Re: Why are software patents wrong?

[Buford Sixpack]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 01:18:43 +0000, threeseas wrote:

> Two catagories of answers:
> 
> symptoms and cause
> 
> or from the other direction:
> 
> cause and effect.
> 
> Seems to me many have found arguement against software patents that only
> deal with the symptoms or effect of software patents, rather then the
> more fundamental underlying reasons why software doesn't qualify for
> patent status.
> 
> So how about it?
> 
> why do you think software should not be patentable? and is your answer
> cause or effect?

1) Software is already protected, by copyright law.  (In what I take to be
your definition of cause and effect, I guess this is cause.)

2) People, or rather corporations, are not so much patenting their
software as their ideas and algorithms.  Rather than encouraging invention
and innovation (as was intended), this stifles it.  (Effect.)

3) Combine 2) with the idea that in the past decade or two, the Patent
Office (in the U.S., at least), has been either taken over by morons or
taking bribes left and right, and you have what we see today:  the ability
to patent the idea of pushing a button.  (Effect.)

You have to ask yourself why there is even such a concept as patents, or
intellectual property in general.  If you don't really know, or if you
think it's only there to protect inventions and creative works for their
designers and creators, you should do a little more research about it.
Until then, know that such laws are there to protect the general public as
much as the individual inventors.  It's the little guy who needs the
protection, not gigantic multinational corporations.  And it's the general
public who ought to benefit from individual human ingenuity.  Not
multinational corporations.

Imagine if today, right now, all IP laws worldwide were rescinded.  No
copyrights, no patents, no trademarks.  Who would be harmed the most by
this:  corporations, the human race, or those gifted few individuals who
actually are capable of creating?  

Who would benefit the most?

-- 
Buford