There is a lot of talk of software patents and their use. By the definition of use in most cases to be their potential to allow the inventor to gain financially for the invention(s). This in essence is a great thing and should be applauded, as a society we absolutely require innovation to succeed, however there is a dark side.
The darker side is patent trolls or similar groups who in fact buy patents or trade in them as stocks in many cases. The idea is that these companies effectively ransom other companies with threats of litigation, manufacturing production stoppages etc. This is in fact doing the opposite of allowing innovation to flourish.
So what as an individual, do I think about all of this and as an inventor in many patents how do I square the circle for myself ? Well in the case of the maidsafe inventions I feel that spending over a decade creating the ideas and formulating the outline of what looks to be a world changing technology deserves a reward. I also know this reward can never buy back the years I have lost as a person with relationships, family etc. but that is beside the point. I also know the reward is likely to be a non financial one for me, as I have designed it to be and this is completely as I wish it to be.
In the case of patents and maidsafe, where I feel we sit at the moment is that maidsafe through the perpetual data product will provide for the first time in the history of Information Technology a sea change so significant it will rock the very foundations of many existing business models. To effect this the business behind the technology will have to be rock solid committed to a vision of privacy, freedom and security for all the worlds people as it's fundamental goal. This means the end of monitoring, theft, data mining etc. on individuals and this will impact on how companies behave with user interactions.
If maidsafe technology was able to be adopted, extended and effectively destroyed by larger corporations then the network would fail maidsafe in achieving it's vision. Therefor a very strong patent portfolio is required to ensure the vision is reached and this can be done via patent protection amongst many other things (particularly innovating at speed and developing newer better products continually). I should also say our patents are extremely far removed from many existing software patents that make the news. They are in the extreme, novel and innovative and certainly not obvious by any stretch of imagination. I feel we have very strong and acceptable inventions and not legally protected obvious enhancements to existing technology, as that is the cause of much of the software patent debacle.
There is an issue though and one which will require very solid management over time as the company extends it's reach into the community, and this issue is. How do we ensure we never stand in the way of innovation and ensure we do not block other inventions destined to provide value for people?
That is a huge question and one which we cannot afford to get wrong, there are many ideas like license to larger companies as is done now. This is pretty simple and seems to work very well, but what of the smaller companies or stand alone inventors or Open Source products ? This is where the larger issues may in fact prove to be a management challenge for us and one that will be extremely important, we can never hold these innovators back or we will be defeating our own vision.
One resolution will be without doubt well published API's to allow extension of products like Perpetual Data and this is key and will help everyone. If these API's are very deep in the product then many interesting enhancements will be developed, of that I am sure. However, what if somebody creates a better Perpetual Data application with our API's ? My personal opinion would be, great if it meets our vision and goals then let's run with it, and why do the developers not work for us ? In addition this is a fundamental issue that will require some careful negotiating and tough decisions. I imagine maidsafe will lobby very hard for feedback on the interaction and adoption of 3rd party developers even in cases where revenue streams (if any) are overlapping.
API's are not the complete answer though and eventually Open Source and no patents may prove to be the answer, although I feel between 100% open source and 100% proprietary, there is a better answer or a new mechanism and we need to find it. With effectively more than 70% of the base of the maidsafe platform currently Open Source, the company has shown foresight in this area, but there are questions to be answered!
I will continue this discussion in further posts relating to patents, IPR in general and the positive manner in which they can be used.
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