[Patents] US government concerned about deleterious impact of software patents

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

On Sun, 10 Sep 2000, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> With regards to the report Hartmut mentioned, it was written by people
> with less than a complete understanding of modern information
> processing technologies.  It should not be taken too seriously.  The
> report is sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, whose patent
> analysis activities are not very rigorous.

The report is certainly not based on the analysis of a lot of individual
patents.  Very few people apart from Greg do such analyses anyway.

I found it difficult to classify this report.  It is somewhere between a
juridical analysis, an economic impact analysis and a policy document by a
governmental agency (comparable to the report of the European Committee of
Regions, which reaches similar conclusions on software patentability).

Whatever the quality of the report:  it is certainly a lot more rigorous
than all the policy documents on which the patent lobby bases its
decisions, such as the EC Greenpaper and its followup document.  A
doctoral thesis from Linz University analyses this green paper and other
EC documents, just to be awarded a doctorate for arriving at the
conclusion that almost every sentence the EC writes is pure crap.

Unfortunately I have no way to find out who stands behind the NAS report
on the Digital Dilemma and what authority it may have as a public policy
document.  The paper of the Committee of Regions at least carries the
weight of a few hundred prominent regional politicians, but in practise
that does not seem to weigh a lot.

-phm