Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!bu.edu!shelby!portia.stanford.edu!dhinds From: dhinds@portia.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds) Newsgroups: trial.misc.legal.software Subject: Re: Capitalist Software Tools Message-ID: <1990Aug15.164827.12612@portia.Stanford.EDU> Date: 15 Aug 90 16:48:27 GMT References: Organization: AIR, Stanford University Lines: 26 In article <1990Aug15.071911.3083@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >In article news@helens.Stanford.EDU (news) writes: >>Perhaps, but patents and UI copyrights not only protect against >>someone "taking" your idea. They also prevent someone else with the >>same original idea from using it. > >Time after time, the successful standards are the ones that the creators >let out into the world either free or under reasonable terms. Those that >people try to keep proprietary eventually die. You only get a standard >that works when everybody is in agreement. > I think this is key - patents are not typically used as all-or-nothing weapons. Most patent disputes end in licensing agreements - not one company forbidding another to make a product period. I think IBM recently settled a patent dispute with Sun this way. Sun licenses its SPARC technology to gain an edge, by making it a standard. Using patents to guard a small niche and inhibit innovation generally isn't a sound economic strategy. Patents are supposed to encourage use of proprietary information, by guaranteeing that the patenter won't lose potential profits by making information public. I agree that 17 years is a long time for a software patent, though. Wouldn't it be fair to say, though, that because of the generally much much faster rate of innovation today compared to when patent laws were drafted, that ALL sorts of patents should be shortened? -David Hinds dhinds@popserver.stanford.edu