Re: [Patents] Washington Times: Internet Patents Divide Industry

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

>     But "intellectual property" is not such an example.  The generalisation
>     in this term is needed in many contexts.  We can not chose whether we 
> want
>     this concept to exist, we can only chose how to name it.

> I have very rarely found a situation where this generalization
> (including patents, trademarks and copyrights) is useful for clear
> thinking.  If there is such a case, I think your proposed term
> "exclusion rights" would be a good choice, but we should first try
> separating the different issues.

What about the case of accounting assets of a company?

Patents, copyrights, trademarks etc, like real estate property titles,
have an estimatable value, can be sold etc.  Also, like real estate
property titles, their value is derived from a right to forbid people to
use certain ressources.

For this context, "immaterial property" seems just perfect to me (as would
the lengthier "exclusion right based assets"), whereas "exclusion rights"
still lacks meaning of "asset".

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
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