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EFF should call for the elimination of software patents
- Thread starter Glaucus
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Huh? I thought that was already their position! Well, I guess I wasn't following along.
This reminds me of the video I posted here not long ago (or maybe it was several months ago) with that economics professor(??) who said that software and hitech are exactly the sorts of things that don't need patents because it takes almost as long to copy something as it does to develop it. (This issue is separate from the idea of simple copying but that would fall under copyright law, not patent law).
A five year time frame is sufficient to incentive innovation and anything longer than that tends to disincentive innovation and encourage monopoly. Since this timeframe is very close to the natural timeframe for development of an innovation, the professor argued, software patents are actually redundant.
This reminds me of the video I posted here not long ago (or maybe it was several months ago) with that economics professor(??) who said that software and hitech are exactly the sorts of things that don't need patents because it takes almost as long to copy something as it does to develop it. (This issue is separate from the idea of simple copying but that would fall under copyright law, not patent law).
A five year time frame is sufficient to incentive innovation and anything longer than that tends to disincentive innovation and encourage monopoly. Since this timeframe is very close to the natural timeframe for development of an innovation, the professor argued, software patents are actually redundant.
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Perhaps we should reconsider if we even want to have copyright law if people are willing to make such abuse of it.
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