[Patents] Patnews on Pierret

[Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr> (Bernard Lang)]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 09:25:54PM -0400, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> Your explanation explains nothing.  You call me "totalitarian" because
> I argue monopolistic policies (according to you).  Well then, if you
> weren't trying to be insulting, you could have used the actual word,
> "monopolistic", instead of a word with greatly insulting connotations,
> "totalitarian".  Your use of the insult, where there are more accurate
> words available, is just that, an insult.  And even "monopolistic" isn't
> even the best word to describe my belief that software should be as
> patentable as hardware.  But I suppose that is of little concern because
> the intent is not to describe my beliefs, but find new insulting words
> to label me with.

sorry, but that was a figure of speech ... what is totalitarian was
not actually you, but the system you propose which leaves no
alternatives.  It is totalitarian in the realm of intellectual goods.
It, indeed, leaves no freedom for intellectual goods.
And monopolistic has too strong an economic connotation for the
meaning I intended.

But since you insist, and though that was not what I had in mind:

ICT will be an essential component of future society infrastructure,
and one can very well argue that patenting intangibles will give
excessive power to some economic powers with no political legitimity
(read Lessig), and might well lead to a capitalistic form of
totalitarianism.  Actually, several corporations have already been
responsible for totalitarian situations in 3rd world countries.

  Thus you might be unwittingly supporting a totalitarian (in the most
common sense) evolution of world politics.  I am not saying that is
what you wish.  But, as we say in French, "hell is tiled with good
intentions".

  I would add the the contempt of the pro-IP lobby for the US
constitution is quite illustrative of a disquieting evolution.

> But then this could be INRIA policy - to attack Greg Aharonian.

as noted in all my emails, I speak only for myself, unless explicitly
specified otherwise.

>  Maybe
> I should collect some of your insulting comments, forward them to INRIA
> management, and ask them why they have authorized you to take such a
> public position.  I can't remember ever commenting publicly about INRIA
> (if anything, some of the research done there is quite commendable),
> that they would authorize one of their employees to have such bad
> Internet posting manners.
>
> Greg Aharonian

Please do so

Bernard Lang

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