Category Archives: Software

Software

How to Fix Software Patents

November 14, 2011 – 10:16 am

Much has been written about software patents in the recent months. As we watch high profile lawsuits ravage across the globe burning time, focus and attention from many of the largest players in the mobile space it’s clear that the existing patent system isn’t working. Kevin Marks’ recent post inspired me to write down some of the thoughts I had for how to fix the patent system so it works for software. While some call for abolishing software patents, I think that’s an extreme response, and loses all the intended benefits.

Before I start, I feel it’s necessary to clarify that I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on the Internet. This represents my view alone, and not the view of my employer or anyone else associated with me. It’s provided as is and confers no rights so please don’t sue me :)

What Should a Patent System Accomplish: Encourage Innovation for the benefit of society

The purpose of any system for intellectual copyright is to encourage innovation for the benefit of society. This, in my mind, is the end goal. This is where I’ve seen many commentators getting confused. Rewarding the innovator is a means to an end, not the end in itself. It so happens that up until now we’ve been successful in harnessing market forces so that ‘benefit to society’ and ‘benefit to the innovator’ are closely aligned – a software patent version of Adam Smith’s invisible hand if you will. With the increased frequency and size of patent tussles I’m afraid that the existing system no longer rewards the innovator for innovating. Instead it rewards companies for hiring lawyers to write patents and sue (or get license fees from) those patents.

The Two Biggest Dangers With Our Current System

  1. Large Companies Stifling Innovation: This is seen often today through the use of patents to prevent innovation from disrupting an established lucrative market long after the novelty of their invention has faded. It’s also seen as once dominant players attempting to claw back financial rewards from a market where they’ve ceased to offer competitive and innovative solutions.
  2. Patent Trolls: Companies whose only product is the legal fees they receive from those who are developing and iterating on useful solutions. These ‘non-practicing entities’ impose a tax on an entire market, and slow down the pace of innovation of even the largest companies.

3 Steps to Fix the Software Patent System

By adopting these three simple rules I believe the industry will go a long way towards encouraging innovation:

  1. Limit the timeframe on patents to 1 year: Innovation in the technology sector is so fast that what was new a year ago is now outdated and in need of replacement. By limiting patents to a year this allows innovators to profit from truly novel inventions, but also encourages them to continue innovating to stay ahead of their rivals.
  2. A patent can’t be enforced unless you have a product on the market: If a company has no product on the market, then it’s not participating in advancing innovation in a meaningful way, and it also cannot show harm to any business other than that of being a patent troll. Combined with the time limit on patents this will encourage companies to build and iterate quickly.
  3. Patents can’t be enforced on companies with under 100 employees: To encourage new entrants into a market, patents shouldn’t be enforced on startups. This levels the playing field by balancing the scale and reach of large companies with the nimbleness of their smaller rivals.
I strongly believe that with these three modifications the patent system can serve the software industry well. There is of course the open question of copyright laws, in particular as it relates to the aesthetics of user interface design. At least right now this doesn’t appear to be a major threat to innovation, and I believe it’s important to allow for companies to offer a coherent and meaningful brand to consumers.
What do you think about these three steps to fixing the software patent system?
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Software

Dear OneNote, I love you but I think we should see other people

July 7, 2011 – 12:30 pm
OneNote, I think we should see other people

OneNote, I think we should see other people

My love affair with OneNote started in 2002 when I got my hands on a beta of this amazing new product that would become part of Office 2003. It was fast, lightweight and made it easy to organize everything from meeting notes, brainstorming, todo lists and, well… my life. In a world of slow and complicated desktop software OneNote was a shining beacon of what the best desktop software could become. And as a newly anointed Getting Things Done acolyte I embraced OneNote with somewhat of a religious fervor.

And OneNote kept getting better – the team released features (yes features!) with a service pack. I can still recall the glee at finally being able to title sub pages – it’s the little things… The team listened to requests and complaints with an empathy I’ve never seen from anyone at Microsoft before, and even as my honeymoon period with OneNote ended my love for the product deepened.

OneNote always seemed ahead of the curve. It embraced sharing long before Google Docs, it synchronized data seamlessly across PCs and eschewed complicated SharePoint integration for the simplicity of files in a shared folder. While at Microsoft I was even blessed enough to work on the OneNote web app.
But the other day I realized I hadn’t opened OneNote for a while. It wasn’t just the bulging notebook full of years of notes and actions that was keeping me away either – OneNote had lost some of it’s magic. It hadn’t kept up with what I needed it for. This has become starkly evident as I plan a trip taking just my iPad, not my laptop.
So, my love, it’s with a heavy heart that I must tell you, “It’s not working anymore. I’ve found someone else.”

Frustrations with OneNote

OneNote, I feel as though you don’t care about me like you used to.
  • No iPad app - The iPhone app was a nice gesture, but I’ve moved on to the iPad and a magnified iPhone app just doesn’t cut it.
  • No Android support - Almost half of all smartphones are Android, really, what are you waiting for?
Really, I could stop there, because those are the main reasons I’ve left OneNote – all the others are complaints and grumbles that any good relationship has.
  • The Ribbon - You took away what made OneNote special by making it another bland enterprise app, and ate up a good portion of my screen real estate. Your once shining feature of tags is but a shadow of it’s former self, hidden within the ribbon
  • Slowing down in your old age - You’re still faster than your Office brethren, but you now have a loading splash screen when you start up
  • Vertical Text for Notebooks - This was cool in the 2000s, but it’s 2011 now.
  • Collaboration, where art thou? - I had my first magical collaboration experience in OneNote, but my last magical experience was in Google Docs. The new commenting system in Google Docs is light years ahead, and makes it possible to collaborate together through partially formed thoughts to a finished document. If I’m not using OneNote for collaboration, and can’t use it on my mobile devices, when should I use it?
  • Blogs, what are those? - Much of my writing these days is for the eventual purpose of posting to a blog. OneNote doesn’t do a great job preserving formatting when I manually transfer it to WordPress. So much so that I’d rather write it in the WordPress editor than use OneNote

Moving to Evernote

It’s pretty clear that Evernote is not as polished as OneNote, but I’ve paid for a year’s premium subscription because it gives me what I need and I’ve discovered a few unexpected gems
  • iPad and Android apps - Yes! Thank you.
  • Sort notes by date created - This is surprisingly awesome. I’m not quite sure how I can go back to a system that doesn’t allow this
  • Really simple checkboxes - The kind that are easy to use on my phone. I think this gets my todo list out of Google Docs (and all the other task services I’ve tried)
  • Word count built in - Really useful. I get grumpy when I have to hunt down plugins, and then reinstall them on every new PC I use.
  • Near perfect paste into WordPress – Apart from the lack of h tags, the paste was surprisingly perfect. I’ve found my blog drafting tool
OneNote, we’ve had a good run. I’ll be spending some time with you to move out my things. I’ll sort through the memories, and keep those that still hold meaning. I hope you find someone that is right for you.
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