From Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>  Fri May  4 16:14:49 2001
From: Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr> (Bernard Lang)
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 17:14:49 +0200
Subject: [Patents] Burce Perens: Software Patents vs. Free Software
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0105041211060.2729-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>; from PILCH Hartmut on Fri, May 04, 2001 at 12:16:37PM +0200
References: <20010504114310.A29852@math.jussieu.fr> <Pine.LNX.4.33.0105041211060.2729-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>
Message-ID: <20010504171449.E22692@margaux.inria.fr>


I find this most interesting.

Would you have a reference ... preferably accessible on the web ?

Bernard


On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 12:16:37PM +0200, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> > > >From who's pockets?
> > >
> > > Patent applicants should pay more to get patents.  That's whose pockets.
> >
> > So only rich people (read, companies) deserve to get patents ?
> >
> > Great idea!
> 
> In fact this is not all that bad an idea.
> It was one of the restrictions imposed on the patent system when it was
> introduced in Germany in 1873.
> A patent cost a horrendous sum, I think it was 15000 Reichsmark, but I may
> be wrong.
> This was advocated by Werner von Siemens, president of the Patent
> Protection Assiciation (Patentschutzverein), the pressure group that
> helped overcome the resistance of the economists in the 1860s and 70s.
> They told the economists that this high price was to make sure that
> patents were only granted in areas where largescale industrial property
> was at stake, and they were a means of better regulating competition
> between large enterprises, and by no means designed as a system for
> personal "intellectual property", a term which even people like Siemens
> considered nonsense and dangerous.
> 
> Of course this compromise between patent lobbyists and economists implied
> that there can be no software patents, simply because software does not
> necessarily imply an expensive industrial apparatus.
> 
> It is hardly worth noting in that context that we just stumbled across
> another of the many inconsistencies in Greg's proposals.
> 
> -phm
> 
> 
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