Re: protecting inventions

From: Spectrum Press <specpress[_at_]earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 08:42:17 -0600

On 8 Jun 97, Bruce Hayden <bhayden[_at_]copatlaw.com> wrote:
>
> Dan Agin <specpress[_at_]earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > The "biotechnology scientific community" is of course interested
> > in obtaining patents on everything imaginable. They constitute
> > perhaps 5 per cent of the scientific community. Most scientists
> > think the results of scientific investigations should be public
> > property and not private property. Which means the scientific
> > community is out of step with the legal community -- or vice
> > versa.
>
> As an attorney, it is obvious that it is they who are out of step
> with us.
>
> I say that with some degree of humor, but also with some truth. If
> you will remember, not too long ago, the software community was in a
> similar position. A number of theories were developed about why
> software shouldn't be patentable. All to no avail. The money was on
> the patentable side, and so I am now employed writing software
> patents. --

All of this comes from the basic philosophical problem: Protection of brainwork supplies an incentive for creativity, but at the same time it hinders advancement by preventing the use of the brainwork as a step in other brainwork. I don't claim to have any solutions to the problem. All I can suggest is caution at both ends.

Dan Agin

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specpress[_at_]earthlink.net Received on Mon Jun 09 1997 - 13:45:02 GMT