<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Andrew Norton <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:andrew.norton@pirate-party.us">andrew.norton@pirate-party.us</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">Reinier Bakels wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Totally agree.<br>
<br>
There are more "pirate" issues, though:<br>
* software patents<br>
* privacy violations: CCTV cameras everywhere, RFID tags in ourselves<br>
* freedom/security balance<br>
* etc<br>
<br>
So we need a "philosophy", which is supposed to be the Manifesto.<br>
The Manifesto needs to address all (or most of) the main core issues, in a way that we all agree.<br>
<br>
When we have the manifesto, we will be able to fight back the copyright lobby and all the other menaces to our freedoms.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
OK ,we are getting close now. To play the devils advocate:<br>
* Doesn't someone who contributes a brilliant trick for building software have the "human" right of a software patent? It is his (her) labour and creativity, anyhow ...<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
I'm an engineer by education. I hold (co-hold) a physical patent, on a design of safety horse stirrups for disabled people. It's due to expire soon, and I've basically covered my costs to my satisfaction. This is one thing where myself and the Swedish party diverge, for instance. They want to abolish patents, doing so only would mean that I would never have sold my patent, I'd have to sell the items myself, and as soon as I've sold one to a competitor, they can, if they're bigger, make them quicker and cheaper than I (economies of scale).<br>
<br>
Patents are useful in some ways, just misused at present. There is, however, to me, a difference between tangible items, and non-tangible. That could be my engineering background colouring that though, and I'll freely admit it (I'm from an engineering family, my father did his apprenticeship at Lucas, working on the then-new concord fuel systems).<div class="Ih2E3d">
</div></blockquote><div><br>I was talking about "software" patents. They are very, very different from industrial patents. In fact, in each field the patents have different rules.<br>I can only talk about the software patents, because they're the only ones I know.<br>
<br>With your industrial patent, you patented a device. That's fine.<br>With software patents, they want to patent ideas! Since algorithms are unpatentable (maths are unpatentable), they just started patenting whatever idea they had: double click, hiperlinks, networking, backups, etc. <br>
<br>In industrial patents, you have previous art. You have to show a "working prototype", so nobody can patent a "perpetual motion machine". In software patents... well, they have patented worse things. <br>
</div></div>