[Patents] economic studies

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

On Sat, Jan 06, 2001 at 06:59:32PM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> And for the person who doesn't read English, I mentioned earlier that
> IEEE publications and software publications in general are straining
> the storage space and organizing time of librarians to simply point
> out in terms of publication volume, that software patents are having
> zero impact on the development and publications of new software ideas.
> Zero impact.
> 
> Greg Aharonian


and since it does impact the freedom of programmers, since it does
have a cost in litigation and business insecurity, since it does have
a cost in reducing competiton and increasing monopolies, since it does
have a cost in reducing fundamental freedom through the private
control of standards and communication formats and protocols, etc...
  but does not "promote Progress of Science and useful Arts"

   software patents are both unconstitutional in the USA, and
generally harmful to society.

   Thanks to Greg for the proof.  Now I understand that Greg
reluctance to provide evidence for software patents comes from the
fact that he does not believe there is any, quite the opposite.

Bernard


-- 
         Non aux Brevets Logiciels  -  No to Software Patents
           SIGNEZ    http://petition.eurolinux.org/    SIGN

Bernard.Lang@inria.fr             ,_  /\o    \o/    Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
            INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
         Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion
                 CAGED BEHIND WINDOWS or FREE WITH LINUX