[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Software patent debate: we lose round one
Peter Murray-Rust wrote: > My purpose is to remind XML-DEV members of the importance of XML-DEV as > an archive. Anything information published on XML-DEV is effectively in the > public domain (but not necessarily the IP it relates to). The thing that makes me very unhappy with US software patents is not only that they represent a grab for monopoly rights by the most powerful nation, which then asserts these monopoly powers against other countries (in the same breath as demanding that trade barriers be brought down), but also that some of the patents seem to acquire ownership rights over uses ISO standard technologies. When I worked as Australian delegate to the ISO SGML committee, we were working to open up many areas of software to the public--things like stylesheets and data transfer and compiling schemas into UIs and linking and scheduling etc were all areas we expected to open up. It is simply wrong to have patents awarded for the bleeding obvious. And it compromises the work of standards bodies if the fruit of their labours can be immediately looted. I having been toying with the idea of setting up an "Anti-Patent Office" in which anyone who has a good idea can send some email to document that the prior art exists. Perhaps Peter's idea for XML-DEV might do this better. I note that Japanese patents have in the past been awarded on a very different basis: from memory they acted for 5 years only, and the idea was to make sure that good ideas came to market--it prevented a company from using patents to keep a good idea off the market (e.g. if it was not strategic). But the result is also that japanese R&D is more geared to immediately marketable things (e.g., which could get a decent ROI over that 5 year period). I know the Americans have been trying to get other countries to move more towards American criteria for IP; there is sometimes an article in the local press about how how we shouldn't put up with US bullying on this. The conflicts w.r.t the pharmeceutical industry are well known--poor countries cannot afford to pay licenses for drugs even thought they could manufacture them. (I think the anti-HIV drugs are in this category: if the company that makes AZT does not market the drug with a low licence in Africa and hard-hit countries, then those countries' governments have the choice of letting the royalty policies of rich countries kill their citizens or of not recognizing the IP law, which causes trade disputes.) Rick Jelliffe P.S. On the particular issue of that vtopia patent on contextual editing, we should see what it actually is before we get too excited. If they have done something genuinely novel and smart, it is a different issue to if they are squatting (getting rights to something merely by being first.) *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ ***************************************************************************
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