From Bernard.Lang@inria.fr  Wed Dec 20 17:54:08 2000
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 18:54:08 +0100
From: Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr
Subject: [Patents] monopoly/publicity contradiction?


You forget (as usual) one small detail

  you have to prove that patents are useful, not the other way around.
That is what the US constitution says, and what elementary
understanding of freedom and justice would say (I seem to have more
respect than most for the founding fathers).




On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 12:15:49PM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> Bernard writes:
> >But someone made the point that the very role of programmers is to
> >invent ... and being in a world of intangibles, they do that much more
> >often than, say, mechanics.  So the patent system (potantially) gets
> >in the way a lot more often, becoming a hindrance rather than a help.
> 
> Based on what evidence?  I spend most of days in university engineering
> libraries, and I can tell you the volume of publications on software
> continues to grow exponentially.  Libraries are running out of room to
> store new books, journals and conferences.  So I cannot see any
> non-trivial negative impact due to software patents on the ability of
> programmers around the world to come up with new ideas and publish
> them.

You forget (as usual) one small detail

  you have to prove that patents are useful, not the other way around.
That is what the US constitution says, and what elementary
understanding of freedom and justice would say (I seem to have more
respect than most for the founding fathers).

  and I do not understand the logic of having most things unpatented,
and some patented.  Sounds wrong.

> Similarly, the number of ads for (new) software products also tends to
> continual increase, as everyone and their brother tries marketing their
> latest software package.  Overall industry sales are doing quite well
> suffering mostly from piracy.

I will not discuss piracy. It hurts mostly free software (in market share)
and publishers know it.

software industry was doing well before patents ... and piracy is
mostly a copyright issue.

  see above comment on US constitution.

> Finally, I have seen little to no impact on consultants being able to
> offer their wares, because for the most part, it is difficult for
> patent holders to monitor and prosecute individual and/or one-time use
> of their patents.

but nice to preosecute people who distribute for free on the
net... just to force them to stop.  You want examples ?

> Not to say that software patents aren't having economic impact (trust me
> I know), but rather that I doubt very highly their impact is any 
> different from another industry.  All industries have stupid patents
> that are used to harass others, I probably see more of this in the
> biotech world.

the cost differentials are different, when one distributes on the net.
You assert without figures ... so do I.
But in the case of free software, I can only be right ... and there is
obviously a continuum.

> There is nothing special about programming.  It is just another job in
> another industry.

If you repeat that long enough, you will end up believing it  :-)

Bernard

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