Re: [Patents] Patents meeting - Cambridge (UK), 8pm, tonight

[Alex Macfie <alex@cgce.net>]

[sent prematurely, sorry about that]

At 12:41 07/06/03 +0100, James Heald wrote:
> I wasn't able to get to this.
>
> Can anybody post how it went ?

There were 3 speakers
Philip Martin of patent & trademark law firm Marks and Clerk 
(http://www.marks-clerk.com/), explaining the current legal situation in 
some detail, tho' from an IP lawyer's point of view. When I slightly 
mischievously asked whether he thought that the interests of the "economic 
majority" should be equated with the general public, he said that that was 
outside his area of expertise...

For some reason after this speech and questions we were all asked to turn 
our chairs round and face the opposite way.

Wookey then explained the anti-swpat position, citing in particular the 
theoretical reasons why software patents are a bad idea, as well as the 
problems with some suggested solutions to the problems of trivial patents 
and of applying the system to software.

Tony Robinson of SoftSound explained why he thought swpat were a good idea, 
citing his particular business as an example, where he needed to get a 
patent before he could get venture capitalists interested. It was not a 
trivial patent (there were many supporters of swpat in the room, including 
Jeff Veit the organizer of the debate but no-one claimed to support patents 
of the Amazon one-click variety) but was certainly a business 
method/algorithm-implemented-on-a-computer type of patent. He was asked how 
he'd react if this company went into liquidation and the patent was bought 
by a patent troll. I don't remember what he said in response to that. He 
did say he'd seek to make potential competitors pay a licence fee. His 
argument was that the idea took take a lot of effort to protect it, and 
copyright would not prevent someone else from seizing on the idea and 
reimplementing it, which he thought would be relatively easy. I also heard 
the argument that first-movers don't always have the advantage because they 
make all the mistakes.

After the speeches were over debate continued... we were encouraged to sit 
with people of opposing views. I had to leave at ~22.45 to catch the last 
train to London but as far as I know informal discussions continued until 
closing time.


Alex Macfie                                     www.cgce.net   alex@cgce.net
         Trewarren, Llanddewi Rhydderch, Abergavenny, Gwent NP7 9UT
     "The exclusive right to invention [is] given not of natural right,
            but for the benefit of society." -- Thomas Jefferson