Meeting with a political person

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 11:11:58PM +0100, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
> There is (was) a discussion around software being speech or expression.
> Like the language is.  (check out DeCSS case with the gallery of DeCSS
> implementation without compiler for example)
> Can we go like that with genome ?

No.
As I wrote already, the debate for patents in the area of the genom
is quite different from the one around software.
I am not going deeper into this branch of discussion in this mail.

Patents have complicated relation to speech in general.
Actually you are not patenting any expression, just the idea behind it.
There are several occasions where you can be forbitten to express
certain things, if this is hurting another persons interests.
Just calling for the freedom of speech will not be enough
unless you can explain why not expressing something will hurt you as
much as the other persons and what is morally right in the situation.

	Bernhard
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