[Patents] Re: regulation draft proposal: revision

[Edward Avis epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk]

>From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>
>Subject: Re:  [Patents] regulation draft proposal: revision

>So if in the unlikely case you do succeed in forcing Europeans to rely
>solely on copyright protection for software, you could end up making
>matters worse for software developers by allowing people to protect their
>software ideas for 70/90 years (assuming an industry arise, and it will,
>to help people print out ten billion expressions of their software idea).

No, because with copyright, you are in the clear if you wrote the
program yourself without copying anything.  There is no need for
expensive searches or court battles - just make sure that you do not
look at anyone else's code.  OTOH, with patents you can be sued even for
something which is entirely your own work.  Even if damages don't get
awarded, you're still prevented from distributing copies of your work.

-- 
Ed Avis
epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk