Charles Mills wrote: > At the risk of getting flamed, I would like to respectfully > disagree with the apparent majority opinion on this list that > all software patents are bad, that the fact that software can > be patented is a bad thing. I would like to argue that the > PROCESS and the details, not the entire concept, are flawed.
This very argument is pretty much the core of the ongoing discussions in fora worldwide. > Why does IP protection (patent, copyright, TM, and trade > secrets) exist? It is so that people can be rewarded for > their creativity. On this point you are quite wrong. IP protection exists (and constitutionally so, in the USA) "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". That it "[secures] for a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective rights and discoveries" is a side effect or necessary implementation detail, and not the reason for its existence. To the extent that IP protection fails to do what it is there for, it needs to be changed and if necessary removed. Rewarding authors and inventors is simply not a requirement. IP protection is a deal between the author or inventor and the state. The state, on behalf of its people, offers limited protection for a limited time, and the author/inventor publishes things for others to see and study and build on. To the extent that this deal becomes skewed so as to offer the author/inventor more, and the people less, it fails. > You can write a song, for example, and the > economic benefits from that song go to you, the creator, not > to someone who rips you off. Perhaps so, but giving you various exclusive rights is not the only way to accomplish either the required "progress". The world got along quite nicely for many centuries without copyright or patents. Other approaches to copyright compensation for authors include levies on blank recording media and direct tax subsidies. (And in the real world, most revenues from your song are going to go to a record company rather than to you.) > Why should someone who invents a machine made out of brass > gears have access to patent protection, but not someone who > invents a "machine" made out of computer instructions (the > latter group being much more likely to include one of the > members of this list)? If a program can be patented, why should discoveries in mathematics be excluded? But they are. Why should a book or movie be excluded from patent protection? (There is a cute little article on this at http://ffii.se/dokument/filmpatent_eng.html .) > But for example, in the case of my > piracy prevention "machine," the key ingredient, what I have > created, is not the source code - the only source code is a > simple demo program written in VB - but rather "how the > machine works" - and that is not protectable by copyright. Sounds suspiciously like a business method. > I would argue that software patents are not inherently bad, > but rather that two key reforms are necessary. Perhaps many other reforms as well. My favorite is to add a defence of independent invention. Why should this be a defence for copyright, but not for patents? Why should the patent system give 100% of the reward to the first to invent (or to file - not that the difference is large), and deny the independent inventor of the same thing a penny? How does this serve the public interest? > However there is an even simpler reform available, that is less discussed: > shorten the term of software patents. This makes sense. But in the US, the movement is the other way. Copyright terms just keep getting longer ans longer, and I hear nothing about shortening patent terms. > I would argue that something in the range of > three to five years made sense. Maybe a similar term for copyrights would be about right too. And why can you copyright something without publishing it? Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
