KVR Audio

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:18 pm

Will Software patents have an affect on free open source DAW's in any way?

What are your thoughts on feature related software patents?

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:35 pm

Why repeat what is already written elsewhere...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent_debate

Since math is not patentable, neither is software

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent

U.S. patent law excludes "abstract ideas", and this has been used to refuse some patents involving software. In Europe, "computer programs as such" are excluded from patentability

Currently innovative software is being developed. So there's no problem. Imho ofcourse.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:51 pm

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Jul 08, 2016 5:04 pm

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimf ... _and_cons/

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/16/6152655/yo ... re-patents

http://www.vaslaw.com/PracticeAreas/Pat ... aQod7d0B3A

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimf ... now_their/

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/ ... /?sort=new

"A Brief History of Software Patents in the US.

US Patent law expressly forbids patenting mathematical formulae/equations. (Way back when.)

All algorithms are proven to be mathematically equivalent to mathematical formulae/equations (early/mid-1900s).

Somebody figures out that if they submit an algorithm to a patent office with the magic words "physically realized on a computer" (or some such suitable phrase), it goes through. (Early 1960s I think.)

People start accepting these as valid/reasonable patents -- including the USPTO. (late 1900s.)

The floodgates open up (late 90s/2000s mainly).

(Present day) It becomes virtually impossible to create a computer program without infringing on somebody's patent, even if you make 100% of it up yourself. All commercially produced software infringes on tons of patents. People get around this by either (1) paying royalties (more rare) or (2) huge companies agree not to sue each other because both infringe so many of the others' patents. (Naturally, small companies and individuals don't have either option.)"

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:36 pm

Software Patent Debate

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Dh5NjlZMk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aiKRt3-FbM0

No_Use · Post by **No_Use** » Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:59 pm

Not a DAW, but here`s an (old) example where a dev has pulled back a free plugin because of patent (dynamic convolution)

http://www.pcjv.de/vst-plugins/

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:16 pm

The bully boys in suits & tie always ruin it. Patents, licenses... it's not part of a world us jeans wearers like to live in. So then we answered with open source, copyleft etc. A well known licensing scheme is WPFTL. Google it. It has one clause, numbered zero.
If you like it a little more restrictive, the DBAD license is good as well.

Anyway, I feel sorry for you americans.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:56 pm

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Mon Jul 11, 2016 4:48 am

Who knew you could make more money arguing than providing a functional resource?

JohnD71651 · Post by **JohnD71651** » Mon Jul 11, 2016 3:33 pm

Quite off-topic for an audio forum, I guess. Anyway, the problem is demonstrably massive. Just check out EFF's stupid patent of the month section if you don't believe me.

Software patents are currently one of the biggest obstacles to technological advance and development, particularly in the US where there are countless patent trolls and companies have managed to get ridiculous "do something obvious that everybody does, but on some sort of 'device'' patents through. These patents are mostly invalid, but in order to actually get them declared invalid, a company has spend millions of dollars in lawsuits.

Start-up companies in the US nowadays calculate around 5 million dollars during the initial phase just for paying fees to patent trolls or dealing with lawsuits, in addition to all other costs. To give you an example of how well the patent system works, Austin Meyer, the creator of the popular flight simulator X-Plane was sued for not paying licence fees to a patent troll, because he used Android's in-app purchase functionality for his mobile version of the simulator. He's fighting the patent troll for years now and has spent insane amounts of lawyer fees already. (He joined an alliance of smaller developers, though.)

The good news is that for sheer luck the audio software world seems to have been saved from patent trolls so far.

The bad news is that this could change any time. Given the current state of the patent system, you can be almost certain that pretty much every plugin and every DAW falls under hundreds of bogus patents. That's because there are 6 million patents in the US alone, and you can bet that more than just a few hundreds of thousands of them are 'software patents' (i.e., describing math or abstract procedures implemented on some generic 'devices' or as a business method).

It helps to be a small developer who doesn't earn much, because most patent trolls will check that they can actually extort a decent amount of money from you before they try. But don't count on it, businesses have also received huge patent fee request for scanning documents and sending them per email.

That being said, it's not the end of the world. The only thing an end-consumer will ever realize from this is higher software prices.

Will software patents have an affect on free or open source DAW's?