Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: > > An informative read is "The Dangers of Software Patents": > http://www.ifso.ie/documents/rms-2004-05-24.html
"The advocates of software idea patents ask you to take for granted that no matter what harm or trouble or nuisance these patents may cause, they must be promoting progress and surely that justifies whatever, whatever trouble they may impose on you. But this is not so. You can look at the economic modelling to show it's not so. In www.researchoninnovation.org/patents.pdf, I warn you, it's rather ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ mathematical, but it shows how, in a field with incremental innovation, a patent system can retard progress. The assumption that they want us to take for granted is false." Now, http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/comp/replies/eicta_en.pdf ------- We trust that the Commission fully understands that, despite statements to the contrary in some quarters, there is no consensus among economists that patents inhibit innovation in the software sector. The study most often cited by proponents of this argument (Sequential Innovation, Patents and Imitation; J. Bessen/E. Maskin, 1997/1999) is inconclusive at best and flawed in many respects. It relies largely on data from the 1970s and 1980s. In this dynamic and rapidly changing industry, public policy for the 21st century should not be based on inconclusive results drawn from data from an earlier era of information and communications technologies. The authors claim that standard arguments would predict that R&D intensity and productivity should have increased among patenting firms during the period studied and that this increase did not occur, consistent with their model, for several samples of software-related industries and firms after 1986. They conclude that this is an effect of an extension of patent protection to many software ideas by a series of court decisions in the early 1980s, although there is no causal link demonstrated in thepaper. Moreover, R&D intensity is defined in the paper as R&D spending relative to sales (page 18, para 3). As one can easily understand, the proposition that R&D intensity should increase among patenting firms may be valid for one firm or a sample of firms only within narrow limits. At some stage, a steady state of R&D spending relative to sales will necessarily be reached. A constant increase of R&D spending relative to sales would result in losses and finally in bankruptcy of one firm or of all firms in a sample when the R&D intensity continues to rise, finally eating up any profits. Responsible management, therefore, must ensure that the R&D intensity is kept relatively constant after a starting phase. To increase profits the management should further tend to increase the R&D efficiency, that is the R&D output relative to R&D spending, with the aim to decrease R&D intensity. This principle applies whether there are patents or not. Therefore, the effects shown in Figures 5 to 8 of the Bessen/Maskin study seem to be explainable by the activities of responsible management in firms regardless of the existence of patents for software related inventions. ------- Care to comment, GNUtian ciaran? BTW, are you working/lobbying for free at Brussel? Are you an unpaid volunteer? regards, alexander. -- "Don't Buy Harry Potter Books" -- http://www.stallman.org _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
