John Dvorak argues, “Microsoft will eventually learn that software patents are going to ruin the company.”
With the continued proliferation of software patents, small developers are going to have a handful of choices. Some are:
* Go more to the leading edge and claim as many patents as possible, partnering or leasing the patents to groups that litigate. Only a few will go this route, but if a few win big, it’ll attract even more to this model.
* Develop “safe” apps only that are essentially extensions of platforms developed by other companies. The most likely outcome. The small developers provide customization and the large companies sell and provide the foundation.
* Stay the course and license patents as needed. Likely for the next five to ten years. The cost of developing is going to put the squeeze on the small developers. Partnering with large companies, universities or other entities will be key to survival.
Microsoft is a large company which produces lots and lots of patents through its research division and buys out companies which produce killer apps for its platforms (PowerPoint, Great Plains, Bungie, etc).
Ironically, it is the little guys in the software industry that are hurt the most by open source and patents. Microsoft is a big target, but it is a well-defended target. They have an army of lawyers and billions of dollars. Little guys are much easier targets. They only have a few million, but they would settle before giving it all to a lawyer. Open source software provides lots of alternates in the market and lowers the perceived value of software by the masses.
Basically, FOSS forces smaller vendors to become niche players like vendors or contractors with larger organizations as their clients.
The key to survival for Microsoft will be in making good acquisitions and building good partnerships and innovating to make their software better. And MS is acquiring an army of patents.
There are a million different ways to implement an algorithm in Knuth’s book… certainly few of them have been patented (and since the book has been published for several years, it sets a standard for prior art). So it’s pretty safe to be a software engineer and do things “by the book”.
Since the algorithms used are developed under schedule pressure by a unique team of developers and designers and testers, it’s extraordinarily difficult to prove that anything was in violation of a patent… And internal documentation would almost certainly prove that the opposite was the case. That’s a big benefit to having closed sources… The source can be used as a defense. You can’t just supina MS for 65 million lines of code to go on a fishing expedition… And it would be awfully hard to prove that MS did do something the way your patent describes.
Experienced developers take months or years to get up to speed on large projects. And although lawyers might be smart, a 4 year degree in CS and 5-10 years of experience in the industry as an average developer at Microsoft would make you able to think on your own two feet and creatively solve problems in ways that are patentable. I don’t expect that MS solves problems exactly the same way that someone else patented years before unless it was either obvious, or coincidental… Developers don’t spend their days reading patents to learn how to solve problems. They solve problems. And MS is smart, it has a goal of a few thousand patents per year, and it is growing its patent arsenal faster than any other tech company.
Speaking of solving problems… I need to solve a few ones with my new tablet (M200)… But I can’t seem to stop playing inkball…