Ok, again sorry for being so far behind, and because of this I shall keep my comments short. In my humble opinion: I believe in patents, but not the crap that gets passed as a patent. For example, no one should be able to patent the concept of barbed wire but they should be able to patent their particular method of making barbed wire. Now this panting should not be so inclusive as to eliminate a competitor from using wire without licensing it. And as I understand it you must implement all portions of a patent to be in violation. Along the same lines the makers of said barbed wire should also be able to copyright the name they use to sell their brand of barbed wire, but not the method to make it. There is nothing wrong with this and every common man (person) should be able to easily submit their idea for review with the patent office. This is just my opinion... As for software, well... there are some odd fair competition regulations that need to be addressed but that discussion I will leave up to the smarter people in the audience, like Joseph. -----Original Message----- From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Josh Coffman Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 11:16 PM To: Main PLUG discussion list Subject: Re: m$ as Big Brother I am a co-inventor on one patent (another one still pending last I heard). It was an interesting experience. I architected and wrote the whole thing except the db code. I even wrote a large part of the application paper describing the systems. I feel like i did my job and part of the managers and lawyer's jobs. It was pretty ridiculous to patent it, but not as ridiculous as the amount of money the lawyers make. As long as lawyers and that kind of money is involved, software will continue to be patented. I understand that business want to protect themselves. ..and the bragging rights are nice though superficial. I don't know what boundaries can be defined to help business protect their trade secrets, but the the current state of software patents is truly ridiculous. I have a friend who is an IP lawyer; I hope I offended no one. -j ----- Original Message ---- From: Joseph Sinclair To: Main PLUG discussion list Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 10:46:32 PM Subject: Re: m$ as Big Brother Jeff Garland wrote: > Joshua Zeidner wrote: > >> Software patents were explicitly prohibited until relatively >> recently. Shows you how quickly lobbying efforts can erode the >> concepts on which justice relies. > > Hmm, guess I'll have to read more b/c I didn't think that was true. I thought > it was algorithms and certain processes that weren't patentable. But anyway... > Actually, Software patents are enabled under a 1975 ruling that permitted the patenting of a "Business Method" (something that was previously barred, and should still be barred, for much the same reasons software patents should be barred). Software Engineers, "Practitioners of the Art" in patent language, know that a software program is actually the concrete actualization of one or more mathematical algorithms, but the US Supreme Court was convinced that software is actually the implementation of a business plan. The result is that we have patents on two things that are of extremely limited value if kept completely secret (per trade-secret), and are generally of immense value when naturally shared with society (as Jeff explains quite well later in his post). Given the purpose of US patent and copyright law to encourage the migration of ideas from the closed realm of trade-secret to the open realm of public-domain, granting patent protection to ideas which have a natural in-built propensity for publication is innately contradictory to the clear purpose of the law, and should rightly be struck. Of course, the hard part is getting a case to the Supreme Court where this could be done and, more importantly, getting the justices to agree. --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss ________________________________________________________________________ ____________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss