[ILUG] Re: [IIU] Re: CAI query - patentability of software

[Paul O'Malley]

Paul Jakma wrote:

> On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Justin Mason wrote:
>
>> - Cross-licensing deals are common practice among large corporations,
>
who have:

> Patents have mostly turned into, by and large, legalised racketeering
> by very large companies. Almost inevitable if you indiscriminately[1]
> grant monopoly powers to powerful and self-interested bodies.
>
[Warning some venting of a big head of steam between the useful urls :))]

Okay so now we know that if you turn to patents it can cost you in your
development cycle, however if you listen to this you may get more of an
insight.

http://www.itconversations.com//download-link.php?id=497

In this talk by Lawrence Lessig titled 

Clearing the Air About Open Source

which was presented at the 2005 OSBC on Justin's current side of the
pond, search for '2005  OSBC Lawrence Lessig download pdf' you should
pick up the 199 page slide show, to complement the interesting talk.
However for me the most interesting part was at the end during the  Q &
A you have to listen to find out what dollars get turned into.
The professor explores a possible future of randomly locked doors by
people who use their membership of IP cartels to perform legal extortion
and in so doing drain the ability of commerce to progress. All this just
so they  they may sit in their 'intellectual property toll booths'
causing economic stagnation and the needless deaths of various good
ideas before they are brought to fruition.

If you agree with LL great, however if you do not may I point you to an
essay by Scott Berkun about smart people defending bad ideas.
http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/essay40.htm

With that last piece in mind, I really do wonder if this is what Charlie
McCreevy and those who may wish to influence his judgement really want.

Regards,

Paul O'Malley