printing, he probably infringes 10 patents, and there is no way he can develop this product If he wants, he can try to patent his new subsystem without selling a product. Maybe he can sell the patent, right? Well getting a patent is so expensive and time consuming, that it is impossible for a normal person to do it, especially if he doesn't have a team of legal experts to back him up. Eventually someone will dispute his patent or sue him for infringement, and even if this entity has no case, the inventor can't afford the lawyers for trial. No one in their right mind would file for a patent in such a hot field without a lot of money backing them up. And that is why only big companies will do it, and no one besides other big companies can dispute them because no one else has the money for it. That is why Mr. Flaherty claims patents in the 3D printing industry are stifling innovation. Yes, it has been the same way for hundreds of years, but perhaps his point is that the world is very different and a much smaller place than it was hundreds of years ago and maybe things need to change.

People in lower economic status are much more often non-white or single working parents -which is to say, women. In this otherwise excellent piece, this remark is unfortunate. It equates single parenthood with single motherhood, excluding single dads rather than simply stating the high percentage (around 80%) of female single parents.

Sorry if I was unclear. The idea as I see it is that people like AFP who can engage socially at the highest level have no need for these new intermediaries. People who have less time or inclination for that sort of engagement have more need for them. Palmer may be suggesting that every artist needs to engage the way she does; if so, I'd disagree with her in the same way that I don't think every singer also needs to be a songwriter, nor every novelist be a good copyeditor. Those things help, but if they're not in your natural skillset you can find people to work with and the resulting collaborations will meet the fan expectations. So long as you're doing that I think it's going to work.

Nice piece. I especially like Coates' point about privilege...although I've long thought that blogging bloomed when it did because a lot of people were light on work at the time and thus had time to blog. But from my point of view, your suggestion of intermediaries for introverts seems to contradict one of Palmer's lessons. Her extroversion allows her not only to ask for money but to have built the sense of personal involvement with her audience that brings them to give her money. They respond because she communicates with them so freely and constantly. An introvert will have difficulty doing that, and that is precisely the sort of thing that an intermediary cannot do. Or am I misunderstanding your suggestion, Palmer's point, or both?

Indeed, where is the outrage? Where's the reasonable opportunity to challenge the ISP's findings? (The AAA is not it...)

Thanks to you both for taking the time to correct me. I'll update the blog post to reflect this.

Thanks for the write-up. Just one correction, authors do not need to pay any fee to submit manuscripts for peer-review to PeerJ. Authors have the option to pay after acceptance, similar to PLoS journals. They can also have that $99 refunded if they pay before/when submitting and are subsequently rejected. Jason Co-founder & CEO, PeerJ

(Disclosure: I am the Publisher of PeerJ). Actually, you misunderstand. The fee is indeed $99 if authors pay at the time of submission. However, they can submit for free, and only pay once accepted (at which point it is slightly more expensive $129). Info at: https://peerj.com/about/FAQ/#plans In addition, because we are peer reviewing only on methodological and scientific soundness (not on 'impact') we expect to end up accepting ~70% of all submissions. Info at: https://peerj.com/about/FAQ/#acceptance We do not believe that prestige should come from the dubious honor of being selected by a journal which rejects ~95% of otherwise publishable work! We expect prestige to come from the quality of each individual article, being judged on its own merits.

BW: Part of the issue is that GW seem to be asserting a trademark (which it's debatable that they even have) against a book. As you say, a copyright issue would be handled differently but even if one allows for argument's sake that they do have this trademark then they're going about protecting it all wrong. DMCA takedowns against e-books are just not relevant if we're talking trademark.