Re: Patents can be for good, not only evil

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:02:10 -0700
"Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Eric Burger wrote:
> > I specifically applied for patents underlying the technology behind
> > RFC 4722/RFC 5022 and RFC 4730 specifically to prevent third
> > parties, who are not part of the IETF process, from extracting
> > royalties from someone who implements MSCML or KPML.  
> 
> That was a waste of your time and money. Publication of those
> inventions by you, at zero cost to you and others, would have been
> sufficient to prevent someone else from trying to patent them. Next
> time, get good advice from a patent lawyer on how to achieve your
> goals without paying for a patent.
> 

You're obviously right in theory on this point.  I wonder whether
you're right in practice.  We've all seen far too many really bad
patents issued, ones where prior art is legion.  The (U.S.) patent
office seems to do a far better job of searching its own databases than
it does the technical literature.

I know there are many philosophical reasons why many people oppose
software patents.  But for others, there are very practical reasons:
there are too many bad patents issued.  I think we can all agree that
stopping bad patents is a worthwhile goal, even if for some it's just
an intermediate goal.


		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

_______________________________________________

Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

[Index of Archives]     [IETF Annoucements]     [IETF]     [IP Storage]     [Yosemite News]     [Linux SCTP]     [Linux Newbies]     [Fedora Users]