Re: XMMS and the new MP3 patent terms
* Tom Badran <tb100@doc.ic.ac.uk> [2002 Aug 29 06:03 -0500]:
>
> America = Sick joke of a patent system (for software anyway) desinged to keep
> Georges friends (read financial contributors) happy.
>
> Anyone else notice that it was king GEORGE who was famously insane, and now
> there is GEORGE bush, i see a pattern emerging :)
Say what you will about our president. To lay this solely at his feet
when the man has only been in office a little over 18 months and the
patent problem is many years old is unfair at best. To assume the patent
problems over here suddenly began with his inauguration is to ignore
reality. The current patent mess began well before GW, during the
presidency of Party Boy Bill.
That said, the PTO is full of career bureaucrats and as such they are
not accountable to the electorate or the president for that matter. If
you think the president has any direct control over the PTO, then your
reasoning is as fscked up as the PTOs actions.
I think if you care to examine the facts you'll find the current mess
really began a long time ago back in the late 70s. Back then the PTO
refused to even grant a copyright on compiled binaries--they had to have
the source code and would only grant a copyright on the source. Such a
policy chaffed a one Bill Gates who then lobbied for a new law and the
rest, as they say, is history. All this during the presidency of one
Jimmy Carter...
> Thankfully, most of the rest of the world will ignore patents on software, and
> even countries like the UK who have treaties with the US on patent issues
> will still ignore software patents as they cant be obtained in the uk.
Hmmm, if my memory serves, it was the Good Old USA that until the late
1800s or so did not recognize patents from Europe or elsewhere. Only later,
under pressure from European nations, did the USA change its stance.
Now I guess the sauce doesn't go down as well...
- Nate >>
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