On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 22:27:47 +1100
Sridhar Dhanapalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> studiouisly spake these words to ponder:
> On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 11:02:18 +0900, Doug Lerner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001):
> > >Well the analogy of the clay pot may not be good at all. Consider this--
> > >
> > >I make a clay pot, and I fire it and I go to a lawyer and show him the
> > >product and get him to draft a patent so that no one else can glaze clay
> > >pots or decorate them in any way without paying me royalties. I file
> > >the patent and use the proceeds from my clay pots to threaten to keep
> > >anyone else who fires clay pots in court for years of ruinous spending
> > >battling my army of lawyers unless they pay me ransom for protection
> > >against lawsuit.
> >
> > I believe that patent law requires more than just something new. It has
> > to be something that is not obvious too.
>
> In theory this is true. In practice, however, the US Patent Office gives patents
> for just about anything. As Civileme noted, BT has patents on hyperlinking, and
> Apple has patents on desktop theming. Unisys has a patent on LZW compression
> (which is used in the GIF image format), which is a _very_ simple algorithm
> indeed. Such patents only serve to harm the industry, since the patent owners
> will sue anyone that breaches them. BT now has the power to sue anyone who's
> ever made or accessed a web page, and Unisys can sue anybody who makes GIF
> images (which is why you should use PNG instead). Even colour palettes can be
> patented: The GIMP cannot do CYMK colours (which are necessary for print)
> because of patents held by printing companies.
>
> > Let me ask the opposite question. Suppose a drug company takes hundreds
> > of millions of dollars from thousands of investors and uses the money for
> > research and creates a drug that improves the daily lives of millions of
> > people. Do the people who invested in the enterprise deserve to profit
> > from this? Or should anybody be allowed to come along and make generic
> > copies of the drug without bothering to invest in time and effort to do
> > the research?
>
> Okay, then let me ask you this. Suppose a pharmaceutical company holds the
> rights to a drug that can help the lives of millions of people in lesser
> developed countries. The only catch is that the cost of the drug is exhorbitant
> -- far above cost price and far more than those in need can afford. The drug may
> only get to a tiny percentage of sufferers, but the pharmaceutical company makes
> billions. In this case, would it be wrong for someone to break the patent so
> that the drug could be manufactured to help millions?
>
> Now, replace "pharmaceutical company" with Roche (a massive Swiss-based firm)
> and "someone to break the patent" with the Brazilian government. The drug is
> nelfinavir, designed to treat AIDS sufferers. The decision was made after Roche
> refused to lower the cost of nelfinavir, which was taking up 28 percent (US$82
> million) of the health ministry's annual budget. Producing it locally slashed
> costs by 40 percent. The United Nations has praised the move.
>
> The software industry is not much different. Both industries are dominated by a
> few huge transnational corporations, which charge far more than their products
> are actually worth. I am not against the idea of intellectual property, but
> there needs to be some strict limits.
>
AMEN!
--
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