[ILUG] Sw Patents, Political Party Positions (maybe OT)

[Paul O'Malley]

On Thu, 2004-05-20 at 08:31, kevin lyda wrote:
> On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 07:03:41PM +0100, Paul O'Malley wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-05-19 at 10:27, kevin lyda wrote:
> > > On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 10:20:03AM +0100, Paul O'Malley wrote:

> maybe that's what you meant.  maybe not.  at the risk of arguing with a
> position you DON'T have, i'm curious why you chose my message to reply
> to below:
> 
it is
> On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 10:20:03AM +0100, Paul O'Malley wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-05-19 at 10:02, kevin lyda wrote:
> > > On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 07:49:06AM +0100, Frank Murphy wrote:
> > 
> > > it's pedantic, but ip discussions in the media are full of inaccuracies.
> > > we should take pains to be as careful as we can with ip terms since it
> > > appears that the last gasp for closed source companies is through ip
> > > law.
> > At the risk of getting a lot of backs up, political support for an
> > economic model those that are in politics _think_ they understand.
> > 
> > Educate, and not by shouting, but explaining it in pounds, shillings and
> > pence. The measure can still be killed in August, but it will take more
> > work.
> 
> ok, the second paragraph is readable.  but i'm not certain how it
> relates to what i had written.  my point was merely that in ip
> discussions we should be very attentive to the terms we use.
I would concur, and perhaps ban myself from sending mails at 1am, well
at least serious ones.
> 
> ip law consists of lots of things.  patents, trademarks, trade secrets
> and copyrights to name just a few.  in discussing crimminal law, you'd
> look rather foolish confusing rape and murder.  most people are more
> familiar with criminal law then ip law - you'll note the lack of a "law
> and order: intellectual property crimes unit" tv show - so that example
> may seem extreme.  however many politicians are more familiar with law
> then the average schmoe due to their role in drafting or enforcing laws.
> 
> yes, an economic argument is a powerful one.  however it is still
> important to use the correct terms.  free software still requires
> intellectual property law - nearly all free software licenses depend
> on copyright.  linux distro companies also depend on trademark law for
> branding their products - and stopping others from copying their brand.
> 
> of course there are lots of economic arguments.  not to sound marxist,
> but most things boil down to economics on some level.
> 
> for instance iirc ireland doesn't spend as much on r&d per capita as most
> other industrialised countries.  and even if we did, our spending would
> be dwarfed by the uk - nevermind the us, india or china.  patents are
> a state-enforced monopoly on an invention.  this puts irish industry
> at a disadvantage.  the current goverment's position on patents is a
> bit counter-intuitive unless it is willing to make huge investments in
> indigenous software companies.  and even then it is doubtful we'd come
> out ahead.
> 
> there might be some idea that the legal profession would benefit from
> software patents.  it might, but i doubt it would be the irish legal
> profession.  us legal firms have far more understanding of software
> patents, and the vast majority of software patents are in america.
> i don't know where the eu patent office is - if there is such a thing
> - but i bet it isn't in ireland.  and i'd guess that lawyers in that
> country would be best equipped to handle the eu side of software patents.
> the majority of legal fees for the few software patents we would get in
> ireland would likely go to law firms outside of ireland.
> 
> as for defending against patent lawsuits, the irish legal profession
> might come out ahead there - but on the backs of irish industry.
> we're behind on patents.  i doubt many irish software firms are not
> violating at least one patent.  if one looked into the businesses that,
> say, an post and easons are involved in are they violating a software
> patent?  who knows?
> 
> the vast majority of software is developed internally, or by small firms
> developing code for a few companies.  in many of those scenarios (if
> software patents were legal), patents are being violated.  that means
> that those companies would need to pay royalties on those patents -
> so there would be a knockon effect.  let's say there's a patent on
> some aspect of an inventory system - something that nearly all modern
> inventory systems use - that means that pretty much every retail store
> in the country would face increase fees on their inventory system.
> in turn, that means higher fees for the irish consumer.
> 
> there are other arguments though.
> 
> for instance what about fairness?  in popular mythology, patents are the
> avenue to riches for the little guy.  the lone inventor.  to that end
> would the irish gov't be willing to change irish employment law so that
> your employer doesn't automatically own the rights to the inventions you
> create - even those outside of work?  why not?
> 
> > It was interesting to hear Pat Cox talking about the council yesterday
> > on the radio, if there is anyone here who knows which show it was on,
> > (RTE1) I would like to hear it again.
> 
> go to www.rte.ie - they have listings of previous shows and the times
> they were on.  sometimes they mention guests.  only goes back about a
> week though.
> 
> kevin
Kevin,

I concur with your thoughts.
You managed to express my thoughts a lot better than I expressed them.
On the subject of the government doing something for the little guy (be
they employee or not) they tend to think rightly or wrongly that what
you do for an employer belongs to that employer, i.e. you work for
someone else not for yourself. 
However you may then find it strange then how they allow small companies
work for big ones.

Regards,

Paul O'Malley