You know you've been around the block a few times...

[jducoeur]

... when your internal monologue goes something like this:

"A-ha! Yes, that looks like the right solution to the problem."

(Smug.) "Oh, I like that -- it's pretty innovative, and I think it's even a good user workflow."

(Dismay.) "Oh, crap -- that means I probably have to write an effing patent..."

ETA: folks, I appreciate that you're trying

Comments

[mindways]

...why? With public commits, proving prior art if someone else tries to patent it later ought to be trivial, I'd think?

[jducoeur]

Comes with being an employee of a real tech company. This is one of those cases where the Architect part of my brain (which hates software patents with a burning passion) comes into conflict with the CEO part (which recognizes that they may be unpleasant, but they're currently a requirement of being in this business at the level I intend to play

[herooftheage]

Do you have either shareholders, or investors? If it's a privately held business, isn't your duty to the company pretty much what the private owners want? You might decide you need to patent stuff so you can attract investors, but that seems fundamentally different from a responsibility to patent.