From srctran@world.std.com  Tue Jul  3 16:58:02 2001
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 11:58:02 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Patents] Man Patents the Wheel
Message-ID: <200107031558.LAA19401@world.std.com>

Hartmut writes:
>Anyone familiar with the software field will know that a lot of
>achievements in this field come from state-sponsored or community-based
>activities, .........

So on one hand you are saying that governments do a lousy job of handling
software patents (which I agree with), and that other parts of government
have sponsored the development of lots of non-lousy software (which I
agree with), software that is also prior art if organized properly.

Where we differ is that you focus only on the government inability to 
handle software patents as a justification for getting rid of software
patents, while I focus on the government's ability to generate lots of
good software/prior art as a foundation for a library for patent offices
to stop issuing bad software patents and improve quality.  Both of us
are proposiing political goals (you: eliminate software patents,
me: fix software patent examination).  I would bet any amount of beer
that my goal is more likely to succeed.

Additionally, many of you seem to have little confidence in the government
to handle the intellectual property aspects of software.  Yet one of
the key components of Samuelson's ill-conceived sui generis proposal for
software was that governments would assess the market value of software
and then assign a short-term monopoly to that software.  If governments
can't handle the much more objective problems of software novelty and
nonobviousness, how the hell are governments going to handle the complex
problem of the market value of software?  They can't, which makes
Smauelson's sui generis proposal impractical (as well as being based on
a flawed history of problems with protecting software).

Greg Aharonian


