- From: David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
- Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 11:00:13 -0400
- To: Timothy Holborn <timothy.holborn@gmail.com>, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>, W3C Credentials Community Group <public-credentials@w3.org>, public-rww <public-rww@w3.org>, "public-webid@w3.org" <public-webid@w3.org>
On 08/11/2015 10:31 AM, Timothy Holborn wrote: > I honestly had no idea about these issues. I've followed up locally with > other lawyers who I work with, they didn't understand either. >[ . . . ] > > Legal ontology / data-rights ontology might be able to graph such > considerations, as to ensure the rule of law in all jurisdictions plays a > more important role. Make no mistake: this is not about the rule of law. There is nothing at all illegal about reading a patent disclosure. Patent disclosures are *intended* to be read by the public, so that the public can benefit by learning from them. (And in exchange for that public benefit, the patentee get exclusive rights for a limited time.) This is about gaming a broken patent system to protect inventors and users from liability. Our patent system has created a perverse incentive for inventors to be willfully ignorant of other people's patents. And that undermines the intended purpose of the patent system, which is supposed to provide public benefit by incentivizing the public disclosure of useful inventions. David Booth
Received on Tuesday, 11 August 2015 15:00:43 UTC