[Patents] Black and white

[ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es (Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez)]

I will try to answer you based in my opininos.

On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 02:06:55PM +0200, kodama@netcourrier.com wrote:
> Dear all, 
> 
> I have been reading some threads for weeks, and the feeling I have is that 
> you really see the world in a black and white way. 
> ...

However, you do not mention the most important problem of software
patents: the vast majority of them are obvious patents designed to
block competition. (Actually, some obvious patents are used for
defensive purposes; see bellow).  Patent offices ignore the
requirement of "non-obvious".

I am not against patents used for the protection of research.
However, very few software patents have a significant research
work behind.

> For instance, the threads about "Free software vs software
> patents".  However, if you look carefully how works the business,
> the same companies may fund free software AND file patent
> applications. The 2 worlds could exist together.

Although this is not the point, many honest companies
have to file trivial patents to protect themselves from
attacks of other companies with trivial patents. For this
reason Oracle, who is against software patents, has filed
software patents.

> 
> Another manichean thread is "US patent owners" against european poor 
> company". But where do you have seen that european companies do not have 
> any software patents ??   The point is that every software company having a 
> long-term strategy do have software patents, in US or in Europe. 
> Anyway, it is somewhat stupid to see the world as a Europe vs US war.

Patents are a barrier of entry, and therefore always benefit established
companies. Microsoft, IBM and Lucent have arsenals of trivial patents.
It is imposible to do virtually anything without infringing some of
their patents. Lucent uses this to collect a tax on any software
company. Microsoft and IBM use their trivial patents for protecting
them against litigation from smaller companies, so that they can
infringe their patents if they wish to do so.

Ramon