Re: [Patents] Re: US==EU

[Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>]

wrong discussion

IP is a tool for regulating economy

Lawyers are incompetent to determine economic policy, technically and
by role.

Listening to lawyers about economy is like trying to understand
science by listening to a preacher ...  all you get is creationism : a
reconstruction of reality that does not even try to have anything to
do with reality.

But, it is true that creationism is taught in the USA ...  so much for
academic standards.

bernard

pi=3  ... by law  ...     it is so much more convenient


On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 09:17:47PM -0500, Russell McOrmond wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> 
> > >.... and says that patents are "more and more" viewed as the "protection
> > >.... of choice for software".
> > >
> > >.. Is this the academic standard in law schools in the US ?
> > 
> > Yes, in those law schools that realize that software is essentilly
> > something that is useful, functional, comprising processes and methods.
> 
>   Software is unique in what it is. If you want to make an analogy of
> software to something else you would be far better served to compare it to
> policy than technology.  Software is the policy that controls computer
> hardware, and while hardware is technology the software is not.
> 
> 
>   You want to create statutory monopolies on policy and then try to make a
> living trying to do minor 'error correction' of what will obviously result
> as a fundamentally flawed system.  Just as much as it is nonsense and
> harmful to the social, economic and political aspects of citizens lives to
> grant exclusive rights to the "useful, functional, comprising processes
> and methods" involved in "Roberts Rules" or acts of parliament, so is it
> nonsense to offer an exclusive right to the methods in software.
> 
> > And last time most law schools looked, "useful", "functional", 
> > "processes", "methods" are all denied copyright protection in most 
> > of the world.  But not patent protection.  You may not like the law,
> > but at least know what it is.
> 
>   I don't think people are questioning the interpretation of the law, but
> are disagreeing with some of the quite suspect understandings of the
> nature of software.
> 
> -- 
>  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
>  "Make it legal: don't litigate, use creative licensing" campaign.
>  A modern answer to P2P: http://www.flora.ca/makelegal200403.shtml
>  Canadian File-sharing Legal Information Network http://www.canfli.org/
> 

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