From srctran@world.std.com  Mon Nov 20 20:18:23 2000
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 15:18:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com
Subject: [Patents] natural forces

> ........European patent law contains a several disclaimers
>which guarantees that, no matter whether technicity theory works or not,
>certain (mental/informational) activities are not touched by patent law.

Oh great.  Now we are told that technicity theory might not even work.
I retract my request to get thes German court decisions translated if
their value is so uncertain.

Look, society offers multiple ways of disclosing informational activites.
If you want complete control, you use a patent, a complete control which
should be as available to software as it is to hardware, mechanical, etc.

If you want less than complete control, you use copyright, a right which
has been gradually weakened from an author's control system to a user's
rights system.

If you want no control, you dedicate it to the public domain.

Where's the problem, unless you are against complete control of new
software ideas (and therefore I argue, against complete control of any
new idea, mechanical/electrical/informational).

Greg




