Monday, January 16, 2012
non-obvious enough for a patent
I don't think its fair to ask this question by looking back. It would seem obvious to us now, and I don't think there is a good way to tell if the process was obvious or not when the patent was taken out. Other people have come up with proccesses of creating photomosaics since then. I think that the process may have been non-obvious enough for a patent, but that doesn't mean I think he should have patented the process.
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If it was non-obvious enough to warrant a patent, why shouldn't he have patented it? Had he not patented it, someone might have come along and patented it and then he wouldn't have gotten any money. The whole reason patents exist is to give money to those inventors who innovatively view the world around them.
ReplyDeleteOther people have come up with processes of creating photomosaics, yes, but isn't it possible that the only reason those programs were written by imitating Silvers' algorithm?
I think that that patrick's problem with the patent has more to do with whether the process is an abstract idea or a concrete "object" for lack of a better word. I think that having a patent on software is not the best idea in thie world but since we have already started to patent software I don't think it will be undone anytime soon.
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