[Patents] Counterexamples to John, Hartmut, Edward

[Nicolas Pettiaux nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org]

Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> John writes:
> >Posters here have cited drug development as an area where the patent
> >system works, and I think that there are plenty such areas.
>
> Don't say that do people in third world countries who can't afford to
> use patented AIDS drugs.  You can't use some patented software, you
> do something else with software.  You can't use some patented AIDS
> drug, you die.  So when it comes to suffering because of software patents,
> that is nothing compared to the suffering of lack of access to drugs,
> which has become so controversial that it is an issue in the current
> US presidential campaign.
>

This shows clearly that the 2 kinds of patents are concernend with different
problematic, even if related:

patenting drugs and life is mainly concerned with ETHICAL aspects and then
only ECONOMICAL ones, whereas

patenting software is mainly concerned with ECONOMY and then only with ETHICS.
As it was shown (and beleived by many but understandably not every one)
software patents slwos down innovation, and none of us wants that

(We should not forget the internet is THE main cause of present grows and
innovation, and that it is what it is thansk to the absence of software
patents, even propriatary system. For example, SNA is surely a good network
protocol that coexisted with TCPIP but it was proprietary and therefore was
not used in the nacsent Internet, that runs on the open protocol TCPIP.

> >That is why I am all riled up against software patents.  It feel as if
> >the system holds a gun to my head with every piece of code I write.
>
> Unless the code you are writing is going to be worth lots and lots of
> money, no one with a software patent is ever going to pay the slightest
> bit of attention to the code you are writing.  You paranoia is greatly
> exaggerated.

If such why do patent attorney care about the vast majority of software that
is (at least to their mind if I understand you well) not worth considering ?

Best regards,

Nicolas pettiaux
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