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- Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!csus.edu!netcom.com!mcgregor
- From: mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor)
- Subject: Re: Why Patents on that???
- Message-ID: <k3ln54q.mcgregor@netcom.com>
- Date: Thu, 03 Sep 92 21:18:27 GMT
- Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
- References: <strydom.2.715527389@cs.sun.ac.za>
- Lines: 86
-
- Without taking a position on whether patents are good or bad, there are two
- statements in original posting that bear some criticism.
-
- First:
-
- > Through all the ages knowledge was shared to further
- > civilization. Kids had to know how to make fire. Never were they discouraged
- > (like us) to experiment and build on existing technology.
-
- Well, also through all ages knowledge was carefully guarded and kept
- secret. Master builders kept secrets and shared them only with THEIR
- OWN apprentices. Nations kept military and production technologies
- secret from their neighbors. Even when secrecy was not the
- intent, before widespread cheap publication, it was very expensive to
- share information except informally--in which case it often stayed
- local or was dispersed only slowly. In many cases incentives had to
- be raised to get that information transmitted more widely. Nations
- often offered prizes, or limited monopolies to those people who went
- to the trouble and expense to publish widely beneficial technologies.
-
- The cost of publication has declined with the advent of movable type
- printing, telegraph, telephone, widespread postal routes, radio, TV
- and other new media. The costs have changed substantially. We can
- argue about whether the current incentives are now too onerous and
- that smaller incentives are necessary today now that costs are
- cheaper. But we shouldn't conclude that even if these incentives are
- unnecessary today that it was always so.
-
- Second point:
-
- > I don't agree with copying and selling for the sake of profits but why
- > restrict to the degree that no-one can improve and build on
- > inventions?. Licencing manufacturing processes is common place. This
- > control the profiteer and rightly so because he only copies and does
- > not create anything new. The question now is. Why are we getting so
- > restricted ?. Why be so over protective of knowledge ?. What is wrong
- > with improving exponentially on yesterdays technology ?.
-
- The issue I have here is that author implies that patents prevent
- improvements and building on existing technology. Further the author
- seems to conceive that licensing in manufacturing processes is
- fundamentally different. In fact neither is true. Many patent
- improvements are made by people other than the initial patent holder.
- The initial patent holder cannot prevent the improver from publishing
- the improvement nor from patenting that improvement. At best, they
- can prevent the improver from selling or making the unimproved bit. A
- customer might have to buy both pieces separately or the one company
- might license the others technology. But the situation is bilateral,
- the original patent holder can't make or sell the improvement without
- a license either.
-
- It is instructive to note that licensing came up in this explanation.
- The manufacturing processes whose licensing was mentioned by the
- original author are in fact often PATENTED. A patent does not
- necessarily restrict or inhibit--that depend upon the patent holder.
- Even manufacturing processes that are not patented but which are
- licensed are TRADE SECRETS, not information that is widely published
- because it would be beneficial to anyone else who might want to have a
- similar process. In fact, published processes would not be licensed
- at all.
-
- The interesting point this raises concerns LICENSING, not merely
- patents or copryrights. Ideas can be shared and their originators
- fairly compensated (regardless of whether protected by secrecy,
- copyright or patent) if licensing takes place. Some members of the
- software industry are concerned that licensing won't take place, or
- will be too onerous or costly. This may cause them to oppose patents,
- copyrights, or trade secrets so that licensing is unnecessary.
- Another approach is possible, and that is to try to ensure that
- licensing is easy, cheap, and ubiquitous, regardless of whether the
- licensed material is a secret, copyrighted or patented. Some feel that
- the amount of potentially licensed materials in software are too much
- to handle. But other industries, such as radio, handle hundreds of
- pieces of licensed materials EACH day. Their industry has developed a
- way to handle this through clearing houses (ASCAP, BMI). Their are
- hundreds of licensed components and processes in every automobile too.
- But automotive engineers are typically not inhibited from using them
- because licensing is common in that industry and they are set up to
- handle it. They do that so effectively that most engineers don't even
- know whether many of the components they use are patented or not.
- Some people believe that it has to be different for the software
- industry, but there has been relatively little evidence raised in
- support of those beliefs to date.
-
-
-
-