Comp 317/417: Ethics & Law in Computer Science
Paper 3: Software Patents
Due: Friday, April 13, submitted by email or blackboard
Write on ONE of the two topics below:
Do software patents help or harm progress
Do software patents foster innovation? Do they encourage
invention and investment in invention, leading to more
software ideas for everyone?
Or do they retard invention? Do they tie up ideas
for the duration of the patent?
Discuss both sides, and come to some sort of conclusion
(not necessarily either/or). Feel free to consider both
intentional consequences of the patent system (the monopoly to the inventor)
and "unintentional consequences" (eg the litigation costs).
Also, be sure to consider the consequences for business,
in addition to users.
Software patents and open source
Discuss ways in which the open-source community can and/or should
respond to software patents, both in the immediate case when a given
algorithm or standard is patented (eg mp3) and also for the
long term. Try to take into account the practicalities of
enforcement, and the possibility that a server making a given
package available might be located in a country that does not
recognize software patents.
You might also consider, in the other direction,
the option of bulk negotiated licenses and how licenses
might be sold to individual users.
Try to consider both individual end (desktop) users and
use of linux as a corporate server.