Naval Postgraduate School
Fall 2007

CS3610: Information Crime, Law and Ethics

Nov 13, 2007

Patents

Seminar 14 <<                     Seminar 15                    >> Seminar 16
[wiki]

On Tuesday's class I'll give an introduction to patent law. In the meantime, please read these articles:

Required Reading

This is a really interesting article that I came across from South Africa, which does a good job explaining the patent system from a non-US point of view. I found it while looking for a short tutorial on patent law for the class. I haven't read it through all the way, but scanned it and think that it will be a good point for us to begin our discussions.

Mostly Optional

If you are not familiar with the software patent issue, these articles will put it into perspective. The first is an early anti-software patent opinion piece that I wrote with Richard Stallman. It does a good job of summarizing the anti-patent argument---an argument that's as valid today as it was then.

There have been calls for reforms. Here is Pam Samuelson looking at the issue in 2004: This year, there have been several court cases that have limited the scope of software patents. Samuelson previewed them in her Febrary 2007 column; the actual decision came out in April (it's below). I also found this fascinating software patent article from 1971. It's worth reading, as most people don't realize that this is an old problem:

Optional Reading