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

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> I generally avoid the term Intellectual Property when speaking to
> "normal" people

So do I ..

> because I feel the meaning is easily confused with property.

.. but the reason may be different.

"Normal" people in "normal" conversations are interested in knowing about
what legal titles who owns and makes money with.  If IBM spokesmen keep
telling the press, as reported in

        http://swpat.ffii.org/players/ibm/

that they earn "more than 1 billion of profits from our intellectual
property", they are hiding the information that people are looking for.
And if the journalists from Forbes and other journals pass such
information on in a context where it may mislead people (into believing
that these 1 bn are patent revenues), that is all the more deplorable.
It is a good reason for asking people to be more specific, as RMS is doing
on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.

But in different contexts, the word "I.P." may be usable, even with normal
people.  E.g. when discussing some "IP" claims of some IBM press release
with a "normal" person, you can say "can these basic algorithms really be
IBM's intellectual property?  That is common knowledge of mankind,
unrelated to any creative effort of IBM.  With the help of the Patent
Office, big business has twisted IP law into a tool for expropriating
ordinatry people."  I think that is not difficult to understand.

-- 
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/