Martin Goetz, who joined the computer industry in its infancy in the mid-1950s as a programmer working on Univac mainframes and who later received the first U.S. patent for software, died on Oct. 10 at his home in Brighton, Mass. He was 93. The New York Times: His daughter Karen Jacobs said the cause was leukemia. In 1968, nearly a decade after he and several other partners started the company Applied Data Research, Mr. Goetz received his patent, for data-sorting software for mainframes. It was major news in the industry: An article in Computerworld magazine bore the headline “First Patent Is Issued for Software, Full Implications Are Not Known.” Until then, software had not been viewed as a patentable product, one that was bundled into hulking mainframes like those made by IBM. Ms. Jacobs said her father had patented his own software so that IBM could not copy it and put it on its machines.

“By 1968, I had been involved in arguing about the patentability of software for about three years,” Mr. Goetz said in an oral history interview in 2002 for the University of Minnesota. “I knew at some point in time the patent office would recognize it.” What Mr. Goetz called his “sorting system” is believed to have been the first software product to be sold commercially, and his success at securing a patent led him to become a vocal champion of patenting software. The programs that instruct computers on what to do, he said, were often as worthy of patents as the machines themselves. The issuance of Mr. Goetz’s patent “helped managers, programmers and lawyers at young software firms feel as if they were forming an industry of their own — one in which they were creating products that were potentially profitable and legally defensible as proprietary inventions,” Gerardo Con Diaz, a professor of science and technology studies at the University of California, Davis, wrote in the 2019 book “Software Rights: How Patent Law Transformed Software Development.” Further reading, from Slashdot archive: Recipient of First Software Patent Defends Them (2009).

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Source: Slashdot – Martin Goetz, Who Received the First Software Patent, Dies at 93

Japan’s antitrust watchdog has begun an investigation into whether Alphabet’s Google abuses its market position to block rival services, compounding scrutiny of the internet leader’s business practices across the globe. From a report: The country’s Fair Trade Commission has begun a probe centered on allegations of potential antitrust violations, an official with the agency said, confirming a Nikkei report. It plans to solicit information and views on the matter from the public, the official added. The agency plans to examine whether Google inappropriately asked smartphone makers to prioritize its search services on their devices.

The Japanese investigation marked the first time the commission has consulted with third parties from the outset of an individual probe, agency officials told reporters in Tokyo. The probe could widen to include Android phone makers found to be complicit in antitrust activity, an official said, without elaborating. Japan’s review comes on top of an antitrust case the US has mounted against the global search leader. Federal regulators accuse Google of abusing its dominance to block startups and larger rivals such as Microsoft, a key argument in the biggest tech anti-monopoly case since the 1990s.

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Source: Slashdot – Japan Investigates Google Over Alleged Antitrust Violations