Letters to the editor

Patents outside of the US

From:		Paul Sheer <psheer-AT-icon.co.za>
To:		letters-AT-lwn.net
Subject:		Patents outside of the US
Date:		Sun, 28 Dec 2003 17:35:56 +0200

I am curious about the attention that the Free software
community gives to patents. It seems that the US has the
luxury of a patent office that can referee patents PRIOR
to them being filed. Here in South Africa (as I am sure is
similar in other countries) one is free to submit ANY
patent, even a completely bogus one. The onus is on oneself
to defend that patent IF a challenge arises from a third
party.

The Free software community is effectively claiming that
the patent office has the job description of ensuring that
patents are unchallengable. But is this really their job?
Considering that some countries do NO refereeing of patents
prior to their filing, it would seem that the US patent
office is merely there to do some cosmetic work in the
face of an over-subscribed patent system.

My question is: since when is the patent office SUPPOSED
to be screening patents as thoroughly as you desire? If
they really did have the capability to do this, wouldn't
the cost of filing a patent become prohibitive? (I.e.
they would have to hire so many experts as to make patents
prohibitively expensive to offset the this cost.)

Best wishes

-paul

Paul Sheer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Tel  . . +27 (0)21 6869634
Email . . . http://2038bug.com/email.gif . .  Work . . +27 (0)21 6503467
http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer . . . . . . . . .  http://rute.2038bug.com
L I N U X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Choice of a GNU Generation

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