Re: Ordering Books from Amazon

[Frank BENNETT <bennett@example.com>]

(My apologies for not starting a new thread for this; I can't
figure out how to get at the full set of headers in Mutt)

On Sat, Oct 14, 2000 at 03:11:34PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> The problem is that these "devices" are too easy to invent, and thus
> do not deserve patent protection since at best the patents serve only
> to enrich patent holders and their lawyers.

I think what you want to say is that the standard of novelty for granting
software patents is too low.  I heartily agree.

> At worst patents create
> large transactions costs (the lawyers), to the detriment of society.

The principal element of transaction cost in this case is search cost, and
that is a product of a low standard of novelty.  You end up with loads and
loads of registered patents.  Developers are then put to a choice between
solving a problem themselves (and risking patent claims later in the day) or
searching the patent register for prior art that fits their needs. With loads
of stuff on file, and no effective means of doing targetted searching, the
former strategy becomes a cheaper way to proceed.

This defeats the whole purpose of a patent system, of course, which is to
promote innovation through the full disclosure of industrial and other
processes. (Believe it or not, patent law was the original open source
movement; a salutary reminder that time changes all things :-)

> ... So even if software patents could
> be socially valuable, we'd need substantial reform of the kinds
> already demanded.  The simple solution is just to stop.

The simplest way to contain the widening mire, so to speak, is to change the
law.  As you have written in previous posts, there is nothing wrong with
software patents per se, if properly structured and administered.  The acid
test is whether a programmer's productivity is raised by a given patent
regime, as against a world with no regime at all.

The politics of this is distorted at the moment, because the US has a skills
advantage, and is keeping the floodgates open in order to capitalize on it in
the short term, and entrench its position in the long term.

As the man said, "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us".

Cheers,
----
-x80
Frank G Bennett, Jr         @@
Faculty of Law, Nagoya Univ () email: bennett@example.com
Tel: +81[(0)52]789-2239     ()