The first software patent recipient passed away at the age of 93. He fought for intellectual property protection for software

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The man who held the world's first software patent passed away.

His name is Martin Alvin Goetz, known as the "Father of Third-Party Software."

He liberated software from hardware "bundling" and founded the first software product company to develop the first commercial software product.

Software that was once not protected by any intellectual property law , with his hard arguments, not only became a patentable product, but also developed a huge business empire.

Today, according to Statista data, the global software market revenue has reached US$610 billion in 2022 .

According to the New York Times, he died of leukemia at home on October 10, 2023, at the age of 93.

△ Picture source Martin Getz’s family

Some netizens expressed condolences:

He is a true pioneer in the software industry.

So, what exactly did he accomplish in his life? Lets come look.

The world's first software patent

The most eye-catching achievement of Martin Alvin Goetz (hereinafter referred to as Goetz) is to obtain the first software patent.

At the time, software was not considered a patentable product.

In comparison, it is more like a type of accessory that is "bundled" on a one-to-one basis, sold by hardware companies such as IBM along with the mainframe computer, but without paying an additional price.

This means that the software itself is not protected by intellectual property laws, and hardware companies can use it however they want, and there is no commercial value at all.

As a programmer, Gertz's job was to develop software.

After another "eureka" moment when he came up with a more advanced algorithm, he realized that this method should be protected by a patent.

This is an algorithm for data sorting, mainly used for data classification tasks in computer data processing systems.

At that time, many computers were still using magnetic tape for storage, also known as tape data recorders.

This component is typically used to store records to be sorted and is an intermediate task in data sorting, with the ultimate goal of producing a sequence of sorted records on one or more data loggers and tape storage units.

Gertz optimized this type of algorithm and cut the program execution time by more than half.

He tried to submit the first version of the patent on April 9, 1965. However, for a long time, the application was not approved.

It was not until April 23, 1968, that Gertz was finally granted a U.S. patent number. He once admitted in an interview:

By 1968, I had been fighting for three years on the issue of software patentability.

I know that at some point, the USPTO will recognize it.

This patent can still be found on Google Patents.

The information shows that this patent has a total of 16 pages. The first 8 pages are picture analysis of the ideas and analysis of the sorting algorithm:

The next 8 pages are text descriptions about the patent.

In fact, Gertz, who wrote this patent, was also the founder of "the first software product company."

Founded the first software product company in the United States

Gertz was born on April 22, 1930. He earned a bachelor's degree in business statistics and an MBA from City College of the City University of New York.

In his 20s, he joined the computer industry and became a programmer.

He first worked as a supervisor at AC Nielsen and then as an intern at Remington Rand, learning how to write software for the Univac mainframe computer.

Goetz said:

I like programming. Even when I'm driving, I'm often programming in my head.

After Remington Rand merged with Sperry Corporation to form Sperry Rand, he worked for the company for four years.

He then briefly joined IBM, but soon left in 1958 and founded Applied Data Research with friends .

Applied Data Research has built a series of its own products, including automatic flow chart software Autoflow (considered the first commercial software product), remote job submission environment Roscoe, etc., and is now considered the first independent software vendor .

Applied Data Research went public in 1965 and was acquired by AT&T (Ameritech) in 1985 for $215 million.

Gertz continued to work at the company as CTO until 1988, when he left.

Subsequently, he was selected into the "Mainframe Hall of Fame" selected by enterprisesystemsmedia and was named the "Father of Third-Party Software."

Until his death, he continued to write about software patentability and the need for software patents, believing that patents could protect real innovation and create value for society.

参考链接：
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/technology/martin-goetz-dead.html
[2]https://patents.google.com/patent/US3380029A/en
[3]https://www.enterprisesystemsmedia.com/mainframehalloffame

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