[Patents] the burden factor in soft vs hard

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 03:10:33PM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> >Information has zero replication cost
> 
> Which, whatever its truth, has nothing to do with the issue of
> whether or not something is patentable, at least here in the 
> United States.  The patent system grants someone a monopoly to
> incent them to invent something, but the laws for the most part
> say nothing about how much reward the inventor should get - that
> is left to the marketplace.  So the cost of information (such as
> patentable software) is irrelevant to patent law as it is now
> stated.


and is the US Constitution relevant ?


Bernard Lang

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