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Well the trees took Sony Bono out, so that congressmen isn't pleading that case anymore this side of the Styx. Again, I'm not for patents in the W3C specs. I think the W3C will have to be pretty choosy about what specs it chooses to work, though, if the patents keep coming up. Software and algorithm patents usually are silly. In fact, I'd like to see examples where that isn't the case because I can't think of any but it has never slowed the MPEG folks down. While it's trendy to slap the US around here, the Europeans, Canadians, Australians, Japanese, Germans, and so on make fair dinkum using USPTO processes. Follow the money, not the paper. These are international corporations. len From: David Megginson [mailto:david@m...] Bullard, Claude L (Len) writes: > BTW, I agree that the copyright laws are becoming ever more absurd. > Apparently so did Ginsburg but stated rightly, it is not their job > to set policy for Congress. OTOH, anyone who thinks that the > international systems for patents will vanish in an act of good > will toward the Internet or for the particular good of open source > software simply isn't in business. Note that patents on software and algorithms are not that common outside the U.S., though I understand that the E.U. was considering them. The U.S. just got a little silly about the whole thing -- unfortunately, it's the one market that's too big for the rest of us to ignore. I wonder how long it will be until the USPTO starts granting patents for book and movie plots.
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