[Patents] Man Patents the Wheel

[halber@timsi.com.pl (Józef Halbersztadt)]

Gregory Aharonian wrote: 
> 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, 
It is not true. They propose only flat rate license,
nothing more. I quote the Manifesto 1994 (point
7.5):
(...) registration might bring (...) alternatively,
an automatic royalty-bearing license available on
standard terms after expiration of the unregistered
design protection rights. Of the two alternatives,
we favour the later because it would remove the
transaction costs of licensing. Reasonable fixed
fees would encourage second comers to compesate the
inovator rather than duplicate effort. They would
also prevent the innowator from getting hit by its
own hardball in licensing negotaitions.

Jozef Halbersztadt