From owner-freebsd-chat Sat May 13 16:46:30 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mail.bfm.org (mail.bfm.org [216.127.218.26]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8855B37BBB9 for ; Sat, 13 May 2000 16:46:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from redprince@redprince.net) Received: from WhizKid (rh3.bfm.org [216.127.220.196]) by mail.bfm.org (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-52399U2500L250S0V35) with SMTP id org; Sat, 13 May 2000 18:47:15 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.20000513184603.00896100@mail85.pair.com> X-Sender: whizkid@mail85.pair.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 18:46:03 -0500 To: W Gerald Hicks , chat@FreeBSD.ORG From: "G. Adam Stanislav" Subject: Re: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000513182440.00892db0@mail85.pair.com> References: <391DE35C.BA359426@mindspring.com> <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <391D4DAD.FD80980A@picusnet.com> <003b01bfbcdc$6059fb40$a164aad0@kickme> <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <20000513205610.A22103@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <3.0.6.32.20000513143506.00895650@mail85.pair.com> <20000514010614.A16058@happy.checkpoint.com> <391DDB3E.8DFFD8D0@mindspring.com> <20000514041848.K22405@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org >At 16:21 13-05-2000 -0700, W Gerald Hicks wrote: >>Indeed, the US Patent Office has been doing more damage to the concept >>of valid IP protection than perhaps any other force. > >Mostly because the patent is rarely granted to the creator of the idea. Let me also add there is a big difference between what copyright protects and what patents cover. Copyright protects IP in literal sense: An author creates something, and it belongs to him for life (and his heirs for a limited time). It's true property, and the author is a true owner. But patents do not protect a property, they protect discovery of natural laws. When someone invents something, he discovers some law of nature, he discovers how things work. But those laws are not his. They were always here, we just did not know about them. A patent does not really protect ownership of a discovery, rather it grants the discoverer a temporary exclusive use of his own discovery. I think its main purpose is to encourage the discoverer into publishing of his discovery. Without patent protection many discoveries would be kept in secret. Adam To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message