On 09/28/2011 02:13 PM, Hsuan-Yeh Chang wrote:
Thanks for challenging my point of view by attacking my profession.
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for your profession. I've had to deal with
enough lawyers to realize that it must be one of the rings in Dante's
Inferno. "IP" law is a terrible mess BECAUSE of the practicing lawyers.
So, sorry, you can feign injury somewhere else.
I am only trying to help the open source community to fight against the
biggies. If you believe that RMS in his lifetime can convince the Congress to
abolish software patents, please do so. It's your freedom guaranteed by the US
constitution.
I agree.
How much money do you think M$ and others have spent on filing software patent
applications in the Patent Office? How much money do you think M$ has spent on
lobbying your representative elected by your votes? For at least this very
reason, I don't believe Congress will abolish software patents any time sooner.
Again, I agree.
This country protects independent inventors more than most other countries in
the world. If anyone has a good idea, regardless of whether the person is poor
or rich, and regardless of whether the person is opening source code or not,
the person is equally capable of seeking patent protection than anyone else.
You are forgetting the cost of filing a patent. In this economy, how
many engineers are unemployed and working on ideas and inventions?
Furthermore, "patents" are useless for making money these days. Patents
are only useful for suing someone who has money. You can thank your
profession for making a mockery out of the patent process.
If you choose to donate your invention to the public and give up your rights,
that's again your freedom. But if you exercise your freedom by giving up your
legal rights, how can you ask the Congress to change the law simply because of
your generosity?
It isn't generosity at all. Its self preservation. If I "publish" my
idea, it means I can actually use it. Otherwise someone else will patent
it.
I think you miss the point of patents, most of what is being patented is
"obvious" to those skilled in the art, but the patent examiners to do
not have the ability to reject the patent without a legally defensible
reason. I have a friend in the US patent office and he has issues with
patents he has to approve, but doesn't have the ability to disallow them.
So, by publishing everything, it is not generosity, it is protecting
ourselves. We won't make money without hard work, but it allows us to
capitalize on our hardwork without worrying about being sued by a troll
who is also a member of your profession.
Not all lawyers are necessarily bad lawyers.
Really? Ever been divorced? Ever been sued? I have a personal different
opinion.
President Lincoln was a lawyer and he ended slavery.
At the cost of how many thousands of lives? Was there no other way?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a lawyer and he ended segregation in the
United States. There are countless number of lawyers who have contributed to
the advances of this country...
Yes, but not by practicing law, by protesting against it.
HYC
________________________________
From: Derek Martin<[email protected]>
To: Hsuan-Yeh Chang<[email protected]>
Cc: "[email protected]"<[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Discuss] The America Invents Act
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 08:07:43AM -0700, Hsuan-Yeh Chang wrote:
This has been changed by AIA and recent court decisions. See, for example,
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/02/patent-reform-act-of-2011-an-overview.html
Below are some quotes from above link:
[...]
What you said has been out dated by Obama's signature of AIA...
You're overlooking some pretty glaring practical issues with your
argument. You're quoting a summary of the act written by patent
lawyers. They have every incentive to try to make you think that
patents are good for you: patents are good for THEM. You're also
failing to recognize that what the law literally states is subject to
interpretation by lawyers, judges, and often jurors, who are fallible
and may also have their own agenda. Any law suit that happens in
practice will usually be won by the guy with the best lawyers, which
usually means the guy with the most money, i.e. not the OSS software
developer. Or, actually, it usually comes down to who has the deepest
pockets, because patent trials are EXPENSIVE. Microsoft has vastly
more resources than you do, and can litigate a suit against you until
you no longer have the funds to defend yourself, or until you can't
afford to miss any more work, at which point, YOU LOSE, regardless of
whose side the law is actually on. The law is a tool best leveraged
by those with lots of money.
RMS addressed most of this in his video also, again in much better
terms that I have.
I'm starting to think that you are yourself a patent lawyer or
employee of the SBA. If you're not, then YOU represent the biggest
challenge to making REAL software patent reform happen: If we can't
get people who actually understand software to agree that they are bad
for us (and in fact everyone), we'll never convince people who
understand software much less well.
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