Re: [Patents] That Article

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> > What Collins is probably refering to, and was probably misquoted, is
> > the idea/expression dichotomy, where in global copyright treaties and
> > many national laws, you can protection software "expression" but not
> > software "ideas"  (look at the TRIPS treaty for typical language).
> > 
> > The problem is that for software, no one knows what the heck this means.
> 
>   The problem for software is that outsiders want to protect software
> "ideas", but the vast majority of actual practitioners want to protect
> only software "expressions" and *DO NOT WANT* software "ideas" or "facts"
> to be granted government protectionist monopolies.

You can sometimes make communiation easier by forgetting about the
idea/expression dichotomy and just talking about the breadth of the exclusion.

Insiders want fast, cheap and narrow IP, while some outsiders want to impose
the slow, expensive and broad form of IP that generates a lot of legal fees.

One of the problems of communication that we are facing is that the
"fast, cheap and narrow IP" is called "copyright" and associated with
dichotomies such as "idea vs expression" which do not really adequately
describe the problem (and therefore allow some people from the patent
camp to delegitimate the "fast, cheap and narrow" variant and create
a lot of confusion).