From fred@mobach.nl  Sat Oct  7 20:57:15 2000
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 22:57:15 +0200
From: Fred Mobach fred@mobach.nl
Subject: [Patents] Some remarks on Vol 1 #284

> From: Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>
> To: "jgk.novatek" <jgk.novatek@estelfree.net>
> Subject: Re: [Patents] Re: french views at CNCPI
>
> Given that the CNCPI and IP professional have so far exhibited a gross
> incompetence with respect to software patents,
>   which is a nice way to just say that they are exclusively interested
> in widening their market and income, even at the expense of the
> European economy, without trying to understand or even address the far
> reaching issues.  Hence we could not care less what they think.
>
>    As far as I am concerned, in the software field, they behaved as
> social parasites or worse, and should therefore be treated as such.
>
> Do I make myself clear ?
>
> En d'autre termes, ils n'ont rien a dire.

Perhaps this might be somehow strong worded but it is true. Good job, Mr. Bernard Lang.


> From: Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org>
> To: patents@liberte.aful.org
> Subject: [Patents] Conference exceptionnelle: enjeux de la societe de l'information le 11/10/2000
>
> A DIFFUSER A TOUS VOS CORRESPONDANTS POTENTIELLEMENT INTERESSES SVP.
>
> Eric Steven Raymond (ESR) clbre pour son essai, "The Cathedral and the
> Bazaar", sera notre invit pour une confrence exceptionelle le 11 octobre 
> 18h30 dans l'auditoire Dupreel  l'Universite libre de Bruxelles.  L'entre
> <<big snip>>
>
> IBM, International Business Machine, http://www.ibm.com/linux
>
> Suse, a leading Linux distribution maker, http://www.suse.com

Perhaps you would use SuSE (for Software und System Entwicklung). Not that I want to be picky but it's
more polite to use the correct name.


> From: Pierre BREESE <pb@breese.fr>
> To: PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>
> Subject: [Patents] Re: french views
>
> > Of course we welcome Mr. Novatek or Mr. Breese to discuss with us, but
> > they have no reason to adopt a high-brow attitude like "what a pity" ...
>
> You have a bad opinion of Patents lawyer. It?s your right and I?m not
> interested of being pleasing to everyone. As Bernard knows, I never clam up
> about software patent.
>
> In my concern, I 'm mostly in touch with small companies and start-up. They
> have a burning need of protecting their innovation, especially software
> innovations. They can?t abdicate of the possibility of claiming a solid
> industrial property right, particulary in partnerships with big clients. They
> must manage the ?return of invest".

You might be very happy with Mr. Hartmut Pilch as he is just fighting while you can do your job. I own a
small software company since 1976. I have written many software packages, some of those 100 % dedicated
to a customer, others as general system software. Think of 4GL software, TP monitor and so on.

I never have spent a dime (*) on a patent lawyer and that will not change. All those small software
companies I am aware of did neither.

Software is just a formalized description of my thoughts and those will be free forever. That fight has
here in the Netherlands been fought from 1568 till 1648. If need be it will be done again.

(*) For your information : a dime was a small part of a coin which a husband had to give to his wife for
her clothing. (Dutch : speltegelt).

While reading Mr. Pierre Breese's post I had trouble with understanding it. Not that the subject is
unknown to me. Also not because English is not my first language; that's a common problem while his
mother's tongue is French. No, the problem is that he does not use a standard character set. He might try
to use the ISO 8859-1 character set, that will save me all those annoying question marks. In case he also
want to use the Euro sign he could opt for ISO 8859-15.


> Your standpoint lead astray many young companies I met : they deduce from the
> report of your opinion that software are nowadays excluded from patent system
> in Europe. When I show them that foreign competitors (they not lead from this
> kind of misinformation) are titular of patents even in Europe, they feel
> trapped.
>
> Software patents in Europe are a reality. Companies have to take this reality
> in account. This doesn?t mean that all companies MUST file software patents.
> I agree that the ?free software? model is a quiet good and efficient
> marketing model. But you can?t foist this marketing model to companies or
> people that have the chance to be financed from governmental resources or
> from other resources.

Software patents are forbidden in Europe by law. So you are encouraging your clients to use forbidden
practices. I have a problem with that. It's the same problem I have with the permissive way the Dutch
goverments works on drugs related crimes.

Regards,

Fred Mobach







