Martin Goetz, who wrote the first software patent in the US and was known as the 'father of third-party software', has died at 93.In 1968, nearly a decade after Goetz and his partners started the company called Applied Data Research, he .
Martin Goetz, who received the first software patent, dies at 93 bostonglobe.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bostonglobe.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“I knew at some point in time the patent office would recognize” computer software, he said. It happened in 1968, helping to ignite the software market.
Goetz was awarded a patent for data-sorting software in 1968, after a three-year fight with the US Patent Office over whether software could even be patented. The New York Times writes that the company he co-founded, Applied Data Research, filed an antitrust suit IBM in 1969 over its bundled hardware and software. IBM agreed to unbundle, but ADR didn’t let up.