Analysis on balance: Standardisation and Patents

[MJ Ray]

simo <simo.sorce at xsec.it> wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 21:42 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
> > [...unattribution lost?...] Those things which cost 
> > > money/labour to create/invent are privatized in the hope this incentivises 
> > > people to invest that labour or money. If you can get the returns of that 
> > > privatization without making the investment, that's a failure mode of the 
> > > system, no?
> > 
> > I wouldn't say so, in the same way that not getting any returns by 
> > making that same investment also isn't a failure mode of the system 
> > either. It's a system of risk.
>
> If there is no investment what are you rewarding ? [...]
> The patent system should reward risk takers that actually made the
> investment, because if you don't, in the long term you will get no
> investments.

Aren't patents claimed to reward "the true and first inventor"?
(Statute of Monopolies, 1624, England)

If they currently reward *investors* rather than inventors, that is
yet another illustration of the corruption and perversion of software
patents.

The risk-takers are the workers and they are the ones that should be
rewarded in a fair way - and that isn't done by granting them a
monopoly which they are ill-placed to profit from.  There should be a
unambiguous blanket ban on software patents so that software workers
can get on with working, without fearing submarine patents.

FSFE should make that point and make it strongly, for the sake of all
workers on free software.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
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