From ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es  Thu Apr 26 19:21:47 2001
From: ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es (Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez)
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 20:21:47 +0200
Subject: [Patents] Re: World Intellectual Property Day is April 26, 2001
In-Reply-To: <382770581.988308424964.JavaMail.root@web394-mc>; from softwarelaw@lawyer.com on Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 02:07:04PM -0400
References: <382770581.988308424964.JavaMail.root@web394-mc>
Message-ID: <20010426202147.A14892@jl1.quim.ucm.es>

On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 02:07:04PM -0400, webmaster@softwarelaw.com wrote:
> Mr. Pilch,
> 
> The basis of your public policy is ludicrous.
> 
> I used to work in software development, and I know that the best software developers do not work for free.  In the short-term, they have expenses to pay for.  In the long-term, they must provide for retirement, and they often have the ambition of becoming rich from their efforts.
> 
> The free software is ultimately doomed to be swept away into the dustbin of history, along with socialism.
> 
> Michael

This argument is incorrect. Although software development costs money,
this development is protected by copyright. Pilch (and Eurolinux) are
not against the protection of software by copyright.  Copyright
protects the software development, which is the most expensive
part. By contrast, software patents protect the cheap part, the idea
of the program or an algorithm. Finding the algorithm to solve a
problem is generally easy (even if the algorithm is "not obvious" and
even if patent offices apply that requirement correctly), and for that
reason it should not be protected. Furthermore, although other
industries such as pharmaceuticals use patents for the protection
of research, the most important use of software patents is to patent
trivial ideas for obtaining a monopoly in a market.

Ramon


