Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 23:35:39 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: cjclark@alum.mit.edu Cc: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it>, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, "P. U. (Uli) Kruppa" <root@pukruppa.de>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Use of the UNIX Trademark Message-ID: <20011010233539.G83192@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <20011010140126.M387@blossom.cjclark.org>; from cristjc@earthlink.net on Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 02:01:26PM -0700 References: <000601c15084$87edd360$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <1002663600.3bc36eb096ee5@webmail.neomedia.it> <20011009231343.C387@blossom.cjclark.org> <1002731960.3bc479b899603@webmail.neomedia.it> <20011010140126.M387@blossom.cjclark.org>
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Crist J. Clark said on Oct 10, 2001 at 14:01:26: > > programs in the field (or even in other fields)? > > It depends on the field. Allowing patents can cause a field to > boom. If people believe they can make money off of a technology and > that they will have patent protection for their discoveries, they may > invest great amounts of money and resources into the field. This is a common claim. The trouble is it is hard to substantiate, or test in a controlled way, and depends on too many assumptions (that people will not do research except on money; people will not spend money on expensive research except for tangible rewards; people will not innovate unless they can control the use of their ideas; etc.) > > It is about this point that I disagree. In general, IMO Science should be > > patent-free. > > That's just not a reasonable view of how the world works. For example, > the entire field of medicine would come to an almost complete > standstill without patents. HUGE amounts of money are spent developing > drugs and devices to be patented. Reality check: Even *huger* amounts of money are being spent on legal budgets to defend those patents. Most drug companies spend much more on their legal fees than on research. Moreover, some of them classify "marketing research" under "research". The majority of the drugs being developed and patented are in fact of little interest to anyone; then the drug companies get into the game of marketing their drugs, and convincing you, the customer, that you actually need them. Naturally, where the sufferers of the disease are mainly from poor developing countries, there is not much interest in developing drugs for them. The biggest medical breakthrough in the 20th century was undoubtedly Fleming's discovery of antibiotics. This had nothing to do with patent protection. Nor did Barnard's development of open-heart surgery, or any other major medical advance I can think of, in fact. There is a good case for arguing that patent restrictions *throttle* good research, by making research into improvement of an AIDS drug, for instance, too expensive to be affordable to anyone but a very well-funded multinational. For some unflattering comments on the pharmaceutical industry, see http://www.mercola.com/2000/june/24/pharmaceutical_industry.htm And of course, there was the recent mess about cheap AIDS drugs in Brazil and South Africa. Personally, I think the pharmaceutical industry (in which I also include genetic patents) is the second-worst possible advertisement for patents (software being first). > Again, drug companies and other > research groups freely publish their results in the very rich medical > literature due to the fact that they have patents on the > technologies. If they didn't have patents, they wouldn't publish the > information. The "other research groups" most certainly would, as they have been doing throughout. I don't think you understand what drives research. > > > (Not to say that some people haven't pulled some things off with the > > > Patent Office. One of the jokes about a former employer of mine was > > > that the company had a patent on least-squares regression. It really > > > did.) > > > > Urk. > > The patent was for applying least-squares regression to a certain > specific type of data in a specific way. It is unlikely it would have > stood up to scrutiny, and I think it's expired by now. One of the Ig Nobel prizes this year went jointly to someone in Australia who patented the wheel, and to the patent office which granted the patent. > But you agree there needs to be protection. If you have a better way, > offer it up. I don't think that the patent system is perfect or that > it is not frequently abused[0]. I do believe patents are the best fit > we have right now for protecting the IP inherent in computer programs. It seems to me there is even less justification for patenting computer algorithms on economic grounds, than for patenting pharmaceutical products. To develop and test a new drug, you do need funding; to develop a new algorithm, you certainly don't, other than your salary. People will continue to develop such algorithms anyway, as they always have, without patent protection. It reminds me of a passage in Jessica Litman's "Digital Copyright" (highly recommended reading) where she compares the content industry's insistence on stringent copyright protection with the arguments: Supposing food were not copyrightable, then your elite cordon bleu restaurant could instantly have its recipes ripped off by the cheap takeaway down the street. They couldn't differentiate their products; There would be no incentive; eventually we'd all be reduced to eating Uncle Ben's. Or suppose clothing styles were not protected by copyright: then Versace and Armani could be ripped off by any smalltime tailor, and the fashion industry would be killed by cheap knockoffs. Of course, food recipes and clothing designs are protected by copyright, and never have been. (But I very much fear they will be. That, or patents.) R To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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