[ILUG] ILUG sends s/w patents briefing document to Irish MEPs

[David Golden]

On Friday 18 March 2005 13:18, David Golden wrote,
in regard to comparing non-literal-copy copyright and patent:

> But the major thing would be that with patents, even carefully
> independent (re)development is restricted.
>

Er. I somehow  neglected to mention in that section, probably as it's a 
reason for my general dislike for all patents, part of the fundamaental 
nature of patents and I'd already ranted about that elsewhere:

And that independent mere _use_ could be restricted too, of course,
depending on the  nation in question (e.g. afaik in nordic 
jurisdictions, patent infringement can only apply even in principle to 
commercial use, while that sort of restriction would still cripple free 
software and force it back to hobbyist development, it couldn't kill it 
outright)

Copyright OTOH only applies for distribution (a point GPL people do 
often make, so I'm embarrassed to have not stressed that 
difference...).