Re: [Patents] Paper: "Rent Seeking and Innovation"

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

People can produce code in their spare time and distribute it for free.

It does nevertheless create wealth, and very effectively.  Indeed,
some people come to think that it could be the most effective way to
produce general software (as opposed to service and specific
tailoring).
  And if anyone think this cannot be true, could he be so kind as to
explain to me why it can be true for mathematics and not for software.

  For such people producing software for free, legal overhead is 100%

This is of course the extreme case, showing that costs in software
production can be arbitrarily low.

while legal costs cannot ... not being under the software producer
control.

hence ratio can be as close to infinity as you want to make it.

   Of course, none of this could be true of material products, such as
electronic circuits, since they cannot be produced or distributed for
free (not to mention the extremely high initial investment costs to
create the factories).

of course, these explanations are for the benefit of people who might
be mislead into thinking that the Aharonian is actually exhibiting
sentience.
   I well know that the Aharonian is not something that can be
convinced of anything, even though it is very close to passing the
Turing test.

  By the way, the Aharonian asks for the DATA.  The Aharonian forgets
that it is up to those who want IP to show the data ... For example
according to the US Constitution, since IP is constitutional only
inasmuch as it promotes sciences and useful arts.  And in any
democratic country (a term much abused currently), when considering
any limitation on freedom (such as the freedom of publishing and using
programs), the burden of the proof that it is socially justified is on
the shoulders of whoever wants to restrict freedom, and not on those
who want to preserve it.

So, Aharonian, SHOW ME THE DATA.

Bernard

On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 04:50:07PM -0400, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> Bernard writes:
> >It so happens that while in some industries, the legal overhead [of 
> >patents]
> >is bearable, compared to other costs, in the software business (for
> >example) the legal art of your budget goes out of proportion with
> >other parts.
> 
> Where is your comparative industry sector economic analysis or data to 
> support such an assertion?  There are two costs with patents: getting
> them and fighting battles.  In Europe, where the loser pays, most comapanies
> have little to worry about having stupid software patents asserted against
> them (so that they don't have to allocate that much money from their budget
> to handle such cases).  Their acquistion costs for patents are no different
> than for other industries, like electronic circuits.
> 
> In America, the situation is different, but I know of no data supporting
> any assertion about the comparative impact of patents on budgets by
> industries.
> 
> So SHOW ME THE DATA.
> 
> Greg Aharonian

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