Re: [Patents] US patent reform strategy inaugurated by myths & lies

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> Correct. But remember that borders are always existed in
> laws, and laws are still with us. Because the good is more
> than the bad. Patents will be with us for the same reason.

With patents, this is far from clear.  Patents exist not because they have
a merit for society (which in some cases they might), but because, like
other protectionist systems, they generate a large parasitic lobby with
well-organised concentrated interests, and in this case even a body of
esoteric law and institutions to shield itself effectively from the
critical eye of the public, which has been fooled into assuming an
a priori legitimacy of this system.  As Machlup and others have written:
a system that owes its existence to a victorious movement of lawyers
against economists.

Nobody knows exactly how strong this system is politically.  Maybe it is
as strong as you claim, maybe it will collapse in very few years.  Before
the Berlin wall collapsed, Honnecker announced that it would last for
another 100 years.  Your rhetoric about the invincibility of the patent
system could be seen as a parallel in a similar juncture of history.

In any case, no matter in which juncture we are now, we will not gain
anything by surrendering legitimate moral positions.

-- 
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/