[Patents] Re: patent pools enforcing per-copy-licensing mode of software development

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

there is another danger ...

as universities get more and more money from applied research, there
is a distinct risk that there will be more and more emphasis on
applied research a the expense of long term research ... The risk is
both for university policies, and for individual choices of
researchers (induced by financial or career considerations ... I am
sure you can work out details for that argument.

   From memory, I seem to recall that Prof. Dennis Tsichritzis, head
of GMD,  voiced such concern.

  The next step, is of course to withhold fundamental results, until
one is sure to have all the patents that ensue ... thus betraying the
very role of universities.

 (and BTW, this one way in which patents are actually a disincentive
to disclose fundamental knowledge).

Bernard Lang


On Fri, Dec 22, 2000 at 08:16:53PM +0100, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> A+W Endres wrote:
> 
> > Could you explain the problem that you have with the MP3 licensing
> > scheme. It is well documented to the world under
> > http://mp3licensing.com.
>  
> > There you find some 65 companies that have acquired licenses already.
> > Is your point that some companies should get preferred treatment, like
> > e.g. the Open Source community?
> 
> The problem is that one model of software distribution is getting
> preferred treatment.  Information works are forced into the straitjacket
> of "per copy payment", and the "open source comnunity" is forced into the
> straitjacket of having to be "one company".  So is probably the "shareware
> community".
> 
> It is quite artificial to distribute digital information in controlled
> single copies.  You usually have to go long ways to achieve this:  closed
> source code, anti-copying mechanisms, policing etc.  For information
> works, this is not at all natural, and without patents, this
> proprietary model tends to be a transitional one.  Eventually information
> reaches the optimal stage to which it tends and which is economically
> preferable for many reasons:  free/opensource software.  Patents postpone
> this development by twenty years.
> 
> Actually mpegla.com and mp3licening.com are, as you point out correctly,
> examples of fairly equitable patent usage.  Yet, this type of usage may be
> even more dangerous than the full outright civil war type.   It means that
> in a few years we may face consortia of people who pool their patents on
> "OS programming", "memory managment programming" etc and collect a tax on
> anyone who does memory programming.  There are thousands of memory
> programming patents at the EPO, on which almost any programmer will
> infringe.  So in a few years time we may arrive at the stage where the
> proprietary mode of "per copy licensing" is the only mode in which
> programming will be at all possible.  You may survive in a civil war of
> all against all, but you may hardly be able to keep releasing programs if
> there are big consortia who professionally exploit a whole
> fine-meshed network of software patents.  And that is where the market
> forces are going.
> 
> To speak about "preferred treatment for the Opensource Community" may
> sound quite cynical under those conditions.
> 
> Apparently you, Prof Endres, and some other university professors like
> Prof Mayr at the head of GI, are dreaming of this scenario, because it
> could allow your universities to collect taxes through patent consortia.
> This is an understandable desire, given that governments have been cutting
> back support for universities.  But it is also a vicious circle.  The more
> you accept this way of thinking, the less the governments will see a
> reason to support universities.  Why not instead let IBM and Microsoft do
> the work of the universities?  Why universities in the first place, if
> they are not to foster free diffusion of information that benefits all of
> society?
> 
> -phm
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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