[Patents] Re: french views

[Stefane Fermigier sf@fermigier.com]

On Sat, Oct 07, 2000 at 09:37:20AM +0200, Pierre BREESE wrote:
> 
> 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.

Mr Breese,

once again, you're playing the supposed 'software patents vs. free software'
angle, that is, you're claiming, implicitly, that only companies working in 
the
free software field suffer from software patents, and that software patents 
are
good for software companies developping non-free programs.

This is simply untrue. Software patents are bad for almost every software and
Internet company, if they want to realy create new products and services.  (Of
course, if their goal is solely to manage a patent portfolio and blackmail
other companies, that's another story). This has been demonstrated by 
Jean-Paul
Smets in his famous presentation:

http://www.smets.com/it/policy/patents-munich/img10.htm

Software patents are bad for innovation, as demonstrated by Professors James
Bessen and Eric Maskin (Harvard University and MIT):

http://www.researchoninnovation.org/online.htm

You might be surprised that, out of the more than 200 companies that support
our current petition, only about 50 are free software companies.  The others
are non-free software companies, internet startups, design studios, etc.
        
        S.

-- 
Stéfane Fermigier, Tel: 06 63 04 12 77 (mobile).
<www.portalux.com>: le portail Linux / logiciel libre.
"Amazon: we patent the dot in .com"