Re: [Patents] Russell's contempt for the motivation of scientists and engineers

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Tue, 6 May 2003, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> Nice insult of all of the science community, a contempt I see too often.

  Nice attempt at a personal insult by including my name in a subject line
in a sentence that has no validity at all.  I thought you were part of the
patent lobby, not a fiction author.  *grins*

  Your views do not represent the "science community" any more than my
views represent the views of the RIAA or MPAA. I find it almost laughable
that you would try to suggest you represent the views of all scientists
and engineers, and I suspect many scientists and engineers will be
insulted by your depiction of them.

  My views do not represent a contempt for the motivations of scientists
and engineers, but it does question the motivations of a small minority
that like to pretend that they speak for the whole.

  That community is quite diverse, and many of them worldly enough to
analyze the full impact of public policy and not just how it impacts them
personally.  Some of this diverse part of society will share the views I
and others in this forum express, and some will not -- and this is no
different than any other discipline.

  You must realize that you represent a very special interest wanting
government protectionism, even claiming that this protectionism is
required to stimulate innovation which is something that has yet to be
proven with adequate economic analysis. You appear entirely unable to
recognize the impact of this policy in some subject matter outside of the
pocket-book of a minority, and to recognize that sometimes what may be
good for the few can be disastrous to society as a whole.


  You have even demonstrated how little you trust your own viewpoint by
spending so much of your time in a forum of people with very different
motivations, and even removing people from your private mailing list that
do not share your views.  You disrespect all of us by believing that your
legalistic arguments are going to sway us from some of the moral, ethical
and larger public policy issues which we bring to the discussion.


  We live in a democracy which requires compromise.  You want to impose
the idea that patents are an "all or nothing", and that if one accepts
patents on simple manipulations of nature that one has to also accept
patents on information processes or other controversial subject matter.  
I disagree with you (on many things ;-) and believe that patenting does
not need to be a "yes or no" question, and that as a compromise society
can accept patents on subject matter where it is "less harmful".  There is
a required recognition that for some subject matter that the harm to the
public good far outweighs the claimed benefit.

  I am not alone in my analysis, and the idea that some types of
exclusivity need to be opposed on ethical (rather than legalistic) grounds
is not uncommon.

  Are you trying to suggest that there are no ethical issues with the
application of science in specific domains?  If you do believe this, then
you are not a science fiction fan as there are many movies made and books
written every year that should cause science to pause and think about who
is given exclusivity and whether that stimulates innovation or creates
social disorder.

  I just watched an movie last night called "The 6th Day"
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0216216 where a company executive holding many
patents on cloning technology formed himself a God complex.  He was
controlling whether people live or die, bringing people back from the dead
(including those he murdered) through cloning, putting in short 'expiry
dates' to ensure allegiance to him (including politicians).

  This type of questioning of the application of science is not about
legalistic analysis of the language in a particular temporary domestic
law, but has to do with ethics.  Laws are supposed to reflect social norms
and ethics, not conflict them.  There are some things that should simply
not have exclusivity (whether through patents or other government
granted/enforced exclusivity), and I happen to believe that software
interfaces are just one type of subject matter among many where this
applies.


  If you want to force me into a "yes or no" on patents, it should be
obvious by now that I am on the "no" side.  Unlike you, I am willing to
listen to the other point of view and to compromise.


Note:

  Patents are not the focus of my policy analysis, although it is what is
focused on in this forum.  I do believe there are considerable levels of
corruption in this domain currently as can be demonstrated by the fact
that an RIAA representative will be authoring the copyright laws in Iraq,
rather than a UN team possibly made up of some of the representatives of
the http://www.iprcommission.org/ .  If there wasn't enough analysis to
suggest that "the good of the Iraqi people" was not the motivations of the
current US administration, this is yet another data point.  Rather than
integrating intellectual property rights with development policy, we will
see further looting of Iraq's rich history and culture.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/