[Patents] the burden factor in soft vs hard

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

The same Drummond Reed, who is anonymously quoted in the IPI report
as a free software specialist.


On Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 08:45:56PM +0100, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
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