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Xref: sserve comp.org.eff.talk:9542 misc.int-property:611 comp.unix.bsd:6860 Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!sun-barr!ames!kronos.arc.nasa.gov!iscnvx!netcomsv!netcom.com!mcgregor From: mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor) Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors. Message-ID: <1992Oct20.185200.28734@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) References: <1992Oct17.015308.29380@pegasus.com> <1992Oct18.085201.22747@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <id.X18U.D6J@ferranti.com> Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 18:52:00 GMT Lines: 56 In article <id.X18U.D6J@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes: >In article <1992Oct18.085201.22747@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes: >> I think it's up to Robert's opponents to quit begging the question (a logical >> fallacy) to try to "prove" their view, and give Robert a fair shot at finding >> a patent that meets a reasonable definition of "beneficial to society". > >This is nonsense. > >I've given a definition a number of times. It's the one on the constitution >of the United States. I'm afraid the constitution doesn't give a definition of "beneficial to society." It's not a dictionary so that is probably to be expected. It does give a rationale for granting patents and copyrights, and that rationale is "progress" in the arts and sciences. Unfortunately, this doesn't bring us any closer to resolution. We still don't have agreement on "progress" any more than we have on "innovation" or "benefit to society." I'd not that the president of Bell Labs brought up this same point in a recent award speech. He claimed that Americans had lost tract of the distinction between "innovation" and "invention". He claimed that he had invented important technologies for LCDs in the 60s, that they had developed then in the 70s, but that they had only been commercialized in the 80s. His definition of "innovation" is "invention" + "commercialization". So the innovation was recent, while the invention was long ago. This is a definition that I also agree with but which is not the same as others are using here who think that it the measure of a patent should be whether it stimulates the mere invention process, and who don't seem to care about whether it stimulates the commercialization process. As I see "progress" in the constitution there is no reason to ignore incentives to commercialization over incentives just to invention. But I don't think we all agree on this. >The rate of innovation in the software community is simply amazing, and needs >no intervention from government to encourage the creation or publication of >new algorithms. This illustrates what I mean about our disagreement on terms. This essentially equates innovation to only invention (i.e. creation) or publication. It ignores entirely the "commercialization" aspect that I (and apparently the president of Bell Labs) think are important. So I might agree that patents are unnecessary to encourage invention, but valuable in encourageing commercialization. If Peter doesn't consider that as part of innovation we argue past each other. -- Scott L. McGregor mcgregor@netcom.com President tel: 408-985-1824 Prescient Software, Inc. fax: 408-985-1936 3494 Yuba Avenue San Jose, CA 95117-2967