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

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> That's why it's really refreshing to see people raising today to fight
> software patents. But they should also remember that they stood silent
> for years

Our activism should have come 15 years earlier, indeed.  You have a point
here, but ...

> and not put the blame on lawmakers whose job is not to guess
> what's right and wrong put to translate interests in words compatible
> with the existing legal system.

... it is still the job of courts to apply the written law and, if they
stretch it by interpretation, then better on the basis of right and wrong
than just on the basis of the interests that they are seeing.

And, as said, there are limits to stretching.  The limits were seen quite
clearly in the 70s and 80s.  See e.g. the manual of patent law by
Rudolf Krasser, which says where these limits were.  Or the text of
M. Vivant, all quoted on

        http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/epc52/

It would be nice to have a translation of Krasser.

> As far as I remember, the GPL was created in 1984 and the importance of
> open source and free software only begun to spread around 1995. We are
> only 8 years later.

Better mention the creation of the League for Programming Freedom, which
was supported by most of the US software industry, in the late 80s.  The
debate has little to do with the GPL.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
280,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/