“App developers are withdrawing their products for sale from the US versions of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market for fear of being sued by companies which own software patents – just as a Mumbai-based company has made a wide-ranging claim against Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo and a number of other companies over Twitter-style feeds, for which it claims it has applied for a patent.”
Thank goodness Thom is here to preach against patents every hour. We might actually have to read tech news otherwise.
Software patents are the biggest threat to independent developers and competition today. This has just as much place in technology news – if not more so – than news stories about Microsoft’s unfair practices back in the day.
You are free not to read any of this. However, your waterfall of comments seem to imply that you are actually quite interested in this subject, too.
Even FOSS developers are affected.
Really cool interviev with Bob Jacobson
http://twit.tv/floss117
he had to 100k+ to defend against SW patents just because he was the steward of a FOSS project and was sued.
SW patents should be considered harmful.
Certainly, Stallman warned about software patents back in 2002 (and likely earlier) as to how it was the biggest threat to not only open source, but all software development.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html
Once again Thom, I just want to let you know how grateful I am that you are covering these patent stories. Please continue. Ignore the shills working for Microsoft and Apple who come on this site and tell you to stop exposing the rotten legal tactics of their corporate masters.
This is tech news. It impacts the tech you and I use on daily basis.
Only now the patent lawsuits and deals are applied to smaller organisations and are more public than before.
And I thought I was alone.
I upvoted you.
Cheers,
Stathis
You’re obviously an Apple Inc sock puppet. I noticed you only joined three weeks ago when Apple patents started to be discussed.
Tipping point? REALLY? This article mentions maybe 5 developers who stopped for these reasons, however, it doesn’t offer any statistics, nor any real references to back up claims.
I’d agree that software patents suck, but this article implies the App store in US has been abandoned, however, where is the proof?
It’s written as bait, and I wish OSAlert would only repost articles which included credible evidence. In fact, the only statistics included is for a developer, whose sales are mainly international anyway. This article should have only been posted on OSAlert if there was reliable estimates of how many were leaving, or a survey made to see how many left. But the way it is, there is no evidence that more than a handful left.
I also feel the article is blowing things up. On the other hand, I really do hope that more developers leave the US market. And I really do hope that this hurts the US. Even though I realise this will only hurt the US if bigger players move away from the US market, which is highly unlikely.
I agree it will be interesting to see some statistics on this especially graphed over time and correlated with patent judgements and new lawsuit launches.
In the end though it seems a rather logical and eventual result. If the legal liability is too much in the U.S. companies will eventually just drop the U.S. market for it’s products. The current patent system (along with other legal costs such as frivolous lawsuits) just adds another cost of doing business in the U.S. The biggest problem is that cost is NOT predictable and has been shown it can be rather high. Considering the dropping revenues for most vendors due to the poor economic climate, I would not be surprised to see less and less vendors decide to market their products in the U.S. It’s really not that hard to track, the formula is not very complex. Putting values in for the variables, now that is another thing entirely.
A tipping point is not absolute, but realitive.
Observe:
Example 1:
The tipping point for the Smith’s foreclosure, was the increase in the ARM interest rate.
Does that mean that every foreclosure was due to an increase in interest rates? Does this mean that everyone defaulted on their mortgage? No. Just for the smiths.
Example 2:
The tipping point was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the worldwide economy was doomed after that.
Does that mean that it was the tipping point for the entire economy? Obviously, yes.
The tipping point Thom refers to is a bit ambigeous, but I’d say its more of the first kind than the second. However, just as many of the first example led to the second example. There can be other, larger effects and tipping points of more drastic impact, if the pattern continues and more software developers avoid the US market over software patents.
We need a foreign company to host a service where by you can publish software under their name and be kept anonymous. Needs to be in a country that has no crappy laws over software patents. All this will do is drive developers and companies out of the country. Just like cheap labor drove out manufacturing because our government was stupid. This will just hurt the US.
GetJar!
That’s exactly why Android is so good. Because you can download an application from anywhere to anywhere, install it on the microSD card, run it from the microSD card and give the finger to the patent holders or to the app stores that force the patents on you.
In addition GetJar is in a country with no respect for software patents in law or practical cases.
Even I will admit the lack of news other than patent related has been lacking lately. I appreciate the cause whole heartedly, but if we’re going to only discuss patents now maybe a sister site is in order.
Buy the domain PatentNews.com (or something like it). I will visit every day. Maybe you could attract a patent lawyer to go through the legal docs for us.
I really do agree with the attention all of this deserves, but sometimes I just want techie news that is surrounded by a governments broken system.
As a years-long reader and software developer, I can only encourage Thom’s activism on software patents. They imperialize what are mathematical truths, what is trivial, and what is common-sense. As an additional problem, small companies and individual developers can hardly defend themselves due to the costs associated with registering a patent, and trolls to which you can not defend unless you have deep pockets.
Software patents stifle innovation, and are mostly used as a system of tech giants to shut down innovative new competitors, and as a means of trolls to get money.
The situation is getting worse and worse (at least in the US). Hopefully, it will be possible to end software patents sometime soon in Europe. However, it will become harder by the day, since the investments also become bigger.
However, I like the suggestion made by another commenter to make something like ‘patentnews.com’ (which is reserved) which is focused on patents, and aggregate the headlines to OSAlert in some fashion.
LOL, are you serious? Whining about something on a blog is not what I would consider activism. It’s more like wasting time.
I sort of like the posts about patents, this website is becoming a great source to keep up with everything.
Thom forgive me.
It might be beside the point.
You very recently bought a Apple ipad and a Macbook Air not very long before that. You are more knowledgable about these stuff than most and regularly lambast these companies but still you do support their products.
Maybe if i say look at the monster you help created this would not totally be unfair.
Yes you can buy what you want that’s not the issue..just saying.
Appreciate your advocacy on patent reform.
Edited 2011-07-16 19:18 UTC
Haha… vs. what, a laptop with an Intel chipset? Arm? AMD? Something running Windows? Android?
Short of finding a machine with open-source chipset design, unencumbered materials and manufacturing processes, and FOSS only running on it, you’re helped feed the patent monster.
And if you have anything with electronics and software, ANY phone, etc., you’re just a patent supporting fool, right? Or is there a difference between Microsoft suing DR over GEM vs. Apple suing HTC now?
This system is foisted on us until it collapses under its own ridiculous weight, and Thom buying an iPad hasn’t made a bit of difference.
This is not just Company A and Company B that use the same generic pc parts. Nor is its legal dept. behaviour the same. In the end the profit company A makes goes into a warchest used for patent behaviour such in this case.
On one sale does not make a difference. I bet everyone is saying this. I even heard that when people decide not to vote because their one vote will not make a difference.