[Patents] consultation questions

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> >Investors will adapt to whatever rules we set.
>
> Investors will adapt to whatever rules allow them to protect their
> investments, as do companies.  If you have rules that don't let them
> do so, they will take their investment monies to other countries.
> Further, companies in countries with bad laws (like a ban on software
> patents) will find it more difficult to export into other markets.

When there are no patents, then investments are protected by other
mechanimsms.

The ESCPR study is not the first one to have pointed out that patents are,
not only for SMEs, only a mechanism of inferior importance, even in the US
under current patent laws, and even in industries where everybody collects
lots of patents, such as the semiconductor industry.

The more important mechanisms for protecting investments are

        product complexity
        business secret
        marketing
        complementary products
        complementary services
        customer relations

or similar, I may have to check the details again.

While I haven't studied the semiconductor related patents myself, in the
software area I can see clearly that patents don't serve to protect the
real investments but only create a minefield that makes all investments
insecure.

This would, according to your reasoning, lead us to the conclusion that
investors will take the money away from the US to the first country or
region that seriously cuts down the patent system and eliminates software
patents.

But I don't attach more value to to conclusions reached on this basis than
to results of throwing dice or applying scientifically rigorous
definitions to co-design cosmology.

-phm