Re: [Patents] EU Commission: Competitive and efficient European enterprises

[João Miguel Neves <joao@silvaneves.org>]

On Qua, 2003-04-09 at 15:36, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> >.. So that is the reason why the commission wants software to be
> >.. patentable?  E.g, to help make software development like tapdancing
> >.. in a minefield especially for SME.
> 
> Grow up.  Many other fields of technology (electronics, communications,
> biotech, pharma, etc.) have learned to tapdance in these patent minefields.
> It is something mature industries learned to deal with.  There is nothing
> special or holy about software engineering.  And if you bothered to do any
> research, you would find the minefields in these other areas of technology 
> much worse than for software, in terms of real legal problems companies
> big and small are experiencing.  But in fantasy land, imagine what you want.
> 
> Greg Aharonian
> 

My issues with software patents:

1) Do they make sense for software ? If you think so, please give me
your answers to the eleven questions posed by Philippe Aigrain:
http://cip.umd.edu/Aigrain.htm

2) How do you distinguish software from text in natural language
processors ?

3) Why do we want software patents ? To pay more money to lawyers ?

4) As for the historical background, why did governments had to force
the licensing of patents when they wanted a certain techology to
develop, like happened with aviation around World War II ?

5) Why are we going to reduce user-end and incremental innovation ?

6) Why can't 2 persons have the same idea ? (This is the basis of the
patent system.)

-- 
                                                João Miguel Neves

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