From phm@a2e.de  Tue Dec 11 06:59:28 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 07:59:28 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [Patents] more inflammatory speeches from Greg
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0112110720450.1130-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0112110756210.1509-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>

Here is a version with some confusing grammatical errors corrected:

The German Constitutional Court (BVerfG) has extended the notion of
"property rights" granted by art 14 of the Basic Law (GG, constitution) to
include all kinds of immaterial titles, including copyright and patents.

This enlarged property concept is awkward and outrageous at first sight,
but in fact has some advantages, because it allows a view on how property
is acquired and limited.  Patents, like other property titles, according
to this, need to be granted according to the principle of "social
responsibility of property", and since copyright has been found to be the
adequate legal rule for acquiring software property, nobody has the right
to introduce software patents (which void copyright property and thus
violate art 14 GG) without a change of law which takes the social
responsibility and limitations of property etc into account and thus bring
considerations to bear that eventually destroy the playground of semi law
experts such as patent lawyers (or patent busters), who until now were
acting in a legal (or "science and logic") world of their own.

...

Copyright covers everything that individualises a work and makes it
attributable to a creator, be it expression or not.  In the sense that
copyright property extends only to the individualised aspects of the work,
it fullfills the requirements of what people would call natural rights.
If there are any such rights, the author's right to his work (i.e. to the
individual aspects that distinguish it from the works of others) is one of
them.  Being such, its violation by software patents cannot be treated
lightly.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch                                         http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	    http://swpat.ffii.org/
95000 signatures against software patents       http://www.noepatents.org/



