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

[Erik Josefsson <erikjosefsson@telia.com>]

On Fri, 2002-06-14 at 20:54, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> So you do what these companies do, ignore the letter, or
> send back a nasty letter if the patent is crappy, or fight back.

Perhaps they should also call you for help to bust the patent?

What's your fee?

> If you bother to do some business research,

If you bother to read Hunt (and Dreyfuss?) you will find they propose
different, or differentiated, Industrial and Intellectual Property
Rights in different industries.

The software "industry" structure is different from other industries.
For example, BladeEnc was developped by one person and this single
person was threatened by megacorp. patent holders.
http://bladeenc.mp3.no/skeleton/oldnews.html ;(1998-09-20 The Fraunhofer
situation)

> you will find that the negative effects of software
> patents are probably less percentage in the software industry than the
> negative effects of patents in other industries.

Who says that? And what effects are you takling about? And as I said
earlier, there is a large hidden effect we can not know as long as
patent infringement claims are not registered (to be valid).


> I am still the only person
> actually sued for software patent infringement for using open source
> software.

You said that one year ago, is it moving or did you cross licence?

> Until you have some real economic data showing significant negative
> economic effects of software patents (as isolated from other plagues
> on software businesses like having lousy business models, downturns
> in the economy, regular competition, etc.), no serious politicians
> is going to pay any attention to your arguments.

And where are the real economic data showing significant positive
economic effects?

//Erik