Stallman advocates changes to the patent system

With a opinion piece For Wired, Richard Stallman has proposed a method to change the patent system in a way that he claimed would make software patents (or "patents for computational ideas," as he calls them) less of a problem for developers of free and open source software.

According to the founder of the Free Software Foundation, modifying the scope of patentability for ideas, as is often suggested by patent reformers, would not produce satisfactory results. He is of the opinion that such a change would only lead lawyers to rethink patent applications to work with the new regulations. Stallman also says that due to the large number of software patents already in place, it would take about 20 years for the change to show any effect; furthermore, "legislating the abolition of these patents already granted is probably unconstitutional."

Stallman's solution to patent reform does not involve changing the way patents are granted, but rather limiting their scope: “My suggestion is to change the effect of patents. We must create laws that state that developing, distributing, or running a program on commonly used hardware is not patent infringement. " Changing the scope of the patent system in this way would also affect existing patents and does not require legislators and inventors to differentiate between software and hardware patents. Stallman is also of the opinion that patent attorneys could not defeat this new approach by changing the way they write patent applications.

My suggestion is to change the effect of patents.

In his article, Stallman does not clearly specify what exactly constitutes "commonly used hardware" and how it is determined to be distinct from "purpose-built hardware," and that it would still fall under patent protection. Nor does it explain how the current battlefield of lawyers, judges and legislators, who are constantly arguing about how much and what kind of code can be patented, will not be displaced by new disagreements about what exactly constitutes 'widely used hardware'. «.

Source: The H Open