[Patents] demasking the mediators

[phm@a2e.de phm@a2e.de]

> Hartmut writes:
> >You apparently don't want any reform.  Your main concern is in keeping
> >reform pressure away from patent offices.
> 
> Nice lie, which if you said to anyone in America, would be laughed at
> hilariously.  For seven years, I have been arguing vigorously to
> reform the patent examination process to improve the quality, which
> would eliminate many of the bad patents in all fields of technology.

For seven years, you have been shouting loudly that the patent system in
theory works great, the only obstacle being that not everybody is as
competent as you are at searching prior art.

Moreover, in the debate on this mailing list, it turned out that 

- it is possible to eliminate non-novel patents, but impossible to
  eliminate those that would seem obvious to most skilled people
  (remember discussio with Ramon Garcia and Steve Probert)
- patents do more harm than good in many fields of technology
  (Greg says in all, othere say in the informational realm)
- informational innovation pervades everything, and can be
  distinguished from a non-informational rest
- the patent system is not a highly political issue, so patent offices
  usually don't have to care about what anyone of us writes.  Together
  with their large corporate clients, they form a closed and powerful
  interest group. 
- currently in Europe the subject of limits of patentability has become
  politicised, so there is some chance of exerting pressure.  No other
  issue has any significant chance of politisation at the moment.
- Greg Aharonian is doing his best to dissuade people from exerting this
  pressure.  

We have more people of this kind.  There is quite a group of patent
professionals who have some affinity to hacking culture and now believe
that it is their role to reconcile two worlds that are incompatible. And,
since patent professionals are hard to fool in matters concerning their
system, it is always the victims of the patent system whose interests are
betrayed by these self-appointed mediators.

Fortunately, the public is more aware now than a few years ago.  Which is
why some of the heroic mediators are currently living in agony.  In
Germany a study made by such mediators is coming under fire in the press,
while a year ago their point of view seemed moderate and balanced to all
those who prefer a "neutral" posture.

Let's keep on pushing this educative work ahead and building a stronger
and stronger public opinion that will eventually roll back the patent
system.  If not now, then in a few years.  If the patent lobby prevails
now, it will do so at the cost of a minor civil war.  The decision will
not gain legitimacy by being written in legal form and executed by
notoriously law-contempting lawcourts, nor will they be able to count on
our forgetfulness.  Just as Greg won't be able to count on anyone
forgetting about his disgraceful posture in the dialogues held here
recently. which can all be read in the aful.org mailing list archives.  
The time of the single-man expert mediators should come to an end.  We
need a colletively built PatNews, and we are working on it.

-phm