Software Patents

[rjack]

During the current era, the cultural future is going to be heavily 
influenced by the debate over the protection (or lack thereof) for 
intellectual property concerning digital matters.

It is instructive to review the legal history of the patent-copyright 
dichotomy concerning computer program protection. Most telling is this 
Supreme Court ruling in 1978:

“To a large extent our conclusion is based on reasoning derived from 
opinions written before the modern business of developing programs for 
computers was conceived. The youth of the industry may explain the 
complete absence of precedent supporting patentability. Neither the 
dearth of precedent, nor this decision, should therefore be interpreted 
as reflecting a judgment that patent protection of certain novel and 
useful computer programs will not promote the progress of science and 
the useful arts, or that such protection is undesirable as a matter of 
policy. Difficult questions of policy concerning the kinds of programs 
that may be appropriate for patent protection and the form and duration 
of such protection can be answered by Congress on the basis of current 
empirical data not equally available to this tribunal.”[FN19].

[FN19] Articles assessing the merits and demerits of patent protection 
for computer programming are numerous. See, e. g., Davis, Computer 
Programs [437 U.S. 584, 596]   and Subject Matter Patentability, 6 
Rutgers J. of Computers and Law 1 (1977), and articles cited therein, at 
2 n. 5. Even among those who favor patentability of computer programs, 
there is questioning of whether the 17-year protection afforded by the 
current Patent Act is either needed or appropriate. See id., at 20 n. 
133.; PARKER v. FLOOK, 437 U.S. 584 (1978).

This was an open invitation by the Supreme Court directed to Congress
requesting that Congress simply do its job --- *LEGISLATE*.

Twenty-nine years later Congress is still sitting on its collective ass 
while the rest of the World moves on. Did you ever wonder why the U.S. 
is losing its competitive edge in the global struggle? Well it is not 
because of Congress. It is because the American people passively sit by 
and allow this kind of malfeasance to fester.

I have written my legislative representatives concerning intellectual 
property in the Digital Age. Everyone who has an interest in the debate,
regardless of where their opinion falls, should express their opinion to 
their  respective congressional representatives. Why wait for another 
twenty–nine years for those non-elected, life-time appointed Supremes to 
decide the peoples' business?

Those who don’t communicate with their representatives and then vote 
have no right to subsequently bitch.

rjack