The End of Software Patents

Junction Networks is a software company and our Hosted PBX product, OnSIP, is 100% software based. Therefore, software patent reform is a high priority for us. Even though we are based primarily on in-house software and OpenSource software, we are not immune to software patents.

In my opinion, software patents are akin to patenting ideas. One my favorite business books is The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski. In one chapter the author traces the history of the patent of the paperclip. If we had software-like patents in the late 1800's, then the first person to patent the "idea" of fastening two or more pieces of paper would have received that patent and today we'd be stuck with fastening paper together with hat pins.

Instead of encouraging innovation, software patents stifle them. It makes it difficult for any software company to write anything new as some low-level part of the functioning of the software may already be patented.

Luckly, there is a legal case coming to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's (CAFC). This case, if won, could cause the end of software patents and the return of billions of dollars to the economy and out of the legal system/patent troll's coffers.