> From: Joerg Schilling [mailto:joerg.schill...@fokus.fraunhofer.de] > > But in any case, patents are anachronistic. Patents have been created > to > protect inventions made by single personss against big companies 200 > years ago. > Patents are now perverted by the big companies against the original > intention.
What difference does it make if the patent is owned by an individual, or owned by a company which is owned by some number of individuals? All companies have ownership, you know. If I own a company, or even shares of a company, that pays salaries & benefits to a team of engineers and pays for all their tools, and all my engineers have agreed to intellectual property agreements with the company, then I want to know that my investment is protected. As soon as my engineers invent the wheel, I want to know that my company's competitors can't just copy it. It's unfair for my competitors to reap the benefits of the work that I paid for, or personally contributed to as an engineer on a team. Unless there is some agreement between my company and the competitor, for them to pay royalties to my company. I agree that patents in general (not just software patents) inhibit creativity and productivity overall. But nobody wants to give away their life's work for free, so the only way to replace or obsolete the present system of patent law is to create some other system ... whereby anybody can use anybody's invention, provided that due royalties are returned to the original inventor. Regardless of whether the original inventor was an individual or company. The problem is, what do you call "due royalties?" The only way to assess value of the invention is via free market, or dictatorship. And the only way to ensure users are paying proper royalties, is for the inventor to watch out for people using the invention unlicensed. AKA: The only possible solution is for patent holders to sue other people for infringement, and the only way to determine what's a fair price is to let the patent owner and consumer negotiate. Which is exactly what we do today. I think it stinks, but that's a direct result of human nature being flawed and no clear solution is known that protects everyone's interests. _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
