Re: [Patents] French high level civil servant warns about spwat danger

[Rui Miguel Seabra <rms@1407.org>]

On Mon, 2003-06-16 at 23:04, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> Software is all useful process, method, structure, idea and applied
> mathematics. The TRIPS treaty and WIPO treaties, which both Americans
> and Europeans have signed, EXPLICITLY rules out copyright for process,
> method, structure, idea and mathematics.  These treaties rule out
> copyright protection for process, method, structure, idea and
> mathematics because the protection of such has long been handled by the
> patent system.  It was an American idiocy to introduce software copyright
> to the world.

It is precisely an American idiocy that is force-feeding Europe with
generical idea patents. We're here to stop that.

>   Software is just one of the branches of physics.  Like
> all of the other branches of physics, protection of software inventions
> belongs in the patent world as being a work of applied science.

Physics deal with real matter, not thought. Do you think us so stupid to
believe such double-speak?


> >My code is my way of expressing myself (and should be protected as 
> >freedom of speach).
>     Freedom of speech which trumps copyright?  Then you are against both
> patents and copyrights.  Which I think is the belief of the majority of
> people on this list.  Besides, my new gene seqence is a way of expressing
> myself, my new blueprint for a mechanical device is a way of expressing
> myself.  Are you saying then that the protection of all of these things
> should not be with patents, but copyrights?

Design (the blueprint for instance) -> Copyright
The way to build what was designed  -> Patent

There's no such silver bullet as Patents fit all purposes.

>     Why?  Why not settle for the same protection as an inventor creating
> something similarly useful as your software?  How are you different in
> any substantial way from someone programming hardware designs, especially
> someone using hardware/software codesign tools?  What do you want 100+
> years of copyright protection for?  Talk about trying to obtain grossly
> excessive amounts of control.

The more-than-one-hundred-years-copyright is another abomination. It
needs not such a long time, and the founders of your country do seem to
have had more sense than the current rulers (at least in this matter).

Copyright, however, does not prevent positive competition that leads to
new ways of doing things. Patents do and that may be overall positive in
some areas, but definitely not on software, which is nothing more than a
representation of rational thought (ok, sometimes there's irrational
thought too).

>     Or when someone wants to compile and distribute your patented code,
> they have to respect your inventors right.

Ah, but we're not talking about patenting code but patenting ideas. If a
software patent was as narrow as a certain piece of code, then you'd
have just a more expensive and shorter copyright, for all effects.

>   And unlike patents, they have to
> respect your copyright for 100+ years.   You some sort of control freak?

No. Copyright allows one to apply judo tricks on it in order to give
irrevocable freedom to anyone (eg. Copyleft).

> And if you look at how courts determine software copyright infringement,
> the only way to do so is to make use of many patent concepts and methods.
> The copyright world is just dishonest in not admitting that that is what
> they are doing.

The patent world is just dishonest in not admitting that it desires 
economical control over human thought.

> >When I write software, I have a moral (because I am from EU) on my art 
> >and can refuse certain use that will not honor my name or piece of art.
>     If inventors don't have a morality right in their works, why should
> the artist get one?  I am sure the inventors of nuclear science would
> have love to say to the world - "you can use our invention peacefully,
> but not for weapons".

Gregbot: the world is not the USA. I for sure can't vote for your
presidentials and neither can you for mine.

Inventors do have morality right in Europe in general, IIRC.

Regards, Rui
-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

Please AVOID sending me WORD, EXCEL or POWERPOINT attachments.
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