On Jun 10, 2008, at 10:11 AM, Todd Zaki Warfel wrote:
Well, we don't need to tag everything — don't go overboard here and use some common sense. This is obviously a sensitive topic and one that would warrant such a workaround. So, where does it end? Well, for now it could end w/[Patent]. It doesn't need to go further than that for now. Take it case by case.
I think Jared made a good point here. It's largely about professional courtesy and no technological solution will be perfect. (Although I certainly would welcome either a tagging system or a way to subscribe to a list where the rules were explicit that no patent discussions was allowed, and links to the U.S. patent website were blocked.) There are many things we understand that we don't do on this list, and this issue should be considered one of them. Will people unintentionally post patents? Sure, but we if all understand the rules, it will get corrected and self-policed. Over time, people will learn. It will become more and more understood what you should avoid and it will happen less and less.
If this list refuses to police itself, then you are leaving it up to the lawyers to police people who work in their organizations for you, and that basically means everyone might lose. Why? It is my experience that lawyers are very risk adverse by nature and they tend to wield a jackhammer. In this case, I fear they will ask their contributors to remove themselves. I'm not sure why anyone would find that the right thing to do especially for a growing organization that aims to support design professionals in the corporate world.
While working at Adobe, I remember there was a website blacklist for high profile engineers and designers to stay away from, and the IT guys even blocked certain websites inside the firewall. I was often instructed what to avoid, and all I'm doing is relaying some of that advice. Why? Because I feel to not do so would be a disservice, not because I'm trying to be "right." It's a pretty simple thing to avoid doing, and as the IxDA grows more and more into a large professional organization, it's issues like this that will become more important for everyone to be cognizant of, regardless of the final policy outcome.
If you want to practice professional product design -- and this is already well understood in the industrial design world -- patents are part of the game. Pure and simple. I recognize the people who are affected by this may be smaller in number at the present moment, although I suspect many of you might be unaware of where the company you work for stands on this issue. If you are unaware, simply walk over to your friendly corporate lawyer and ask them, "hey... if you got a moment, could tell me all about this patent thing and what I should know going forward?"
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