Why It’s Mathematically Impossible to Avoid Infringing on Software Patents
13th March 2012
Mike Masnik connects the dots.
In 2008 James Bessen and Michael Meurer came out with a truly excellent book, Patent Failure. It’s chock full of excellent information and a pretty wide survey of the research showing just how much patents harm innovation. While I don’t necessarily agree with the “solutions” proposed, the key thesis of the book makes a tremendous amount of sense: to have a functioning market, you need property with clear borders. If the borders aren’t clear at all, the end result is that no one knows when they’re trespassing or even what they’re buying, and the benefits of a market collapse, and instead you get mired down in legal disputes. That’s exactly what we’re seeing with patents today. Of course, one of the key reasons for this — as we’ve been explaining for years — is that patents are not property — and thus the attempt to force property-like rules on something that is naturally abundant is going to make it impossible to creates reasonable boundaries.
March 13th, 2012 at 07:58
Thieves will ever find justification for their thieving.