<html><body><span style="font-family:Arial; color:#000000; font-size:10pt;"><div>Just been watching this story on the news: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm</a></div>
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<div>I find myself surprised at how much this story has confused me. On the one hand I am obviously oppsed to the insane use of patent law if certain fields, medicine being the obvious example, but on the other hand I wonder how best a small inventor such as Trevor Bayliss could protect his ideas from large companies who can copy them without breaking any criminal law and then deploy a battery of lawyers to minimise damages from a civil suit.</div>
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<div>Is the answer simply to redefine what can and cannot be patented, or to abandon the patent system and introduce a better way to protect ideas from unfair exploitation by others?</div>
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<div>CL.</div></span></body></html>