Ok I was going to drop off the end of this but gdavidrath's post is too interesting.
A similar story with stuff taken from the new world (chocolate, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, etc). Nice book - "Indian Giver" - summarizes this well.
Ownership of IP is complicated, because IP is complicated. Who invented / discovered X? Who knows? Maybe the person who filed the patent; or maybe not.
Maybe there's another mechanism that would work better. I don't know.
Contrarian, I think you still have that banana stuck in your ear.
I wrote: "organizations like WIPO exist to normalize IP laws". You wrote: "attempt to harmonize intellectual property laws of willing nations".
Are you arguing with me or agreeing with me? Does normalize = harmonize, or not?
I wrote: "". You wrote "those efforts to NOT even attempt to do is to establish multinational intellectual property rights".
With whom are you arguing there? I didn't say anything about establishing multinational intellectual property rights.
Your knowledge of the arcana of the US patent system appears to be exceeded only by your lack of knowledge, or perhaps willful ignorance, of the creative environment of software development:
* millions / tens? / hundreds? of millions of software developers,
* at all levels of skill, professionalism, and English competency,
* all working in a small handful of programming languages, each of which encourages a commonality of expression and a development methodology that enshrines sharing and re-use of others' ideas and code,
* on a relatively compact set of problems (how many apps available for Windows? how big is that app space, really, when competing apps are grouped together by functionality - 20,000?)
A fine and wonderful example of the kind of boondoggle that does [not can, Contrarian, but DOES] emerge from this is the whole MP3 patent mess. There is a nice description of this on Wikipedia (heavy with citations), following the technical overview.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
And now, before you come back with another response that attempts to dismantle the idea that patents + worldwide software development community = a mess, may I borrow a couple of your bananas?
Authored Comments
Ok I was going to drop off the end of this but gdavidrath's post is too interesting.
A similar story with stuff taken from the new world (chocolate, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, etc). Nice book - "Indian Giver" - summarizes this well.
Ownership of IP is complicated, because IP is complicated. Who invented / discovered X? Who knows? Maybe the person who filed the patent; or maybe not.
Maybe there's another mechanism that would work better. I don't know.
Contrarian, I think you still have that banana stuck in your ear.
I wrote: "organizations like WIPO exist to normalize IP laws". You wrote: "attempt to harmonize intellectual property laws of willing nations".
Are you arguing with me or agreeing with me? Does normalize = harmonize, or not?
I wrote: "". You wrote "those efforts to NOT even attempt to do is to establish multinational intellectual property rights".
With whom are you arguing there? I didn't say anything about establishing multinational intellectual property rights.
Your knowledge of the arcana of the US patent system appears to be exceeded only by your lack of knowledge, or perhaps willful ignorance, of the creative environment of software development:
* millions / tens? / hundreds? of millions of software developers,
* at all levels of skill, professionalism, and English competency,
* all working in a small handful of programming languages, each of which encourages a commonality of expression and a development methodology that enshrines sharing and re-use of others' ideas and code,
* on a relatively compact set of problems (how many apps available for Windows? how big is that app space, really, when competing apps are grouped together by functionality - 20,000?)
A fine and wonderful example of the kind of boondoggle that does [not can, Contrarian, but DOES] emerge from this is the whole MP3 patent mess. There is a nice description of this on Wikipedia (heavy with citations), following the technical overview.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
And now, before you come back with another response that attempts to dismantle the idea that patents + worldwide software development community = a mess, may I borrow a couple of your bananas?