Software Is Not An Idea

“But intellectual property law is not the only way to provide such incentives. Ideas, for example, cannot be patented. Yet university professors churn out hundreds of thousands of publications each year that are full of ideas, both good and bad. The social norms in academia, among them citation requirements and plagiarism taboos, seem to work pretty well.”

Why That Hoodie Your Son Wears Isn’t Trademarked - New York Times

(Via cmdln.)

I wish someone would tell the proponents of software patents that ideas can’t be patented. What is the position of the majority of pro software patent people? Is it that ideas can in fact be patented, or is it what I thought it has been for a while; software is not an idea but something more akin to physical invention?

I’ve always had a pretty simple view of this question; if you consider mathematics to be a field of ideas that should not qualify for patent protection, software should also be safe.

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software, patents