Re: [Patents] GregNews/WSJ on patent-based tax evasion

[Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>]

>Greg said before that the litigation rate for normal patents is about
>1% (e.g. one litigation case for 100 patents) and tacitly acknowledged
>that this rate is near 0% for software/bizmeth patents in Europe.

>Why then do we have so many swpats in Europe?

>One reason may well be that companies are using them to save taxes.

No, that is not the reason, if you knew anything about running a business
and paying taxes.  Non-licensed patents are an asset only to the value of
the cost of getting the patent issued.  In the US, such costs are
deductible in the year they are incurred (I assume similarly in Europe),
and thus there is no need for tax sheltering.  The costs of buying a
patent from someone else have to be amortized over 15 years, which is
not much of a benefit if the patent you acquire isn't bringing in any
royalties.  To the extent European tax law is different, it probably
isn't too different, so that even in Europe there is little use of
exploiting software patents for tax purposes.

You have so many swpats in Europe for the same reason you have so many
hardware patents, so many telecom patents, so many other patents in
other fields of technology.  That is, software is just another 
technology that corporations could do inventing that the feed into
their patent processing pipelines.  If slimeware was the next area of
technology, companies would start filing slimeware patents, just
because they can.

And for the record, my "deeply concerned" about tax issues you allude
to in your post, was complete sarcasm on my part, which if you had any
sense of humor whatsoever and a bit of knowledge about US tax law, you
would have recognized.  There is a line of dialog at near the very end
of the movie "Good Morning Vietnam" that applies to you.

And for the record, you continual posts of my PATNEWS to this list 
without my permission shows your contempt for copyright laws.  Add
that to your contempt for patent laws and it is quite obvious that
you are hostile to all IP laws and want no protection of any sort
for software, if not other forms of technology as well.  Confess
that is one of the fundamental acts of faith of Harmutism.  HaHaHa.

Greg Aharonian