🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8198@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes:
>A friend tells me that a Request for Comments program is now being
>held by a committee of U.S. Congress which is developing recommendations
>for patent law reforms.  If _ANYONE_ here has details on this, I really
>would like to start a congressional crusade against the likes of Lotus.
>
>>>Was SCP's product a 'derivative work' of CP/M (in the legal sense that the
>>>CP/M source code was modified to obtain it), or was it a clone of CP/M
>>>(i.e. re-developed from specifications without reusing the source code)?
>
>Thanks to an uncomprehending court system, I think the above argument
>has been rendered irrelevant by the "Look And Feel" precedents now
>being set.
>
>Thank goodness these precedents don't apply to automobiles.  That "Does
>Everything" switch mounted on the turn-signal lever works almost the
>same way no matter which manufacturer you buy your car from.  Too bad
>the computer business doesn't work like this.

Actually, if you looked into the automobile industry a bit further, you'd
probably discover that somebody holds a patent on the "super duper turn
signal" and that everybody else gets to license it.

In fact, if you decided to start a new car company you'd probably find
yourself spending quite a bit of time (at first) dealing with the
zillions of lawyers who would be reminding you that their clients
invention is patented and you better not use it without a license.

Software patents:

The goal of patents is supposed to be to promote innovation.  The problem
with software patents seems to be that the holders keep trying to use
them as clubs to stifle the competition and hence stifle innovation.
I often wonder if reducing the life span of software patents would solve
most of the problem.  If a software patent was only good for a few years
(like 4 or 5) then the inventor would have an opportunity to collect
revenue from users of the idea for a while but the short life span of
the patent would ensure that the holder didn't sit still (doing so
would result in trouble quite soon down the road when the patent expired
and the more energetic competition would be able to take the lead in the
field).

I suppose that another approach to the software patent problem is to not
grant software patents.  I believe that this would tend to stifle innovation
by inhibiting the release of new ideas.  I realize that the academic world
provides rewards for people who publish their inventions.  Unfortunately,
a lot of research is done by organizations which wouldn't benefit from the
release of their ideas unless they can get some revenue from the release.
Not granting software patents would mean that any potential commercial
advantage which could be gained from a new idea would disappear quite
quickly after the release of the idea.

In summary, I think that software patents are a good idea.  The current
implementation of software patents is where the problem is.  Software
patents should have a short life span (absolutely no more than about five
years).

Hmmm.  Something tells me that I'm going to get the odd flame about this...

>
>Not only is it illegal to pirate someone else's code, but now it has become
>illegal to emulate someone's code.  That's rather sad.
>
>-rich