From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Sun Mar 12 2000 - 09:07:23 MST
This won't be in your threads, because I get the
digest.
> Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 02:04:17 -0800
> From: James Swayze <swayzej@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: Patent breakthrough- maybe we don't need them after all?
>
> Timothy Bates wrote:
> >
> > As a disbeliever in patents, this article warmed my heart,
> > http://www.around.com/patent.html
>
> As a hopeful inventor can someone explain
> to me why patents are considered bad?
In a sec...
> In a free capitalist society shouldn't an
> individual profit from their hard won intellectual
> efforts?
Yes. Nor is anyone suggesting otherwise, I think.
> Is intellectual property worth less because it
> springs sometimes so easily from the creative mind?
No, that has little to do with it.
> Perhaps only manual labor is considered of any value.
Nope, intellectual value is as real as any other.
> Maybe I should tell my plumber I'm against
> paying for his unique efforts and he should
> create an unleaky faucet for me for free?
Nope, *but*... if you watch him fix your faucet,
and then want to help your neighbor fix his, he
should not be able to stop you by applying for
a patent on (parts of) the process. This is the
trademark (so to speak, :) of monopoly. You may
charge for your work (or not, as pleases you),
but you should not be able to charge for someone
*else's* work, even if your work was necessary
for them to do what they did. Of course, if you
have some contract directly with them, that's
another thing; I (we?) only object to your legal
"right" to own another's work because it is
similar to your own.
-- Wolfkin (wolfkin@freedomspace.net). Crypto key: www.freedomspace.net/~wolfkin/crypto.text On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man; The shape of his own future, now in his own hands.-- Johnny Clegg.
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