Re: Very good reading

["Sylvain Perchaud" <sylvain@europe-shareware.org>]

[discussion redirected to the right mailing list]

Le mercredi 5 mai 2004, à 15:53, Joaquim Carvalho a écrit:

>"
>a) Why not penalize holders of invalid patents?
>
>The tort/accident analogy suggests an interesting question: why does the
>legal system fail to require a patentee whose patent is invalidated to
>compensate an alleged infringer, all competitors, or even society in
>general (via a fine)? In tort law, legal damages are the negative
>incentive that induces precaution on the part of a potential tortfeasor.
>In our discussion so far, we have described the PTO as the relevant
>agent to determine the appropriate level of "precaution" against invalid
>patents. Why not shift some, or all, of this cost to the applicant?

IMHO, the best solution for all patents is to make the Patent Office liable.
If they have a financial penalty each time they don't do their
examination job, they will issue less and better patents.

But in the case of software patents, the problem is not here.
The real problem is about opening or not pandora's box of patents on
algorithms.

--
Sylvain Perchaud
Tel : +33 (0) 674 758 551
Fax : +33 (0) 251 280 898
http://www.europe-shareware.org