He did say that he could try and get us extra contact or even a meetings with the relevant minister(s) if that would help us get our message across.
This may be very useful. We'd have to get the timing and the people right, though.
- From a free trade point of view monopoly's and closed markets are bad for global business, patents help to promote and in large monopoly's and closed markets.
You have to careful with points that sound like criticisms of the patent system in general (even if you believe them). Patents in all fields are monopolies. In some fields they may do more good than harm (you may or may not agree). In any case, we must argue that in software, they do more harm than good.
- I would also like to see some discussion on how these patents benefit the common pool of knowledge after the patent expires, and if this extra (?) knowledge is worthily of a 20 year monopoly.
This point is rarely touched on. Can anyone think of an example of software innovation that would not have been reinvented within 20 years? RSA (the encryption algorithm) is often cited as a good example of a software patent, but it is now known that boffins in the UK had the idea four years *early* than the people who patented it.
http://www.di-mgt.com.au/rsa_alg.html
Malcohol.
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