EU patent decision delayed

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No apologizies needed, I didn't take offense.

No apologies needed, I'm cool I did not really take much personal offense to your comments.

One of my points is that the slave trade is viewed upon very negatively today, but this was not always the case. Slave owners back in the days probably believed themselves to be honest, hard-working men and women who are, like you, concerned with his community, his country, and the future of his trade. Slave owners invest a lot of their own time, their own money, their own resources to buy and manage their slaves. The wealthiest slave owners probably contributed to a lot of the economy back then-- its not just the slave labor in the direct production of crops like cotton and tobacco, but also all of the related side-industries and jobs associated with these goods. The slave trade created jobs, created profits. But despite all of these contributions, the inherent problem is a property regime gone too far. These businesses were unjust.

This is why economic arguments-- like number of jobs because of patents, amount of dollars earned by patents-- do not carry much weight since I view software patents as something that does not have any ethical or moral foundation to happen. (And I should note that software patents are a relatively recent occurrence, even in the United States. For a long time, it was believed that software could not be patented-- and hence, software was, and still is, protected in the form of copyright.)

IP law exists for one and only one purpose: To foster innovation?i.e. the creation of more ideas. IP laws do not exist so people can monopolize ideas, or to enrich themselves in near perpetuity over a single idea. IP law does not exist to guarantee exclusive control over the use, distribution, or control of an idea (for example, home recording act, fair use, first sale). And while jobs and profits might be a good side-effect of IP, IP law is certainly not designed to make jobs or to make profits. I worry that many people see IP as the most sacred and ultimate star that trumps everything from the First Amendment (Diebold suing over DMCA violations for electronic voting), to your rights to use your property (Lexmark cartridges and garage door openers), your rights to hack or reverse engineer your property (Sony v. Connectix), a free market (DVD region coding), your rights to even own property ("sale" v. "license"), or your rights to generally live as a free citizen (the overwriting of your rights by one-sided onerous EULAs and the UCITA). And with things like copyright lasting longer and longer, and patents on things that should not be patentable, my ability to practice my trade is threatened by powerful stakeholders as well as my personal liberty. DRM will attempt to use technical means to enforce restrictions that bypass the balance I have in law. License agreements mean that I somehow ?willfully? give all my freedoms away, even though I might otherwise have in the law.

The protection conferred by IP law is supposed to be a balance and was never meant to be absolute or one-sided?but more and more of this balance is chipped away every year to big interests. And Congress?who is addicted to the ***** of campaign contributions?does not generally listen. IP law and its unjust expansion are used to destroy the freedom in the country that I love.

You seem to care about who you are debating with, so I will fill you in on some background. I happen to believe that people should argue their positions without anything related about the speaker/poster, since such things often lead to personal attacks and are not substantive (its like attacking the messenger, not the issue.) But I'll entertain.

I am the inventor on several (non-software) patents related with watermarking (though these watermarks are not the type you would use for DRM.) I have directly benefited from my patents, since I have been paid a considerable amount of money for assignment of my patents to others. I produce intellectual property for a living. Some of it is protected, like copyrights on software and patents on concepts, while some of it is not, like contributions that appear in major scientific journals. (The journal article itself is copyrighted, but the idea is publicly disclosed.)

But my self-interest is exactly why I fight software patents. Unjust intellectual property laws inflict more damage to my profession than all the pirates in the world. I believe that there is very little that can be written in today?s software without the author unintentionally violating some patent, since patents have been granted for overly broad and non-original concepts. I do not want to rely on the good will of others not to target me in a lawsuit where I might lose on substantial grounds. I do not want the risk of fighting off intellectual property lawsuits simply for practicing my trade.

Just look around. Look at how many times questionable patents have come around?its not just Eolas or ?one-click?. Do you think it is fair for you to sue a big company over a violation of a legitimate patent, only for them to counter-sue you for violation of a multitude of trivial, non-original patents in their ?defensive? portfolio? The behavior of big companies with patent portfolios is not a secret; corporate lawyers already treat the patent portfolio as another weapon to lock out smaller competitors. Patents inherently favor the large company over smaller ones simply because it is so expensive to assert your patent or defend against one, regardless of the merits of the patent. The mere fact that people are talking about ?defensive? patent portfolios shows how corrupt the system has become. The fact that there are business models that rely on milking licensing/royalty fees without creating any new ideas shows how corrupt the system has become. The fact that people talk about ?knowledge-based economies? shows corrupt the system has become.

Now, I?m not trying to label large multinational companies as evil simply because they have repeatedly demonstrated that they have the ability and the audacity to abuse patents. Who can blame them? They?re just doing what benefits their shareholders. But this is not an excuse for me, as a citizen, to blithely hand over more territory (intellectual territory) which can be bought and sold like a commodity. And many companies in Europe see this; hence they are against software patents.

IP is not a battle against the pirates or open source. It?s a battle of control, of unjustly creating a system which enriches the powers that be and protects their monopolies, at the expense of other creators and innovators. Yes, software patents do benefit some people. But I believe past evidence shows the dangers of inflicting much more harm than good.

So who am I to argue that software patents are bad? I am an inventor who is extremely concerned with the future of my trade and the future of innovation in my country because of the ever expanding scope of intellectual property protection without justification and for selfish reasons. I am not fighting this out of ignorance (since I know about our IP laws) or my own selfishness (since I am well enough and do not need a free lunch). Today?s creation of more property rights is unjust ownership, just like the ownership of persons so many years ago. And I will fight with tooth and nail each and every time someone suggests expanding the scope of IP law.

Posted by: Root User   Posted on: 12/08/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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