can you imagine if every RFC had been turned into a patent where we would be today?
i think this alone should be telling of how every software patent rides on the goodwill of a culture of open source and standardization that has existed for decades (when true innovation was taking place).
it's complete insanity that patents can be granted for inventions which rely so fundamentally on an infrastructure which could have only been built so successfully - and explicitly - without them.
A substantial part of the work that resulted in the RFCs happened pursuant to federal funding before December 1980. This is significant because prior to December 1980, the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, inventions developed in federally funded programs had to be assigned to the government. Therefore, there was little incentive to patent those inventions.
If the developments had happened today, at MIT, BBN, etc, they would be patented.
Are there any studies that do a deep analysis of the impact of the Bayh-Dole Act? Were there any benefits? If not, is this an act that we should lobby to undo?
i think this alone should be telling of how every software patent rides on the goodwill of a culture of open source and standardization that has existed for decades (when true innovation was taking place).
it's complete insanity that patents can be granted for inventions which rely so fundamentally on an infrastructure which could have only been built so successfully - and explicitly - without them.