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You asked. My opinion:
<soapbox>
I don't think it is good business if it is done
knowingly. It isn't honest and it isn't fair.
My ethics may sound like the Mickey Mouse Club,
and Bob Keeshan redux but it is the best I know.
"We work hard and we play fair and we're in
harmony; M.. I.. C.. K.. E.. Y M.O.U.S.E"
and wow I miss Annette, Captain Kangaroo,
and Mr. Moose.
Unfortunately, it isn't illegal and that is
all that will stop some businessmen. Any
kind of finagling done to get something like
that is, in my opinion, unethical.
When such unethical practices become part
of a company culture, it tars that culture.
When it becomes a permanent feature of
the business culture at large, it turns
that culture medieval, complete with warlords,
serfs, and rule by force and devastation.
One knows them by their acts.
Mongol General: We have won again. That is good! But what is best in life?
Mongol Warrior: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcon on your wrist, wind in
your hair!
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the
lamentation of the women!
Mongol General: That is good. - Conan The Barbarian -
It is stupid. We can play hard and still
make a profit. I mean, dammit, how much
stuff does one need?
Software patents are a relatively new phenomenon
and we haven't learned as a culture, as I've
said before, that feeding the wolf keeps him
coming back to our door. The patent wars are
a very dangerous destructive engagement, and
too many of us are fighting on that front these
days. The only winners are the lawyers and the
document management systems vendors. Our industry
at large is losing and in my opinion, it would
only take some pushing from some prominent CEOs
to stop this, particularly if the wise ones
will work with the legislative bodies and our
respective patent organizations to forge a
sensible and mutually acceptable new form and
process for realizing returns from intellectual
property. We don't have to keep being stupid.
The problem is the gray area where someone
is uncertain that the application is unfair
or that prior art exists and they haven't
looked hard enough, or the original is in
terminology or forms that aren't easy to
recognize, or in a place that the searcher
can't reach. I noted recently that a Microsoft
engineer was working with a system that verb-drives
the interface. He was asking on open lists for
any prior art. Technical writers recognize this
as similar to standard ways to structure task
procedures, and some of that made its way into
IETM work, guidelines from authors such as
William Horton, and so on. Now finding the
references to back it up, ensuring that
respondents are really talking about the same
thing, and so on can take time. A dilligent
person takes the time and makes the effort.
They might conclude after some time that they
have done the right thing, file the patent,
get the patent, and then find out about the
prior art. That's the honest case that goes
bad. Now the honest businessman with stockholders
has a tricky decision to make. Does he/she
abandon the patent or trademark, or take advantage
of having the upperhand?
Then there is the obviousness test and it is
much trickier. If it looks really obvious,
it probably is and it is probably common practice.
One agent makes that decision but another decides
to go for it. Then we get the Mike Doyles of the
world who are now in a position to do serious
damage to the information ecosystem claiming all
the while to be protecting it from some alledged
bigger evil, in his case, Microsoft. So the
hatred the is epidemic just created another
monster of what might be otherwise, a good guy.
If we choose to make of our culture, a swamp
of mindless invective, DNS attacks, whatever,
then we fear the reaper and that is how it
becomes more powerful. Hate makes hate; the
only cure is love. If one can't believe in that,
then show me an alternative. Say you don't
believe in God; Ok. I'll accept that. Say
you don't believe in yourself, I can only weep
for you.
I don't mind being poor; I mind being wrong.
It's a hard problem today, but I don't think it
has to remain that. As I said, the men
and ladies who run the major software
companies should meet and forge an agreement
to work with the governments of our countries
to create a new IP regime that both incentivizes
invention, protects the rights of the inventors,
but does not rob the world and our children's
children of the hard won products of our intellects.
But I ask you this: what is the limited period,
will we accept technical means (eg, DRM) to protect
it, and will WE as a culture and as individuals
work just as hard to protect the creator's rights?
This is and will always be an ecosystem of mutual
interests. We can choose to be symbiotes or
parasites. That is how we differ from out automatons;
we are aware of the rules, and we can change them.
Justice, as always, is an individual choice of
who chooses our choices, and the choices we make.
That is what the humans can do that the machines can't.
</soapbox>
len
From: Frank [mailto:frank@therichards.org]
On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 14:34, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> I've got
> no problem with bare-knuckled competition; that's business.
> This isn't that; this is crap.
>
Len this is an honest question, trying to figure out where you're coming
from.
1.Is knowingly filing a patent application for which there is prior art
'business'?
2. if not, how about jiggering company procedures so that the question
"is this original?" is never asked of anyone who might know that the
correct answer is 'No."?
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