🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3011@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> eggert%twinsun.com@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Paul Eggert) writes:
>
>Torsten Busse's article ``Software floods the patent office''
>[InfoWorld 13, 39 (September 30, 1991), pp 39-44]

>Here are some quotes from the article to give you its flavor:

> ``Terror struck the world of software when the copyright became possible.
> Now we see a similar reaction to patents, though, those with experience in
> the protection of intellectual property have supported this [all along].''
> -- patent attorney Gary Hecker, Hecker & Harriman

I think this is the single most dangerous attitude that those who
oppose patents have to face.  It's like the argument that said "the
people who think we can't build a Star Wars defense are like those
who said we'd never fly or that man couldn't live at speeds greater
than 60 m.p.h."  It means the arguments we have to make against
patents become much more complex -- we have to show it's not the
same as some other case we've already experienced -- while the
pro-patent folks get to pose as the champions of common sense.
This is rather annoying, since as a pro-patent argument it's
either an irrelevance or begging the question.  Maybe we can
build Star Wars, but if so it's not because we built airplanes
or went to the Moon or any of the other cases that are usually
cliamed to be analogous.

Unfortunately, may people will make this bogus argument.  For
instance, one of the anti-patent arguments is that the patented
techniques are obvious to those in the field.  Many believe (whether
it's true or not) that the same argument has been made for all
kinds of other inventions.

BTW, Who is _supposed_ to have the burden of proff -- the patent
applicant or those who oppose it?

> ``We don't use patents as weapons against other companies, but to encourage
> cross-licensing agreements.''  -- spokesman Brian Doyle, IBM

This is a good way for a reasonable company to "live with patents"
if they can afford the time and lawyers needed to draw up and
negotiate all the corss-licensing agreements.  It would better
not to have patents at all, except that then more things would
be treated as trade secrets and hence not disclosed.

The nasty joke of it all is that many of the patented ideas would
never be kept as trade secrets because they're obvious to anyone in
the field (if not initially then as soon as they see the software
in action).  So one of the big arguments for patents -- that the
idea is disclosed -- vanishes.

-- jd