On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 08:49 +0530, Raj Shekhar wrote: > Raj Shekhar wrote: > > > > http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/08/stories/2004120805770100.htm > > > > Amendment to Patents Act this month > > And now a small explanation on why if your job is developing software, > you should be worried. Firstly have a look at this article to see why > software patents are bad
More than software patents, there is something very basic that is going to be threatened by this law - medicines. I have blogged about this on http://www.sandipb.net/blog/archives/2004/12/02/brazil-to-break-drug- patents/ The latest Tehelka issue gives some very good figures about this.Some studies have shown that the prices of medicines are going to increase by 250% by the end of January. Whether it is software or medicine, patents by its very concept brings harm to our society far more than the benefits. Imagine an AIDS cure thas been found but because of the patents law, only the very rich can cure themselves in the next 20 years! The medicine world(and I feel in some way the IT world too) also uses the dangerous practicing of "evergreening" of patents. That is, different components of the patented object have different lifespans, and by changing critical molecules and renewing patents of some, the patent lifespan is increased even beyond 20 years. If this patent law is actually enforced, India is going to see a major social crisis in the years to come. My blog above talks about how Brazil as a country has decided to allow breaking of a few critical patents needed to save the country from such a crisis that they already have in their midst. - Sandip -- Sandip Bhattacharya * Puroga Technologies * [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work: http://www.puroga.com * Home: http://www.sandipb.net PGP/GPG Signature: 51A4 6C57 4BC6 8C82 6A65 AE78 B1A1 2280 A129 0FF3 Why are you so hard to ignore? _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
