Re: [Patents] pooling patents, version 2

[<xdrudis@tinet.org>]

> IMHO Industrial property is confusing too and can be confused with 
> the real estate of an industry  too. (Property being associated 

I don't think it can be confused with real state, any more than 
intellectual property can be confused with a philosopher's house. 

> with that kind from a long time). Also, the term intellectual is 
> used to distinguish it from the physical or material
> property as this kind of property is born out of the intellect - 
> copyright or patents. Is it the unnecessary humility (not a false 
> one though) of engineers hesitating to call themselves 
> intellectuals? I wonder.
> 

The term industrial property comes from the fact that it is 
only designed for industrial processes and goods. That means material 
objects and physical processes. 

Engineers know that achievements involving the physical world 
need experimentation, laboratories, etc. and are subject to the 
constraints of a world only imperfectly known, whereas achievements
involving deduction from formal models, math, literature, etc. 
require "only" thinking and are not subject to material constraints. 
It is because these two activities are differents that the first
needs ndustrial property (patents) and the second at most intellectual
property (authorship rights).

Industry, in the natural sense of manufacturing, production of material 
goods, is not usually interested in intellectual property any more 
than other businesses (and less than some businesses), and the core of
their inventivity is in the material world, therefore the "industrial
property" name. 

I don't think it is such a great name. But it has a stablished meaning, 
it is not too ambigous (unless you bend it beyond recognition as you
could bend any term) and is related to its meaning. So there may be
better names, but this one is good enough for me.

So it is not that engineers are to humble to claim intellectuality, is
that they know when they work in a formal model or in the real world. 
That is, unlike lawyers, their job is to distinguish the real world from
the theoretical constructs and use each one to improve the other, not to
explore the limits of the theory to make it fit what you would like the
world to be, or make the evidence look as it follows the theory.

Engineers do some intellectual work, but also some empirical work, and 
they don't confuse one with the other.