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

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

>     Patents and copyright serve (or are supposed to serve) a common function
>     of preventing cheap imitation and encouraging originality in the 
> interest
>     of society.
>
> Looking for similarities is a mistake, because the differences are
> much more important.  That's why the term "intellectual property"
> is so deeply harmful: it directs attention towards the similarities
> and away from the specifics.

Specifics of man-made systems result from historical accidents.  For the
future, the similarities are more relevant than the specifics.  This is
because, unlike biological species, social institutions can change
completely to adapt to environmental requirements in a very short term.
The identity of "copyright" or "patents" is very unstable, while the
requirement of "IP" (i.e. grant an appropriate level of exclusivity which
allows the originator to capture returns while not impeding independent
creation) or whatever you name it is stable over time.

On 2003/08/28-9 I'll be participating in an OECD symposium on "IPR,
Innovation and Economic Performance"

        http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/oecd08/

and in a roughly sketechd "message to the symposium"

        http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/oecd08/#mesg

I have found that I can address the people there more easily of I use the
term "IPR" than if I try to fight it.  Since it is the established word
for the environmental requirements to which the specific systems adapt and
by which they have to be measured, it is open to interpretation.  I am
free to analyse and define the requirements, and that seems to be quite a
useful thing to do.  If people want to talk about "intellectual property",
we can measure their system by certain requirements that must apply to all
"intellectual property".

Subjecting copyright and patents to common benchmarking is more
appropriate than stressing their individual identities.  The latter
approach will tend to be a traditionalist one, one of worship for
historically grown man-made systems.  It is this kind of traditionalist
worship for institutions that elevates patents into a moral category and
thereby creates trouble. The term "IP" does not elevate patents to
anything at all but rather subjects them to a common set of requirements.

-- 
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/