gnu-misc-discuss
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Moglen's post-Bilski trash-talk


From: David Kastrup
Subject: Re: Moglen's post-Bilski trash-talk
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:57:02 -0000
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux)

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

> David Kastrup wrote:
> [...]
>> 119, for a car with novel technology.  Now let's take a look at what a
>> specialized application standard is comprised of.
>> 
>> <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-2#Patent_holders>
>
> Rather
>
> http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/m2/Documents/m2-att1.pdf
> http://www.mpegla.com/main/pages/CurrentPools_LightBox.aspx
> http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/M2/Pages/Intro.aspx
>
> Less than 119 US patents (from many Corps, not just one) that allegedly
> can be enforced in US as of July 1, 2010.

"as of", meaning that a number of patents have expired since the
considerable time that the standard was started.  And guess what, a lot
of patents (actually all of them) will expire from the 119 you mention.

> What is your point, silly dak?

Oh, you forgot already again what you were talking about?  As a
reminder, you brought up that hybrid Toyota car article to counter the
statement that in contrast to pharmacy and software patents, most of the
areas where patents applied were not plastered likewise with patents.

And I am actually pretty confident that of those 119 patents, you are
quite less likely to come into _accidental_ conflict as an automotive
parts provider than as a software developer with the typical software
patent pool.

The point with patents is that a patent search can help you come up with
documented technology that will make your task easier and/or cheaper
because of saving you significant development and/or inventiveness,
temporarily with the drawback of reasonable licensing costs.

With software patents, the situation is rather that a patent search can
help you come up with unexpected additional costs since somebody already
filed some vaguely expressed patent that is not at all useful for
_reducing_, but rather for _increasing_ your cost.

If the expected outcome of a patent search is to make things more
expensive without an expectation of cost savings, then obviously the
system is doing the opposite of what it was created for.

There is no point to reward "inventiveness" if the associated costs
outweigh the benefits of the "invention".

When the main expected patent violation mode is "accidentally", the
patent serves to impede rather than to promote progress.

-- 
David Kastrup


reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]