Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!xavax!alvitar
From: alvitar@xavax.com (Phillip Harbison)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Patents and Architecture
Message-ID: <1990Jun28.072137.14985@xavax.com>
Date: 28 Jun 90 07:21:37 GMT
Followup-To: comp.arch
Organization: Xavax
Lines: 28

In article <1990Jun26.234134.2302@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
writes:
> Every patent creates a potential for litigation, a need for
> paperwork, and a bit of an impediment to progress.  The patent
> ought to be significant enough to make the hassle worthwhile.

I think you've touched on the core of the problem.  The intent of the
patent law was to encourage progress, not impede it.  Legislators
thought that by rewarding an inventor with a temporary monopoly, the
profits arising from this monopoly would encourage more invention.  In
those days, progress was slow and time periods like 7 or 17 years may
have seemed like a short time.  In modern times, an entire industry
can appear, expand, flourish, decline, and fade from existence in less
than 17 years.  Perhaps we need to modify the patent laws to shorten
the time period of exclusive use.  For computer-related patents, a
period of a year or two would probably be sufficient.  Of course this
would not effect existing patents (no ex post facto laws, doncha know :-).

I believe that patents such as the XOR cursor, using address lines
that bypass the MMU as DRAM row addresses, etc. impede progress in
our industry.  Technology has become so complicated that the patent
office must either hire a larger host of engineers and programmers,
or allow that a few bad claims will get past the examiners.

-- 
Live: Phil Harbison, Xavax, P.O. Box 7413, Huntsville, AL 35807
Uucp: alvitar@xavax.com
Bell: 205-883-4233, 205-880-8951