On Thu, May 05, 2011 at 08:29:00PM -0500, R. van Twisk wrote:
>
> Mark, I partially agree with you,
> what if I (as a person) invent something great, but I don't have the resources
> to back it up. Then I am going to be a poor puppy.
If you have evidence of making the thing before, then you can continue
to make and sell it. Dated laboratory notebooks have served that purpose
in the past. If you've been selling it, or otherwise gone public, then
your "prior art" can totally invalidate the patent. (For those of us who
can't afford patenting costs, or think the invention isn't worthy of
patenting, then cutting off parasites, by putting it in the public
domain, may be our only comfort.)
Google has just been in the courts over a "garbage collection in linked
lists" patent. To me that sounds a bit like patenting pi. Algorithms and
data manipulations are just "where you drive your cpu" in program-land.
I do not have any way of seeing barbed-wire fences when driving there,
other than look-and-feel, i.e. copyrightable product appearance and
identity. But then, for our own use there are none.
Since FOSS isn't sold, its private use cannot readily be stopped by
patents. Can't we just ignore them?
> I kinda like the system in Europe, there are no software patents there,
> and thee is no such thing 'Let me make a patent of swiping a finger across
> a display to do whatever action'.
We had that here in Australia, until a "Free Trade Agreement" with USA set
numerous restrictions on our trade freedom. (Currently proposed
extensions include allowing US companies to sue our government if future
policy formulations impact in any way on corporate profitability.)
Patents are currently used to restrict competition, not advance human
knowledge.
Erik
--
All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.
- Grant Wood
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