On Tue, 2011-03-08 at 18:52 -0800, Cédric Beust ♔ wrote:
>
> I pointed out the frequent "hand wavy" aspect of the anti-patent
> rhetoric at the very beginning of this thread, and sure enough, what
> followed was filled with assertions without much data to back it up
> (in Reinier's message alone: "patents are a drag", "they amount to
> thought crime", etc...). I even tried to steer the debate with
> concrete questions ("When was last time you heard about an obscene
> amount of money awarded to a ridiculous patent?") but these were
> promptly ignored.And the proponent of software patents has been doing exactly the same thing. This whole thread has been awash with baiting, emotive bullshitting, and exhortations to provide proofs to spurious and deflecting questions by both sides, thereby missing any substantive argument. Let me draw people's attention to ACTA -- the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -- cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement and Simon Phipps' commentaries http://webmink.com/2010/03/19/acta-roundup/. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the original ideas for protecting brands against (cheap) imitations, the whole thing has been infiltrated by the software patents lobby in the USA. Via the vector of the USTR (US Trade Representative) a framework outside of WTO or even WIPO, is to be created that will force the USA software patent system on all signatories to ACTA, effectively making all US patents enforcible everywhere. Personally I see this as the large international corporates protecting their profit margins and maintaining control over all innovation slipped in under the rug of protecting brands. I am a fan of brand protection, using appropriate tools. ACTA is though a monster too far -- exactly because it has far more to it than the originally intended brand protection. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:[email protected] 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: [email protected] London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
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