[geeks] Patents [was Re: Can't decide on an OS]

[Mouse]

>> Possibly.  Another thing which would help greatly would be to
>> drastically reduce patent lifetime.
> Even a reduced term would allow for abuse;

True.  But it would lessen both the severity and the duration of it.

And, compared to eliminating patents, it looks positively _likely_.

>> Personally, I think patents are something that [...]
> And copyright, trade marks, etc.

Well, yes, but patents are - were - the subject of discussion.
Furthermore, of the various forms `intellectual property' takes today,
they are possibly the most obviously problematic and thus least
unlikely to get pushed in the direction of fixing.

> Whilst I'm not entirely sure that scrapping the whole lot without
> replacing it with _something_ to protect the "rights" of the
> inventor, [...]

If patents actually protected inventors' rights, they'd bother me less.
Especially if they did little else.  (They'd still bother me, if only
because I'm not convinced "inventors' rights" makes sense.)

They actually operate to provide cash cows for large corporations which
once employed inventors, or, worse, for patent trolls who never
invented a thing.

I wonder if someone could patent patent trolling....

> it does seem that the current system has evolved into something that
> is more in the interest of lawyers than anybody else.

As alaric pointed out, this is hardly a surprise.

/~\ The ASCII				  Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML		mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B