Patent of FaceGen Technology

[neva]

I wonder why there is no patent for this facegen technology? I
searched google patents etc. and could not find any information about
the patent of this stuff, that seems awkward. Does anyone know
anything about this situation?

[FaceGen Guru]

Software patents are slow to acquire and extremely expensive to
litigate. They are mainly used either by large companies to block
competition or by non-practicing entities (a company consisting of
only a few lawyers) to gouge the industry for money. Some startups do
acquire patents, with the hope that a large company will pay more to
acquire them. As a startup without venture capital, we decided to
focus on actually creating something instead.

The first patent threat we had to deal with (since expired) was
actually written by a lawyer (Sitrick). From a technical perspective
it can only be described as vaguely-worded garbage. Regardless,
patents have the force of law behind them. We've looked at a number of
other possible (and one actual) threats. All can be described as
obvious combinations of ideas already existing at the time of filing.

On a separate note, software patents destroy innovation both by
preventing competition and sucking money away from R&D. Of course what
else could you expect of a government bureaucracy whose job is to hand
out monopolies on trivial ideas. It's very Orwellian.