[ILUG] Re: ILUG sends s/w patents briefing document to Irish MEPs

[David Golden]

On Sunday 20 March 2005 14:39, Paul Jakma wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, David Golden wrote:
> > patents only enforceable against patent holders.
>
> Hardly a comprimise position: that equates to scrapping the patent
> system.
>

Could be a compromise in the spirit of the Irish EU presidency 
let-us-erase-all-eu-parliamentary-amendments-of-substance "compromise" 
position... :-)

But IMHO, should there be a decision to eliminate a patent system,  it  
_would_ be a way to "tail off" a patent system instead of on-one-day, 
off-the-next, cold-turkey approach, as there'd be a period of 20-odd 
years in which the lawsuit-addicts could still sue eachother, the
dodgy accounting/taxation tricks associated with patents could tail off 
slowly, and small companies could, if they so chose, get a patent and 
get screwed^W^W engage in the same silly cross-licensing games with the 
behemoths as now.  They'd just have the choice to step outside the game 
entirely.