You're taking an edge case and making the debate all about that edge case.
Sadly, I see this the opposite way. Quantity-wise good, innovative architecture patents are in the vast minority. If we are to deal with software patents one at a time, the combined effort dealing with bad ones far outweighs good ones.
You can contract for anything, but you can't enforce the contract against anyone not in contractual privity.
Hah, I already updated my comment based on your updated comment! HN isn't the best for these kinds of discussions.
Nobody is independently inventing the OFDM patent I linked to, at least not within the patent term.
I have been thinking for some time that we need a collection of good software patents. Not having read the OFDM or ARM patents (for which I'm not qualified anyway), I don't know if they are "good". But I do know that one day we're going to invalidate a large percentage of software patents or watch innovation happen elsewhere. When that day comes, it will be important to have a list of things that are valuable, or else we'll end up with the bar that I described (anything computable is not patentable).
Unfortunately, I don't know of enough of them to seed such a database. Maybe fast square root or some of Carmack's graphics work. And as such I'm okay with seeing them 100% invalid. If you disagree, perhaps we can chat about it (email's in my profile).
Sadly, I see this the opposite way. Quantity-wise good, innovative architecture patents are in the vast minority. If we are to deal with software patents one at a time, the combined effort dealing with bad ones far outweighs good ones.
You can contract for anything, but you can't enforce the contract against anyone not in contractual privity.
Hah, I already updated my comment based on your updated comment! HN isn't the best for these kinds of discussions.
Nobody is independently inventing the OFDM patent I linked to, at least not within the patent term.
I have been thinking for some time that we need a collection of good software patents. Not having read the OFDM or ARM patents (for which I'm not qualified anyway), I don't know if they are "good". But I do know that one day we're going to invalidate a large percentage of software patents or watch innovation happen elsewhere. When that day comes, it will be important to have a list of things that are valuable, or else we'll end up with the bar that I described (anything computable is not patentable).
Unfortunately, I don't know of enough of them to seed such a database. Maybe fast square root or some of Carmack's graphics work. And as such I'm okay with seeing them 100% invalid. If you disagree, perhaps we can chat about it (email's in my profile).