Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 20 Dec 1998 20:13:54 +0100 (CET) | From | Daniel Engstrom <> | Subject | Re: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux |
| |
On 20 Dec, Bob McElrath wrote: > You guys forget that one of the main reasons for inventing patents in the > first place is to protect someone who dumps a lot of money into developing > something. If the "something" they sell based on that is easily reverse > engineered and copied, then the reverse engineers have the upper hand, and > always will.
Yeah, but most of the patents that are issued does not cover ideas that need this kind of protection. I think that maybe 10-100 patents/year world wide is a figure that is more reasonable. There should IMHO be an invention whose development cost is in excess of several 100 million USD to warrant this kind of protection.
> Trade secrets hinder development of new technology. Ideas are rarely "out > of the blue". More often they are straightforward extrapolations of current > ideas. By limiting the spread of ideas and information, you slow the growth > of technology. Trade secrets hinder the development until they are reverse-engineered, which, if they that important, will happen in a few month or maybe a few years, if they are obscure. Parents on the other hand hinder development until they expire, typically 20 years I think.
/Daniel -- Do you use MS Mail? If so please note that my email addresses are: daniel@lillfab.se - Work related. daniel.engstrom@riksnett.no - Private.
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |