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Gemma Peter wrote:
On Fri, 2004-05-21 at 12:59, Brough, Tom wrote: But public domain is different. Public domain is where copyrighted and patented works go at the end of their copyright or patent. It is a place created by the legal system to put stuff where it will be of most benefit to society.
No the public domain was the freedom left after the legal system had granted extra rights to publishers of books. Although the patented invention is available for licence free implementation after the patent expires (15 years) - any patented software would also be copyrighted until the copyright expires (life+70 or 95 years in the US) - so you would still have to write your own implementation of the patented method. As such best not to muddle copyright and patents in the same discussion.
Yes I accept the last point would lead to my prosecution but then you would all help me pay the fine / visit me in jail if I did this for the common good (justice and freedom) right ?You are perfectly fine to publish the specification of your invention. It's just that no-one else is allowed to re-implement it without paying royalties.
Of course in software the specification is typically the invention - that being what software is - a precise description of how to do something.
And most absurd question of all, if I owned the patent of something and then made it public domain myself could I be prosecuted ? I guess only if I brought a case against myself but I just don't know where the law stands !No, making it public domain is effectively expiring the patent but IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer)
I think there is a terminology issue here - you can grant unlimited licence on a patent so anyone can use the invention free of charge. Why you would patent something (which costs money) and then give it a free licence, unless it is purely to prove you were first, or because you later decide that it is better to give the invention away (or as in the case of drugs the government sometimes buys the patent rights to allow competition in the manufacture of a drug).
Surely if the above could be demonstrated to the general public as an example of how stupid things could get then this would activate the public interest into doing something ..... possibly ?The general public are not usually interested in things unless it affects them
The general public are not usually interested unless they understand how it affects them. The idea that software patents may slow economic growth is pretty abstract, or inhibit free software development, when Joe Public probably doesn't know what free software is and certainly doesn't know that he is using it everyday.
e.g. extortionate prices for patented software because no-one can afford the royalties to implement a free version.
You can't implement free versions - because free means unencumbered by restrictions - as such the only free software patent woud be one where all patent rights have been waived. Typically patent owners don't do that - as discussed above. A gratis version might be possible (think freeware) if the patent holder were to licence the invention to the author for that implementation (or perhaps for a particular use - education - healthcare - charities - non-commercial), but that isn't free. A patent is a direct taking of freedom (the freedom to copy a good invention when you see it) from everyone and giving it to someone in particular (usually the inventor). Remember in the beginning we were free to copy when we saw a good invention, heard a good story, or song, or poem. We were free to perform these stories, songs, and poems, infront of as many people as we liked. Mix and match them as much as we liked. Anything less than this is a freedom taken away - and you have to ask if the benefits you derive from losing a particular freedom are worth losing it.
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