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On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:33:23 +0000 Henry Bremridge wrote:
Once someone comes up with a workable idea: antibiotics, airplanes. Then I agree they need a monopoly to allow them to develop their idea and obtain the rewards. (Lets face it, a drug is "software" for combatting a disease: but one which cost about $1bn to develop and launch on to the market.)
Ooohhhh.... I wouldn't mention drugs. That opens up a really big can of worms! The drug company may well have spent $1b to develop the drug, but do they need a monopoly to "allow them to develop their idea"? Hasn't the idea already been developed? What about competition? Since the drug is likely to have been actually discovered by someone in the Scientific community - albeit one that is payed by ACMECo - does that mean that their discoveries should be hidden under a blanket of secrecy rather than shown to the rest of the global scientific community? Is it morally right that the company that hired a particular scientist that discovered a method (since that's all science really ever is) should be allowed to guard and hide "their" discovery to the possible detriment of other *people* that would have benefited from the method being a publicly disclosed (and therefore others being able to manufacture the drug)? Like I said, a whole can of worms. But, this discussion is about software patents. Grant. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for nuratal stidutipy. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.