>I think the system is good, but the requirements for innovation have >been so reduced, with requirements for actual invention and implentation >being replaced with patents for generic concepts, such that the patent >database has been flooded with poor quality ideas, and the breadth of >protection afforded patents has undermined all certainty about >non-infringement. > >I think that the Founding Fathers set it up well, it will take men of >similar character to put it right again. > I'll try and keep this short as it is OT.
Reccomend what Samuel Clemmins (Mark Twain) has to say through the Yankee in Conneticet Yankee in king Arthers court. (Book not the adaptations.) Twain had some fairly strong opinions in this department. This is the one where the engineer has a "discussion" with a fellow worker named Hercules with crowbars and wakes up in the middle ages. To make this slightly topical. I think many of us can identify with the Yankee who seems to have things engineered pretty good till "Nature" in the guise of Merlin sends him back. IMO patent laws now are interpreted as property per roman common law (property) and not the Jeffersonian ideal that the spirit of the law he wrote entails. Somewhere I recall reading an argument by TJ on why patent laws were nessisary at least at the begining of this "experiment." None of this is new, It all happened before in the teens and 20s of the last century. After all the "businesmen" with their violin cases were only providing a product for which there was a demand. In this day in age it is still about power and who is the biggest bully with the deepest pockets. Myth says there are two ways to get rich quick without capitol. Either win the lottery, or win a lawsuit. -julie "Information _wants_ to be free." _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
