>A software patent is meaningless to most software developers.
This might seem so if you don't leave the HN bubble (which, along with tech media as a whole, has no idea how patents really work yet and so harbor notions like "most software patents are nonsense").
But really it's impossible to generalize a statement like this to any significant portion of our industry. Right here grandparent is an engineer who obviously doesn't agree. There's another comment just below that actually thinks one patent in 25 years is low. The overwhelming majority of software engineers I personally know are proud of their patents. Anytime somebody posts a new patent to their LinkedIn profile, I see nothing but a cascade of congratulatory comments.
Not to say that all the patents out there are awesome, but the notions most people here have about them are far from commonplace.
I am also listed on some. But I have actually prosecuted a couple, and I find most tech communities to be entirely clueless about patents.
Posting that Spolsky article shows that no, you don't really understand how patents work. Spolsky has some rudimentary understanding, and I really appreciate what askpatents is trying to do, but he misunderstood that patent as well. When that article was posted on HN the top comment pointed out that the patent application was talking about something else. Indeed, following up on the application, I see that it has been granted with only slightly narrower claims: https://www.google.com/patents/US8933971
You may think you know what your patents cover, but have you actually read the claims? If you do, you'll find the claims are about as narrow as the invention is trivial, so narrow that nothing will likely infringe it. If that's what you meant by "nonsense", then I'd agree. But the fact remains that the vast, vast majority of programmers never do anything worth filing even those kinds of patents.
I know what the patents filed on my behalf entail. I know the claims. I collaborated on their "invention".
The fact it was granted a patent is not very note-worthy. It is not representative of anything useful. It doesn't represent deep thought, a lot of research, or anything of extraordinary value.
>The fact it was granted a patent is not very note-worthy. It is not representative of anything useful. It doesn't represent deep thought, a lot of research, or anything of extraordinary value.
1. Having read a ton of patents across multiple fields, that could be said of most patents ever (not just software patents). Most patents come out of engineering work, not high-level R&D.
2. That is still a huge step above what most engineers do their whole careers. Think of the average software developer - what percentage do anything approaching "real" engineering as opposed to churning out CRUD apps and web UIs dictated by business needs?
This might seem so if you don't leave the HN bubble (which, along with tech media as a whole, has no idea how patents really work yet and so harbor notions like "most software patents are nonsense").
But really it's impossible to generalize a statement like this to any significant portion of our industry. Right here grandparent is an engineer who obviously doesn't agree. There's another comment just below that actually thinks one patent in 25 years is low. The overwhelming majority of software engineers I personally know are proud of their patents. Anytime somebody posts a new patent to their LinkedIn profile, I see nothing but a cascade of congratulatory comments.
Not to say that all the patents out there are awesome, but the notions most people here have about them are far from commonplace.