I realise that being cynical is so much easier: no chance to be disappointed, easy to look down on other people, feel smug about your oh so original snarky comments. However, you'll never achieve anything of worth (unless you only think in terms of monetary outcomes) on the given subject with that attitude.

I was involved in the fight against the fight against the software patent directive in the EU, and the only reason basically a bunch of students won the fight about that particular directive against a multimillion euro campaign by the giants of the electronics and software industry was that we weren't aware in advance that we couldn't win and that we didn't already "know" that all (or even most) politicians are useful idiots that only care about their image and paycheck, and instead kept bombarding them with facts and academic studies (even organising a couple of conferences ourselves). And having gone through the entire process and a few ones later too (some of which we lost), I still don't "know" that all/most politics is a sham.

I stand by my point (yes, the AC was me too) that politics without legalised bribery is far more sane.

To quote the excellent Rap News 19: Whistleblower:

Some praise these acts as heroic, worthy of mimicking
Others condemn them as illegal and prohibited
But, can't both be equally applicative?

To be good humans we're sometimes
called upon to be bad citizens.
Some nations were even born by
breaking laws of the tyrannous.

Do you support heroes from days of yore
who in order to cause reforms disobeyed the law?
Then what about those in the present
who heed the same call?

The last link should point to the actual candid interview.

And there's a "to" too many in the second sentence: "they aim to to demonstrate "

How do you suggest an independent or freelance software developer would ensure that the code (s)he writes does not infringe on any patent? Or more generally: how do you see a solution for the legal uncertainty caused by software patents for software developers? (any software developers really, since it's not like large companies check for infringements -- after all, it opens them up to treble damages for willful infringement in case they considered a patent and wrongfully concluded it didn't apply).

In case you would want to answer that this applies to any branch of industry, does that mean that you do not believe that independent software development should continue to thrive? Most other branches of industry require huge capital investments, but software development is one of the few high tech fields where an individual has no need for anything beyond a computer and an internet connection to run a successful business -- as long as (s)he is not confronted by threats of patent infringement.

What would your opinion be on a system whereby patent applicants would have to pledge a certain amount of money (possibly via escrow) that is paid out to anyone (either the patent office or a third party) that finds prior art that invalidates the patent? The amount of money would rise as more and/or broader claims are added to the patent application.

Right now, potential victims of invalid patents have to choose between ignoring the patent and hoping they'll never get sued/threatened, or preemptively have to spend (less than in case it would come to a court case) time and money on finding evidence to invalidate patents that should not be or have been granted in the first place. It's a lose/lose situation.

Yes, because that makes all the difference. After all, almost nobody would ever think of running software on a computer. Instead, they generally prefer to interpret it in their head, or execute it using a pen and paper.

There is no practical limitation by claiming software as executed by a computer vs software per se, other than possibly in terms of direct vs contributory infringement (and even that has been covered by claiming software stored on a carrier). Hence, for all practical intents and purposes, they are in fact claiming software per se.

It's like arguing that mental processes as such should not be patentable, but mental processes performed using pen and paper or using a chemical device colloquially known as "the human brain" should be claimable, because then they are no longer abstract and are actually performed using physical, real world means and hence improvements can result in better resource usage.

There is no "the MP3 audio encoding format" patent. MP3 is (was) covered by several patents. At least one of its base patents is however ridiculously broad. I haven't looked at the others, but it would surprise me if they would be that much more specific or better.

You're seriously arguing that the foundation of George W. Bush' Iraq war was even remotely related to "establishing the Rule of Law"?

As for your examples: all they show is that governments can (try to) abuse their powers. There's nothing fundamental about social or economic justice in your examples. Or are you going to claim that warrantless wiretapping is also related to social and economic justice?

And of course the world is larger than the US. At least in my country several social and economic justice measures are fully entrenched in the law and compatible with our constitution (including abortion).

Seems like my browser decided to log me out. So, again, logged in this time:

I completely disagree with that statement, although it can be perfectly abused for that purpose of course. Then again, so can "spreading democracy".

From the official speech delivered by the ITU's secretary-general at the first Plenary of World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai last week:

And no, that quote is not taken out of context.

Sure. It still often cited in academic works even today. You may have noticed I also cited other, more recent studies. Here's a couple more I collected during the EU software patents directive process.

Yes, la la la la I can't hear you really works well...

Might also want to read the posting below from someone who was actually there.

Actually, one of the most comprehensive studies on that topic (Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System) concluded more or less the opposite:

Similarly, the FTC Innovation report from 2003 was also far from unequivocally positive about patents, especially in the hardware/software fields. Or Jim Bessen's research, as presented (twice) at an FFII conference in 2004.

That does not exemplify how patents have supposedly been a net benefit for innovation. Additionally, you are wrongly paraphrasing the article you refer to below. It only says that nowadays, per filed patent there are fewer lawsuits than there were in the days of the fixed telephone. From that it concludes that there is no problem with the volume of patent lawsuits.

I would argue that the reason for this is that patents are used in a very different way today compared to how they were used back then (there were much less large companies back then amassing patent war chests just for defensive purposes). Arguably, the standards for patentability were also higher back then, which means that actually going to court rather than only looking for the players you can convince to settle out of course was a much less risky business.

While I appreciate that shooting the messenger by itself is not a very strong argument, that's an opinion piece by "the vice president and head of strategic acquisitions at Intellectual Ventures". That's patent troll central. Suing companies, or threatening to sue them, based on all kinds of patents is their bread and butter.

Moving on to substance, he's most definitely wrong when he claims that "Every major technological and industrial breakthrough in U.S. history [..] has been accompanied by exactly the same surge in patenting, patent trading, and patent litigation that we see today in the smartphone business". Do you remember the massive patent wars from the eighties and nineties that came with the personal computer revolution? No? Me neither. There were a few lawsuits (e.g. Stac vs Microsoft), but there most definitely was no surge like what we see today.

There is absolutely no indication that we need patents and the related dispute settlement overhead at all in the ICT industry. My favourite quote is still the one from Robert Barr before the FTC in 2003, as Vice President and Worldwide Patent Counsel of CISCO: