Re: [Patents] copyright scope

[Ward Vandewege <ward@pong.be>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 01:04:12AM +0100, iriXx wrote:
> the other difficulty with patents is you can't do anything like the GPL 
> - which takes the existing principles of copyright and works within them 
> to create freedom. there is no way that patent law can be made to do 
> this sort of thing... not that i can see...

Well, there is 'defensive publishing'. The idea is to publish inventions in
detail, so that they will constitute prior art and hence will not be
patentable. Of course, with the pathetic quality of work of the Patent
Offices, this is more theory than reality. You can find more information on:

  http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/shield/index.en.html

There is a document by the WIPO that's worth reading if you are interested in
defensive publishing on the internet:

  http://www.wipo.int/scp/en/documents/session_4/pdf/scp4_5.pdf

Something else to consider: patent applications are not made public
until 18 months after they have been filed. That means that even when one
practices defensive publishing, up until 18 months later a patent application
could turn up that dates back before the prior art.

There are also issues with proving publication date, document integrity, and
continuity of availability. The WIPO document is not very clear on how the
patent offices deal with those.

I think defensive publishing could be of (limited?) use to the Free Software
community, provided the Patent Offices do their job well, and a number of
legal issues are solved. But even if those conditions would be fulfilled, it
comes nowhere near the freedom we get by using the GPL.

> so therefore if you can't use patents to make 'free' patents, like you 
> can use copyright law to make Free (libre) licenses, then i dont think 
> any form of patenting is good for the Free Software community at all.

Now that, I agree with! Nor is it for most software SME's.

Bye for now,
Ward.

- -- 
Pong.be         -(   "If you think penguins are fat and waddle, you have   )-
Virtual hosting -( never been attacked by one running at you in excess of  )-
http://pong.be  -(                   100 MPH." -- Linus                    )-
GnuPG public key: http://gpg.dtype.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+q7ozqC3O5tzmh5wRApqUAJ47slmg6TRQebmH5k6wD7ms9wBl0ACfWjyF
zLdY/XkK1djQoD4EjiNIj48=
=M0h5
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----