On Tue, May 31, 2005 00:30:00 AM -0400, Daniel Carrera ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > M. Fioretti wrote: > > >>>Now the basic concept of rewarding a person for disclosing their > >>>idea to the world instead of keeping it a secret is good (patent). > >> > >>That is neither the intention, nor the effect of patents. > > > >As far as I know, it indeed *is*. I (government): > > > >1) make sure that everybody can learn all the details of new > > technologies by *forcing* inventors to disclose what they did. > >2) keep inventors motivated to keep inventing while giving away by > > granting them a temporary monopoly. > > I'm pretty sure that the intention was (2), not (1).
In "Free Software, Free Society", R.M. Stallman "talks about the perversion of the original intent of patent and copyright law. For those of us in the US, our constitution states clearly that these are granted for the benefit of society. Most other countries say something similar". http://gnu.open-mirror.com/doc/book13.html > > >No. Without patents people would have invented and sold anyway, just > >keeping the secret on how they did stuff. > > That logic only applies for inventions that don't lend themselves to > reverse engineering. I doubt that the majority of inventions fall into > that category. Maybe you keep looking only at the majority of a small part of them. I could sell to you something I made which in itself is extremely simple, and can be reverse-engineered in seconds. But in practice it can be manufactured only with some very special machinery. Which I have no obligation to sell you. I'd patent that machinery. Without patents, then, *if* you are lucky, you can re-invent that machines in one year, for the common good. Or it may take yoy, say, 10 years. Or, for the common good, we use patents which force me to explain now what I did and how, and you to wait 5 years, instead of risking 10. The actual numbers could be reviewed, of course, and SW, drugs and genes are exceptions, but that's how the system is supposed to work, and I find nothing harmful in it. Ciao, Marco -- Marco Fioretti mfioretti, at the server mclink.it Fedora Core 3 for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/ A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. R. A. Heinlein --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
