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

[Paul Jakma]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, David Golden wrote:

> I do hope that happened _after_ you'd read through provided links 
> to venture capitalist and deutsche bank research anti-swpat 
> statements,

I had read about the venture capitalist already, wasn't aware of the 
Deutsche bank thing. BTW, I do sort of agree with you, and your mails 
have been quite insightful :).

> which are likely far more convincing than mine, because I disagree 
> with all patents in principle.  One of the things I do wish 
> anti-software patent people would be more careful of is the fact 
> that with a bit of thought, many of their arguments apply equally 
> well to other fields upon which patents have been inflicted.

Indeed.

Thing is, I think "Patents are bad, we should get rid of them!" is an 
academic argument right now. And its not really immediately relevant. 
I can't see the general idea of patents being scrapped any time soon 
- for the short/mid term all you can do is try refine the existing 
patent system (or lobby to have it refined).

"Get rid of patents" is just hopeless, but I would be interested in 
citizenship application forms if you manage to fork society..

> It's "special" because copyright* exists to be undermined , but 
> other than that, yes, fine, I agree with you: patents are generally 
> undermining.  But if a city is being generally undermined, pointing 
> out to owners of a particular building that their building is being 
> undermined is not untrue.

Indeed.

This is btw why I'm actually reasonably optimistic about the future 
(in pragmatic terms). If the current patent brokenness becomes 
problematic enough, it will be changed/reformed. It's already bad 
enough that several large corporates now are advocating for patent 
reform - at least in the US[1].

> (*note: I ultimately disagree with copyright in its current form too,
> but patenting won't kill it for reasons you outlined...)

It'd be nice to live in a liberal society, where information, ideas 
and creative works can always flow freely and which still finds a way 
to allow the creators of those to eat. Don't forget to send me those 
citizenship papers when you setup this society :).

1. Including my employer, a largeish US multinational corporation.

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had
been different in the past.