[Patents] Re: World Intellectual Property Day is April 26, 2001

[softwarelaw@lawyer.com (webmaster@softwarelaw.com)]

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

------Original Message------
From: PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>
To: "David J. Dickinson" <ddickinson@epo.org>
Sent: April 26, 2001 10:52:04 AM GMT
Subject: Re: World Intellectual Property Day is April 26, 2001


On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, David J. Dickinson wrote:

> Dear Patent Information User,
>
> April 26, 2001 will be celebrated as the first World Intellectual Property
> Day, an opportunity to highlight the significance of creativity and
> innovation in people's daily lives and in the betterment of society.

> At their annual meetings in September 2000, WIPO member States decided
> to designate April 26, the date on which the Convention establishing
> WIPO entered into force in 1970, for special activities to highlight
> the importance and practical use of intellectual property.

> For more information on how this occasion will be marked by events and
> activities around the world, either :

> a)  go to the WIPO home page   http://www.wipo.int/   and click on the
> "News" link to the story

> or

> b)  go directly to   http://www.wipo.int/news/en/worldip/world_ip   to view
> the information directly.

Apparently WIPO is stepping up its myth-creating activities and becoming
more and more sectarian.  This is well in line with the recent WIPO drive
to write "unlimited patentability and strict limitations on patent
quality" into international law -- we reported about the Substantive
Patent Law Treaty.

All this reminds me of the "intellectual property" celebrations of the
French Revolution, about which Machlup narrates in his report to congress
of 1958.  He mentions that French scholars of the time acknowledged that
the "intellectual property" concept was a propaganda myth, designed to
avoid less popular but more honest wordings such as "temporary monopoly"
or "privilege".  It is this kind of sectarian propaganda that has allowed
the patent system to run rampant and forget about its social function as
an exception to free competition, designed to "promote the progress of
science and the useful art" and measured by its capability of doing just
that.  Machlup reports that the patent movement has been a movement of
lawyers against economists.  The lawyers prevailed and created their
self-reinforcing institutions.  But one day the whole thing may implode if
they go on in a sectarian manner like this.

Any patent law professionals who have a spark of conscience remaining in
their soul should demand with us that this kind of myth-building using
public institutiuons and public money be stopped immediately.  Let's make
April 26th a "Day of Free Speech" or "Day of the Free Information
Infrastructure" instead.  Or maybe "World Intellectual Poverty Day"?

Hartmut Pilch
Association for a Free Information Infrastructure
http://swpat.ffii.org/

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