[Patents] Re: 80,000 signatures for software patent free Europe

[seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson)]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 01:10:44PM +0200, Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez
wrote:
>
> If in order to avoid infringment all I have to do is to spend some
> hours designing a better method, the benefit for the patentee is so
> small that there is not even incentive for paying the patent fee. So
> your statement is obviously false.


Folks:

I think about spin, a lot.  Something in Mr. Fern'andez' comment struck
me particularly well.

Think about it:  What if we put an emphasis on this point -- that the
benefit for the patentee for software patents is so small that it
doesn't merit trying to get one, and certainly doesn't merit
implementing software patents as public policy?

Now, the payoff is not in the internal substance of this message
(limited benefit to the patentee, and thus the public), but in what it
implies, how it works, and what follows from it.

First of all, it's provocative.  People naturally have to ask what on
earth you mean when you say it.  However, the response to that query is
simple, plain, self-evident, eminently practical, and very incisive in
its impact:  "Because all anyone has to do is spend a few hours
designing a variation on the particular method in question.  You can't
imagine software patents benefiting anyone but patentees who are too big
for people to fight."

The incisive insight is in how it conveys the basic fact that computers
are *logic* machines, as flexible as thinking itself if we want them to
be; and therefore we're really out of hand to contemplate establishing
monopoly powers for that sort of thing.  This is a really effective
insight to get across in itself, in addition to how it plainly
illustrates the more regular point that only the more powerful really
gain from software patents.

I know, Mr. Fern'andez' point was that Mr. Riley's comment intended in
support of software patents doesn't hold water; but in practical terms
the questions of how software patents are actually being used, and
intended to be used, in the real world by those who want them, and of
the impact that use has on society, are very instructive.

Just a thought.

Now, don't give me as bunch of legalism on this, okay?  You know what
I'm trying to say.

Seth Johnson