Snapdragon is a flawed example. No one person or organization goes from gates to a Snapdragon CPU. It took a large community many decades to do that. But that's a side point.
I think the second example provides a great illustration of the divide between software patent proponents and detractors. Some people think a thing like LZW should be patentable, because they imagine inventing something on that scale of ingenuity and want to be able to make money off of it. Other people, in the scope of a larger project, usually, come up with things on the scale of ingenuity of LZW compression and are exasperated to discover that someone else patented it a few years prior and wants prohibitively large licensing fees, rendering the technology unusable; they don't think such things should be patentable because from their perspective it reduces innovation.
Comments
Snapdragon is a flawed example. No one person or organization goes from gates to a Snapdragon CPU. It took a large community many decades to do that. But that's a side point.
I think the second example provides a great illustration of the divide between software patent proponents and detractors. Some people think a thing like LZW should be patentable, because they imagine inventing something on that scale of ingenuity and want to be able to make money off of it. Other people, in the scope of a larger project, usually, come up with things on the scale of ingenuity of LZW compression and are exasperated to discover that someone else patented it a few years prior and wants prohibitively large licensing fees, rendering the technology unusable; they don't think such things should be patentable because from their perspective it reduces innovation.