EA has made 23 accessibility patents available to other developers, by making them open-source. These patents include technologies for photosensitivity and speech recognition.
Patents in general should have mandatory licensing, because there’s no artistic concern. You did something clever? Great, here’s a pile of money. All you care about is the height. Do not hold us back.
Holding back software for twenty years is obscene. Twenty years ago, mobile gaming meant the Game Boy Advance. Twenty years before that, IBM PCs were still 5 MHz in 4 colors. Twenty years before that, microprocessors hadn’t been invented.
I disagree w/ mandatory licensing, because that gets complicated fast (i.e. what’s a reasonable price for licensing that patent?).
Instead, I think we should significantly limit patent duration. I think 5-7 years is a reasonable duration for a patent, with an optional, one-time renewal based on need (i.e. a pharmaceutical that won’t hit the market until after the patent is up). So you apply and get 5-7 years from the date the application is accepted (not patent granted), and then if you can’t reasonable get the product to market in that time but are actively working on getting the product to market, you can renew for another 5-7 years.
The same should apply to copyright, but perhaps with a longer initial term (say, 15 years?).
Patents in general should have mandatory licensing, because there’s no artistic concern. You did something clever? Great, here’s a pile of money. All you care about is the height. Do not hold us back.
Holding back software for twenty years is obscene. Twenty years ago, mobile gaming meant the Game Boy Advance. Twenty years before that, IBM PCs were still 5 MHz in 4 colors. Twenty years before that, microprocessors hadn’t been invented.
I disagree w/ mandatory licensing, because that gets complicated fast (i.e. what’s a reasonable price for licensing that patent?).
Instead, I think we should significantly limit patent duration. I think 5-7 years is a reasonable duration for a patent, with an optional, one-time renewal based on need (i.e. a pharmaceutical that won’t hit the market until after the patent is up). So you apply and get 5-7 years from the date the application is accepted (not patent granted), and then if you can’t reasonable get the product to market in that time but are actively working on getting the product to market, you can renew for another 5-7 years.
The same should apply to copyright, but perhaps with a longer initial term (say, 15 years?).
Copyright needs an unambiguous cutoff because it kinda has to be automatic. You can invent something and not patent it. Copyright is implicit.
Which is why it should be 30 years from publication, without exception. Possibly shorter.