Patent compromise?

To Whom it May Concern,

  My name is Tim Mensch, and I am a computer professional.

  I believe that the standards on the Internet should be kept as free
  of patent restrictions as is possible.  When you have a public
  resource like the Internet, giving one company a permanent (15 years
  is effectively forever in Internet time) monopoly on a key
  technology is an unfair advantage.

  On the other hand, companies should expect to be rewarded for
  investing in research.  My primary complaint is the extreme duration
  of a patent: a reasonable alternative would be for the owner of a
  patent to sign it over to the public domain after a reasonable
  period of time (1-2 years at most). Then the patent owner would
  profit from its development investment, and the Internet at large
  would profit from the new technology.

  Remember that is the point of a patent: To balance the need to
  reward an inventor with the benefit to the general public of the
  idea the patent encompasses.  Patent law hasn't caught up to the
  Internet time scale, and I believe that you should take this into
  account.

  Tim Mensch
  5926 Taft Ave.
  Oakland, CA 94618

  510-652-7267

Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 19:40:07 UTC