>From: Greg A. Woods [woods@???]
>[ On Friday, August 29, 2003 at 17:14:54 (+0100), Philip Hazel wrote: ]
>> Subject: Re: [Exim] Is exim in trouble?
>>
>> No. It is published in an RFC.
>
>That alone doesn't mean it's not patented (somewhere). The whole
>idea of a patent is to allow you to talk about your idea freely
>without worrying about someone making a lot of money off it and you
>not being able to force them to pay you royalties for the use of your
>idea.
Specifically for the USA, our Constitution grants the power to the
legislative branch "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by
securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to
their respective writings and discoveries;". See
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section1
Notice that the purpose behind it is to benefit society (promote the
progress of science) rather then the individual patent holders. IMO the
idea was based on two principles. First, granting the ability to patent
inventions would give incentives for innovation. Second, the inventor could
freely share the details after the patent was granted instead of keeping is
secret, therefore added to the pool of general knowledge.
With regards to software patents, while the 2nd MAY apply, does anyone truly
believe the 1st does? If I need to write an application to do X, then
that's all the incentive I need to "invent" a method for that to occur.
For my money, I believe software patents inhibit instead of promote the
science in relation to the field of software and therefore should not be
granted.
