Software Patents stifling innovation

I like this post from Leonard Lin. a former Yahoo employee from the acquisition of Upcoming.org. Its found at Andy Baio's opinion piece on Wired

certainly everyone in the industry, knows that the patent system is completely broken. For those that don't, the recent This American Life episode "When Patents Attack" (http://www.thisamericanlife.or... ) is a good start.

One thing not explicitly laid out in that show, is just how bad it is. While the focus is on patent trolls (NPEs) I guarantee you that in the tech industry, and probably most others, *everything is infringing*. Of course, as an implementor, you're not allowed to look at patents anyway (what was the point of them again?) because of enhanced damages of willfull infringement, but the fact of the matter is that with complex technical systems, there are too many parts for any of it to be un-patented (especially since patents are handed out like candy - average review time is what, less than 16hrs?).
Those unfamiliar with the phenomenon of the "tragedy of the anticommons" (the negatives of over-fractionalized ownership) may want to take a look at Michael Heller's book The Gridlock Economy (alternatively, his 1997 paper The Tragedy of the Anticommons http://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/p... or his Google Book Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... )
At the end of the day, the current patent system a huge albatross hanging around the neck of all industries dependent on technical innovation/creativity (i.e. the entire knowledge economy). Numbers like half a trillion dollars are thrown around for costs just from patent trolls (http://articles.businessinside... ) but if anyone were to do a larger study, I think the actual innovation/productivity cost would be many, many times higher.
In terms of reforming the system, at the minimum, enforcing FRAND licensing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... ), disallowing suits by Non-Practicing Entities, and allowing Independent Invention as a defense (http://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/... ) seem to be no-brainers, but it seems like the only hope for reform is when it gets more expensive to fight these lawsuits than to actually try to reform the patent system.

You code like a Klingon

Source

You learn something new every day, thanks to Not Invented Here

var'aq is a speculative exercise in language creation: what does a programming language used by Klingons look like? It is a real programming language (not just a toy) that tries to imagine what it's like to be a hacker of the best-documented alien race in science fiction.

I think it should be called K# or K Sharp. Sharp like a Bath'leth

eDiscovery software

Interesting article from NYT at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

E-discovery technologies generally fall into two broad categories that can be described as “linguistic” and “sociological.”
The most basic linguistic approach uses specific search words to find and sort relevant documents. More advanced programs filter documents through a large web of word and phrase definitions. A user who types “dog” will also find documents that mention “man’s best friend” and even the notion of a “walk.”
The sociological approach adds an inferential layer of analysis, mimicking the deductive powers of a human Sherlock Holmes. Engineers and linguists at Cataphora, an information-sifting company based in Silicon Valley, have their software mine documents for the activities and interactions of people — who did what when, and who talks to whom. The software seeks to visualize chains of events. It identifies discussions that might have taken place across e-mail, instant messages and telephone calls.
Then the computer pounces, so to speak, capturing “digital anomalies” that white-collar criminals often create in trying to hide their activities.
For example, it finds “call me” moments — those incidents when an employee decides to hide a particular action by having a private conversation. This usually involves switching media, perhaps from an e-mail conversation to instant messaging, telephone or even a face-to-face encounter.

An (un)reasonable agreement

I love the idea of the reasonable agreement by the small print project
http://smallprint.netzoo.net/reag/

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