From phm@a2e.de  Tue Dec 26 23:16:41 2000
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 00:16:41 +0100 (CET)
From: PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de
Subject: [Patents] public interest and appropriation instinct

> so what ... the point is, when you don't know whether the scale tips
> one way or the other, then the choice must be on the side of freedom.
> And patents restrict freedom.

One reason a few people here keep expressing uneasiness with this
argumentation may be that it is so simple and clear.  We could be
perceived as cold logicians who decide everything based on a set of
"axioms", as Greg called them.

Trying my best to make life more difficult for us and thus keep us
thinking, I devised another conflicting axiom:  a basic human
instinct-level urge to reap fruits from one's work and have a share in
fruits that anyone else is seen as reaping.  This may be used to construct
something like a natural-law foundation for "intellectual property", and
it will appeal to many people.  Maybe that's what Greg means, when he
always claims to know that we won't win with this or that argument.

Of course we can tell people that they have many ways to turn their
intellectual achievements into gains and needn't opt for the disruptive
ways.  But to some people's moral feeling this is still unsatisfactory.  
To then tell these people that their moral feeling is wrong and our
economic study of public interest is the only valid value system may not
win us sympathies.

In my recent podium discussion with Prof. Endres and two patent expansion
lobbyists, I have therefore always conceded that my fellow discutants --
you may not believe it after having heard me talk about ulterior motives
this morning -- were arguing on a morally sound basis and that it was
rather me who had left this basis and become a kind of cynic, interested
only in a coldly calculated public interest rather than in some natural
human moral feelings.

However, public interest is not that easy to calculate, if instincts come
into play.  Maybe the feeling of holding a property title in one's hands
creates so much happiness to people that there is some irrational gain
effect.

That is why I found it important to put the idea of "creation of adequate
systems for rewarding informational innovation" among the five law
initiatives in the public letter at

	http://swpat.ffii.org/xatra/patg2C/patg2C/indexen.html

which has won the support of major associations and companies.

-phm






