Software Patent Example

The following example is taken from my own experience of software patents in the normal course of my employment as a software engineer. Before this, I was quite oblivious to patents. Like many people, I assumed they were just there for inventions such as vaccuum cleaners, rubiks cubes and so on. I never dreamt anyone would use them on software. To my mind, this seems hypocritical to say the least as the vast body of knowledge of computer programming has largely been due to the free exchange of information and ideas by programmers worldwide, in much the same way that the scientific community share their work. In this way progress is far more rapid and rich than would otherwise be achieved.

Example No 1. (As posted to [email protected])

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the role of free software in business. Speaking as one whose livelihood depends on providing the service of writing custom software for a number of customers, I know from first hand experience the positive effect that free software has on business. A few years ago, I was asked to port an image system that relied a patented image compression format to one that would give comparable results under Windows NT. The reasons for this were that the **** development kit (name withheld for obvious legal reasons) was not supported under NT and as it was a central part of the port for Year 2K compliance, a suitable alternative format was required. I chose JPEG for four simple reasons:

1) Because it was mature technology - It had few bugs thanks to the sheer number of people fixing them.
2) The source code was well written and maintainable.
3) There were no licencing restrictions i.e. no hidden costs.
4) The source code was freely available.

The last part was particularly important. If the company I worked for went out of business it was important for the customer to have control over the contents of its image database over a long term, and did not want to repeat the **** experience.

Without free software, it would have been impossible to meet the customers needs and by now, it would have been in serious trouble.