[Patents] Re: public interest and appropriation instinct

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

You well know that I never said I am against any form of reward.  All
I am saying is that, if the reward system will restrict freedom, then
one has to prove that the cost to society does not exceed the
benefits.
  Else, I do not see why society should bother.

  Patents is not the only solution for rewards.

  But why should there be a reward for engineers, and not for
mathematicians ?   Algorithms are mathematical entities.  And the is
nothing contingent or fortuitous about software innovation, not any
more than in mathematics, except maybe for the part that is already
protected by copyright ?

   I am still waiting for answers.

Bernard Lang


On Wed, Dec 27, 2000 at 12:16:41AM +0100, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> > 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
> 

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