From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,52a0bacbcdd2da17 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-08-21 16:02:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Software Patent Concerns => New Black Markets? Date: 21 Aug 2003 16:02:21 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <20030819131158.34a38f97.falis@verizon.net> <3F43F5E2.8010403@attbi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.152.82.169 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1061506942 25636 127.0.0.1 (21 Aug 2003 23:02:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2003 23:02:22 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:41774 Date: 2003-08-21T23:02:22+00:00 List-Id: Robert I. Eachus wrote: > I have now come to > the conclusion that the problem with software patents is the 20 year > lifetime. In every case where I have seen software patents used to do > active harm, if the life of a software patent had been 10 years, the > damage would have been minimal, and at five years non-existant. I'd like to propose a candidate for popular statement supporting this observation about proper lifetime for software patents: For hardware (that is, material things) we coordinate patent's lifetime with the interval between two consequtive human generations; similarly, software patent's lifetime should be coordinated with the interval between consequtive (different) governments. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia