Re: [Patents] Amsterdam impressions

[Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>]

On Thu, Sep 05, 2002 at 12:50:10PM -0400, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> > .. could [Greg] point to any economic study that hints that software
> > patents could be useful economically or technically, ......
> 
> or "could [Greg] point to any economic study that hints that software
>     patents could be as useful or as useless economically or
>     technically as electronic patents, etc."
> 
> or "could [Greg] point to any economic study that hints that software
>     patents in France or Germany could be as useful or as useless
>     economically or technically for creating new small businesses
>     as current French or German small business economic policies..."
> 
> or "could [Greg] point to any economic study that hints that
>     software patents could be more useful or less useful
>     economically or technically than software copyrights..."
> 
> My bet is that the effects of software patents are indistinguishable
> from patents in related areas of technology, that if European counties
> are really interested in spurring software job growth that they have
> better places to look than the supposed ills of software patents (like
> European companies outsourcing all of the open source development and
> maintenance work to jobs shops in China and India), and that the
> general impotence of software copyright (what's left to protect after
> you subtract out Abstraction of ideas, Filtration of the prior art,
> and obvious Comparisons?) makes it less economically and technically
> useful than patents.  My bet.
> 
> Look, some of you hate all forms of patents.  At least that is a
> consistent position to take, as opposed to coming up with these
> artificial distinctions between software technology and other
> technologies.  Just stick to attacking the entire patent system.

I, for one, do not hate all forms of patents ...  though I consider
that the legal criteria surrounding them have become a meaningless
formal game.  As I said many times, I would not even require novelty
or inventiveness to grant a patent, but just a credible justification
of the usefulness of granting it.  As it turns out, there are modern
reasons for granting patents that are not even taken into account by
patent offices ... because the game of the patent lobby is purely
ideological instead of being rational.

but I do notice that you happily piss on the text of your own
constitution (that I was quoting), which does consider that general
usefulness is THE criterion.

Bernard

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