Free?

[Russel Winder]

On Wed, 2011-10-26 at 17:50 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
[ . . . ]
> But today we have patents of these things, because they stifle  
> innovation.  It creates artificial barriers that only exist because people  
> have gamed the system.

I assume you are based in the USA, since "we" here in the UK do not
allow patents on software.  It is currently explicitly stated as not
being patentable in its own right.  Software within machines can be
covered by a patent for the machines, but software cannot be patented on
its own.

Sadly some big US corporate, the US government via the USTR, and a
number of big international corporates are trying to foist US style
software and business patents on the rest of the world via the tool of
the ACTA
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement).
ACTA was originally a mechanism to protect brands from counterfeiters,
but has over the years had other things inserted into it.  In particular
USTR have inserted clauses such that any country that signs up to ACTA
must enact US style patents on software and business processes.

For details on all this you could do worse that study Simon Phipps
writings on this.  His website (http://webmink.com/) gives an index to
other materials documenting this for the world to know and yet somehow
have absolutely no way of doing anything about.

There is no conspiracy here, it is just the big corporates making sure
the tools of creating monopolies and ensuring only they are in control
of innovation are used to best legal effect.  Of course it means anyone
who writes software has to know about every software patent worldwide so
as to ensure they do not violate.

In case people didn't know: lack of knowledge of a patent is not a
defence.  Patents apply to you even if you didn't know about the
patent.  

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at russel.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
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