Re: Cryonics and Mike Darwin continued...

Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Fri, 01 Oct 1999 12:05:22 -0700

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net) Thu, 30 Sep 1999 16:43:36 -0700 (PDT)

Mike Darwin in posting to the cryonet wrote:

> As the behavior of the cryonics community clearly indicates,
> they are not clamoring for anything better and don't really want to deal
> with bad news of any kind.

The above just isn't true. Mike does good work and good science but he and the truth regularly get carried away by his emotionalism. (I spent some extra time to make sure that I said this politely.)

Then Lee Daniel adds

The only reasonable terms are none: public domain. So long as researchers hold on to the
mistaken belief that patents protect investment in research instead of strangling the life out of it,
progress will continue to be at the present snail's pace. Only complete freedom of
information--including complete freedom to do derivative research and develop competing
commercial applications--will enable the technology to flourish and grow. <snip>

Which lead to my question.

Does a patent prohibit all unlicensed use of the patented thingie, or just the unlicensed *commercial* use? Or, to use a pointed example, if I start a cryonics cooperative, which is a non-commercial organization whose members perform their own suspensions on one another, and don't sell anything to anyone, can I, without paying the patent holders, and without legal vulnerability, use patented equipment, materials, or procedures?

Best, Jeff Davis 

	   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
					Ray Charles