US patent reform strategy inaugurated by myths & lies

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

At

  A MESSAGE FROM THE UNDER SECRETARY AND DIRECTOR
  http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/strat2001/21sp_covermemo.htm

commissioner Rogan says:

<<

When the Founding Fathers created our new Republic, they carefully
drafted our Constitution to be limited in scope and Federal
authority. As they painstakingly crafted the institutions of our new
government - institutions such as the presidency, the Congress, and
the judicial system - the Founders also saw fit to include a clause
anticipating the establishment of a patent system and the protection
of intellectual property. With their attention focused on the birth
of a new Republic, why did they feel the need to deal with what
appears to be, at first blush, an obscure area of law?

The answer is as important to our generation as it was to theirs:
they understood that their agrarian colony would never grow to be an
economic and technological giant unless there was an incentive for
inventors to create, and for other inventors to study and improve
upon the creations. From this foresight came the American systems of
patents, trademarks and copyright protection, which give inventors
and authors the ability to enjoy, for a limited period of time, the
exclusive economic benefits of their genius.

>>

He goes on to tell the story of how Thomas Jefferson, as the first patent
office director, examined a lot of patents himself, apparently because of
the importance which he attributed to the patent system.

Of course he does not quote what is really written in the US constitution.

The lies are quite easy to see:

- There is often enough of an incentive without patents
- Some countries were industrialised successfully without a patent system.
  The patent system was not all that important and often more harmful
  than helpful.
- Where ownership may extend is not an obscure question but quite central
  to any constitution.  Jefferson et al opposed the patent sytem but had
  to compromise.  What is written in the constitution reflects this
  compromise.  Rogan has good reasons not to quote it.
- Unlike copyrighted creations, inventions can not be "intellectual
  property" (e.g. connected to the intellect of an individual) but
  rather "industrial property" (privileges serving a certain industrial
  policy)

Rogan surely knows all this.

Just another example of how unscrupulous the representatives of today's
patent system are.

Although we can't expect any help from people like Rogan, the push for
reform itself is a good sign.

At least at the conference in Paris the rhetoric of the people from WIPO,
OECD, Whitehouse and FTC sounded a lot more reasonable than that of Rogan
found here, except that the abusive extension of the word "intellectual
property" to cover industrial property seems to have taken root
everywhere.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
120,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/