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FTC Announces First in Series of Hearings on Evolving Intellectual Property MarketplaceFTC Announces First in Series of Hearings on Evolving Intellectual Property MarketplacePosted Nov 21, 2008 20:49 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104)Parent article: FTC Announces First in Series of Hearings on Evolving Intellectual Property Marketplace Open any news site, and the winds of change are everywhere. Open lwn.net, and it's the same old stuff. Software patents are still legal. Copyrights enjoy more protection than privacy. How depressing. Is change coming to the digital land?
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Change will come only if speak up. Here are some resources that may help you Posted Nov 21, 2008 21:35 UTC (Fri) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] Change is partly here, with potentially more to come, but these kinds of things take time. The recent Bilski decision began the process to restore balance to the patent laws. This FTC announcement asks the public to tell the FTC what the laws should change to, which is a tacit admission that they might not be working now. To which I say: No kidding; software patents were ALWAYS a bad idea, and the lower courts should never have rewritten the laws to legalize software patents and business method patents.So, if you think software patents are a bad idea, LET THEM KNOW. After all, they're asking for input, so please provide it to them! Here a few URLs that explain why software patents are a terrible idea; if you're trying to explain this to the FTC, these might not be bad places to start:
There are whole sites dedicated to ending software patents, such as:
Obviously, there's no guarantee that they will fix up the patent system. But speaking up is a necessary precondition.
Against Intellectual Monopoly Posted Nov 22, 2008 9:29 UTC (Sat) by dark (✭ supporter ✭, #8483) [Link] The book Against Intellectual Monopoly by Boldrin and Levine makes a good case against all patents. It is also available online.
Against Intellectual Monopoly Posted Nov 24, 2008 23:30 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Thank you very much for this link! An absolute must-read.
Change will come only if speak up. Here are some resources that may help you Posted Nov 24, 2008 22:12 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] And there's the fantastic 2005 review of the USA's patent system by the FTC: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/10/innovationrpt.pdf It's a 315-page review of the whole patent system, but the 153rd to 165th pages of the PDF are about software patents, and it's basically a laundry list of problems they cause. My own bits of info and links are on my software patents page.
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