Note there's a flip side to this -- the timescale of software patents is completely wrong from the viewpoint of a company that wants to use patents honestly.
I was looking at a face recognition patent that was filed by the US by a Japanese company in 1998 that was finally issued in 2006. Eight years is a very long time in the fast moving software industry -- even if you get lucky and your patent granted in two years, it's quite possible that your invention is obsolete by the time you get your patent.
Given that software is so fast paced, most organizations that expect to be "practicing entities" find the patent application to be a distraction from the task of getting a competitive product in the marketplace. This is a very different situation from other fields where you really can get a patent for a mechanical or electronic thing and then have the patent as a tool for negotiation w/ manufacturers.
Yes. We probably need a brand new category for software; something that grants protection faster, expires sooner, makes it easy to other people to implement after expiration, and has independent invention as a positive defense.
If only it were that simple: one of the first, pragmatic challenges to this process would be to define a software patent. Remember that algorithms are not supposed to be patentable, so most of these "software" patents actually include elements of hardware, however broad.
That's similar to how Apple used a 15 year old patent against HTC, even though it had nothing to do with the iPhone. They used a, for most intents and purposes, very irrelevant patent, to keep HTC from competing with them against the iPhone (or make them pay dearly for it).
I was looking at a face recognition patent that was filed by the US by a Japanese company in 1998 that was finally issued in 2006. Eight years is a very long time in the fast moving software industry -- even if you get lucky and your patent granted in two years, it's quite possible that your invention is obsolete by the time you get your patent.
Given that software is so fast paced, most organizations that expect to be "practicing entities" find the patent application to be a distraction from the task of getting a competitive product in the marketplace. This is a very different situation from other fields where you really can get a patent for a mechanical or electronic thing and then have the patent as a tool for negotiation w/ manufacturers.