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

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

>     > I recommend saying "copyrights and patents" on the rare occasions
>     > where it makes sense to talk about both together.
>
>     "copyrights and patents and utility certificates and design patents and
>     chip topologies and ..."
>
> It is even rarer to want to talk about all those together.

I think it is just as frequent.

> What they have in common is slim and the differences are many.

Everything that patents and copyright have in common is also shared
by all the others listed above.

> This is a problem we don't need to solve.

I can't see many people outside the free software community who see this
as a problem.

The European Commission has departments for "Intellectual Property"
and "Industrial Property", which are just as much a reality as
"patents" and "copyright".

Patents and copyright serve (or are supposed to serve) a common function
of preventing cheap imitation and encouraging originality in the interest
of society.  It would be wrong to understand the difference between
patents and copyright as one between idea and expression.  If patents
apply to ideas, that only shows that something went wrong in the evolution
of the patent system.  It acquired a uniqueness which it shouldn't have
acquired.  The tail started wagging the dog.  Patents became a category of
their own instead of a subsystem serving the common purpose of "IP".
Only a few predators benefit if patents are detached from this common
purpose and gain a life as an independent unique species.

Last year at the Amsterdam Columbanus Symposium

        http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2002/ivir08/

Prof. Hugenholtz gave a very interesting talk about expansion,
interference, and integration of different IP subsystems.  Needless to
say, his vision was one of an integrated, unified IP system.

There are lots of contexts that call for the use of the term "IP" or
whatever you call it.  "Copyrights" and "patents" are not natural species
which are defined by some unique individual characteristics, but rather
man-made systems whose evolution can only be understood and predicted if
you look at the functions which they are supposed to serve in their
respective contexts.

> When people do try to talk about all these things put together, the
> reason is usually not that it makes sense for their purpose, but
> rather that they assume the category "intellectual property" is the
> proper one to use, solely because that term is so fashionable.

Yes, or even because they want to hide unpleasant specifics behind a
generalisation.  People often use questionable tactics in communication.
We all agree on that.  They will continue to do so even if you succede
in stigmatising certain words.

Stigmatising words as "politically incorrect" became a kind of popular
sport in the 1980s.  In extreme cases every sentence can become a show of
political correctness and the public good of language becomes appropriated
by political purposes: a public infrastructure used for free-riding by
political campaigners who might otherwise have to spend a lot more
ressources on getting their messages through.

There is a danger that words are being stigmatised here just for the
purpose of this kind of popular free-riding.  But even free-riding has its
price.  It can result in wooden language, e.g. a kind of GnuSpeak which is
not necessarily conducive to clear thinking, and even less to effective
communication outside the we-group.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
160,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/