From phm@a2e.de  Thu Jan 18 19:45:56 2001
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 20:45:56 +0100 (CET)
From: PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de
Subject: [Patents] the burden factor in soft vs hard

Greg answered Krzysztof:
 
> >And now you may see, dear Greg, how predative, aggressive and relentless
> >may be every company which hold and pursues software patents.  And you
> >still support software patents?  Please tell me.
...

> So I suppose what Compaq is doing is in an absolute sense a crime
> against humanity, but in a relative sense it is no different than what
> other companies in other indusries do with their patents.

That sounds good. So you do admit that software companies assert their
patents just as ruthlessly as any others.  I think that was what Krystof
wanted to hear.  Earlier you said that software patents aren't really
hurting anybody, and especially individual developpers and "opensourcers"
have nothing to fear.  Drummond Reed of P3P, the IBM patent guys and many
others like to make believe that, claiming that software patents will, due
to some inherent nature of software, work in a more gentle way:

	http://www.ipmatters.net/webcaught/interview_reed.html

Reed said that of course only after having submitted to political
pressures (not market pressures) and announced a general free license for
his W3C-blocking patents.  So his statement is particularly dishonest.  I
had the impression that you were echoing this type of statement, which has
become a standard argument of the patent lobby.

Concerning the differences between logical and physical innovation, we
have talked too much already. You yourself have even used the term
"informational" to differentiate some patents from others, but it seems
you can't remember, and we go in circles, starting all over again many
times.

Here's one way to explain the difference:  Information has zero
replication cost, and if you divide a patent license fee by zero, you get
an infinite burden factor, while in the physical world this burden factor
is usually well below 1/10.

-phm





