Mark Pilgrim responds to Microsoft's patent-infringement assault on Linux with a bit of autobiography:

My name is on a software patent. It happened during my brief tenure at IBM.... No one had done this exact thing, in this exact way, for this exact purpose, before we did. The patent was original, it was innovative, and it was still shameful.

UPDATE: There's a good history of Microsoft's war on open-source at Roughly Drafted.

"When you see a big company threatening patent suits, sell": Paul Graham on software patents, for all you patent fans out there.

If you thought comic book blogging was obscure

Just posted this on the Washington Monthly site but thought I'd do it here too.

Not to belabor this whole patent business, but it's good to see the New York Times get into the game today, with an editorial($) that hits pretty much all the key points.

Ironically, the Times also has a news story today that offers a near-perfect example of the harm that over-broad patents can do. A new study suggests flaws in a test for mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes--mutations which have been linked to breast cancer. But a Utah bio-tech company called Myriad Genetics holds the patents on that test, and on any testing for BRCA1 and 2. So without Myriad's permission, no one can develop a more accurate test (or a cheaper one--Myriad charges about one third again as much as some university researchers used to). And frequently that permission isn't granted: several researchers told me they'd given up studying the BRCA genes after getting cease-and-desist letters from Myriad.

What the Times doesn't mention is that the European patent office has revoked Myriad's patents, concluding, essentially, that Myriad's contribution to the ongoing research which ultimately allowed them to isolate the BRCA genes was not significant enough to merit giving them monopoly rights to any use of the genes. Europe's patent laws are less business-friendly than ours, but some American experts argue that the US patents are equally faulty. So the patents should perhaps have never been granted at all. If they hadn't, we might be catching more cases of breast cancer.

Patently Absurd

Just posted the thing below at the Washington Monthly site. But I thought I'd post it here too.


There's been alot of concern lately about the prospect that the BlackBerry might soon be brought down by a "patent troll" -- in this case, a small Virginia company, NTP, which holds a patent on wireless email technology and is now suing RIM, the BlackBerry's maker, after it refused to pay NTP a licensing fee.

This Slate piece does a good job of capturing the issues in play, but I'd argue with its contention that the problem is confined to the software industry. In fact, over-broad and possibly invalid patents stifle innovation in a range of fields, and the negative human consequences in areas like bio-technology are more immediate, and perhaps more damaging, than in software.

Take breast cancer research. As we reported in The Monthly last year, one company, Myriad Genetics, holds a patent on the study of a gene, BRCA1 known to cause breast cancer. Women who want to get tested for the gene have to go thru Myriad, and pay a much higher price for the test thanks to Myriad's monopoly. Worse, researchers trying to create a better test, that could more accurately identify BRCA1, routinely receive cease and desist letters from Myriad's lawyers. One scientist at U Penn told me she'd moved on to other projects thanks to Myriad constantly hassling her.

Of course, without the incentive of a patent, companies like Myriad wouldn't conduct life-saving research. But in fact, a consortium of scientists from across the world was working to sequence BRCA1. Myriad's founder, Mark Skolnick was part of that group, and he used the group's work as a foundation before crossing the final hurdle himself. No one doubts that, absent Skolnick's work, the consortium would have got there soon afterwards.

In other words, a crucial area of breast cancer research is now effectively closed off to all but one for-profit company, despite the fact that thier "invention" would surely have soon been developed without them. And just as with software patents, at the root of the problem is a patent system that makes patents too easy to acquire, and gives patent-holders overly broad rights. Tell me how that promotes innovation again.