Re: [Patents] newsscan: Software patent limits 'go too far'

[Jens Hardings <jens@hardings.cl>]

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On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:45:52 +0200
Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron@free.fr> wrote:

> On top of that, as a jurist, I must add a very simple question ?!? 
> 
> Why should it be to computer scientists to deal with the patentability
> of softwares? Do you want pharmacy industries to deal with
> patentability of drugs and school teachers to deal with their
> liability when they take care of children? Is is fair to let car
> drivers deal with how to get a driving licence?

Of course! One of the main points in allowing patentability is to make
the complete description of the invention available. So the people who
really should be involved to judge if the system really works or shows
problems are the ones who have to deal with it. And in the case of
software, it just does not work. No computer scientist or computer
industry man that I am aware of has ever done research by looking at
patent databases, it would require a lawyer to translate legalese into
something understandable (not to mention the lack of source code in
software patents).

> Nobody is leazy. Problems are simply complicated and solutions can't
> appear in just a few years.

And obviously, the jurists won't work them out if they do not work
closely together with the people whose work they are interfering with.
The questions above show the complete arrogance of the attitude in not
letting the people whose problems are supposedly to be solved to have a
part in the solution.

> Can you only imagine that it needed 80 YEARS to gradually accept the
> principle that someone fired without any reason should obtain remedies
> from his employer...
> 
> What we see now is just the normal process of the birth of
> legislation. People have opposed views, some are fair and some are
> unfair but they tend to get closer in the end until everybody find a
> good in-between solution. It's just not the job of computer scientists
> to write law and it's not the job of jurists to understand computer
> science. Both interact on each other and the only thing needed is
> communication and explanations.

There still is the problem that the patent system provides huge amounts
of monetary benefit for the people currently making the policies. So the
questions you pose are to be seen the other way around: should lawyers
or jurists, the main benefitiaries of all the burdens a patent system
imposes upon a society, be the ones who choose and define how it will
work?

- -- 
Jens.
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