- From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>
- Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 22:28:41 -0400
- To: public-web-plugins@w3.org
- Cc: patents@aful.org
Everybody, please listen up: Actually, *right now* you have a chance to turn the tide by acting to support the fight against software patents in Europe, where a hardy band of activists at www.ffii.org have finally forced the discourse on this issue open, with a highly successful demonstration this past August 27th, directed against a proposal to articulate a bogus policy which would explicitly make software patents legal in the European Union. Europe is in the process of considering "harmonizing" with US patent law precedent right now. The European Parliament is meeting to vote on the matter this September 22. Add that political factor to the mix, as you consider the legal conundrum posed to the W3C and the myriad constituencies the W3C serves, by this Eolas patent. W3C: add your voice in support. You know what? Sign FFII's petition opposing software patents. You are an international, highly visible body whose voice would make a major difference. Their petition is at: http://noepatents.org/index_html?LANG=en (200,000 individuals; 2000 organizations) The noticeable increase in receptiveness that we find in the media to this issue lately can only have been encouraged by the W3C's recent principled stand against patented internet protocols. And what's happening in Europe *as we speak now* is something that can turn the tide, so software entrepreneurs might no longer feel the inclination to take out patents because that's what everybody else is doing, and can instead say, "Hey wait -- no. Software is not like that." (Let alone protocols and standards) I am working on putting together some materials to do outreach with on this issue. This email is just a frenetic blather to tip you folks off to the present circumstances. For now, here's a couple of ZDNet articles, articles from Cordis and Heise,a John Dvorak column, plus a letter by economists against the proposal -- plus check out the www.ffii.org site. Developers gather to protest patents: http://news.com.com/2100-1008-5069279.html?tag=nl Protests delay software patents vote: http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5070092.html?tag=fd_top EU Software patents controversy heating up: http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/40032 Protesters say legislation will stifle innovation: http://dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?CALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=EN_RCN_ID:20801&TBL=EN_NEWS "Patent Riots" of 2003: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1236389,00.asp Economists Letter Against EU Software Patent Proposal: http://www.researchineurope.org/policy/patentdirltr.htm Seth Johnson -------- Original Message -------- Subject: ZDNet: Developers Protest Software Patents Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 13:53:12 -0400 From: "Seth Johnson" <seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org> Reply-To: C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org To: C-FIT_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org, C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org, patents@aful.org, DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org, DMCA-Activists@gnu.org CC: rms@gnu.org > http://news.com.com/2100-1008-5069279.html?tag=nl Developers gather to protest patents By Matthew Broersma August 28, 2003 Several hundred demonstrators assembled in front of the European Parliament building in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday to protest a software patents directive that critics say would wreak havoc on Europe's software industry. The physical protest was accompanied by an online campaign that saw more than 600 Web sites, including prominent open-source software sites, replace their front pages with a warning about the directive. The protest centers on the proposed Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions, which would, critics say, legitimize patents on business processes and on ideas software uses. In the United States, where such patents are allowed, large corporations such as IBM routinely stockpile patents to be used against competitors-- usually to the detriment of smaller companies. Opponents want the directive to be rejected when it comes to a parliamentary vote on Monday. They also want it to be refashioned in more restrictive terms. Economists, software developers, scientists and some large European information technology companies have criticized the directive. The protest's organizers, which included software developer and digital rights lobbying groups from France, Germany, Belgium, Catalonia, Spain and Denmark, estimated that between 400 and 500 people took part in the demonstration, with 500 the maximum permitted by Brussels police. The protestors, who carried black balloons, wore black T-shirts with slogans such as "Patent inflation is not a victimless crime," "Protect innovation against software patents" and "Software patents kill innovation" in English and French. Banners read: "Software patents kill efficient software development" and "Innovation not litigation." For the benefit of onlookers and the news media, protestors carried out a mock funeral before tombstones reading, "Maybe you'll be next!" in French and German. A troupe of mimes in black masks acted out a parable about software patents, involving a fistfight between a businessman in a suit and a scruffy, young software developer. The outdoor demonstration was followed by a press conference in the parliament building that featured talks by Henk Barendregt, chair of the Foundation of Mathematics and Computer Science at Nijmegen University in the Netherlands, one of the computer scientists who is petitioning against the directive; Reinier Bakels, an attorney; and Hartmut Pilch, the president of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), which helped organize the protest. Arlene McCarthy, the Labour MEP (Member of the European Parliament) responsible for steering the proposal through the European Parliament, has argued that the directive is necessary to harmonize the patent regimes of the European Union's member states and to give inventors a consistent legal framework for patenting their computer-related innovations. Some opponents of the directive say they support the idea of software patents, but believe the directive implements them in a way that will create more problems than it solves. Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London. ---- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: ZDNet: Protests Delay Software Patents Vote Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 15:25:03 -0400 From: "Seth Johnson" <seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org> Reply-To: C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org To: C-FIT_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org, C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org, patents@aful.org, fairuse-discuss@nyfairuse.org, DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org, DMCA-Activists@gnu.org CC: rms@gnu.org > http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5070092.html?tag=fd_top Protests delay software patents vote By Matthew Broersma September 1, 2003 The European Parliament has delayed voting on a controversial software- patents directive, after protests and criticism by computer scientists and economists. The vote, originally planned for Monday, will now take place at a plenary session starting Sept. 22. Software patents have been likened to allowing a monopoly on the ideas behind stories, and opponents of the proposed Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions claim it would effectively allow unlimited software patents. In the United States, large companies acquire arsenals of patents that they use to protect themselves from upstart competition. The directive, drafted by Labor Member of European Parliament Arlene McCarthy, has generated political opposition from the Greens and the European Socialist Party (PSE), among others. The German and French socialist parties are using the delay as an opportunity to raise MEPs' awareness of the issues surrounding software patents ahead of the late- September plenary session. A demonstration last week in Brussels, Belgium, that attracted more than 400 participants was organized by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) and Eurolinux, among other groups, which also persuaded several hundred Web sites to black out their front pages in protest. A June vote on the proposal was put back amid criticism by MEPs that the legislation would institute a U.S.-style patent atmosphere that would be detrimental to European small businesses and open-source software developers. The proposed software-patenting legislation is the result of a European Commission effort to clarify patenting rules as they apply to "computer-implemented inventions," a term that can be taken to include software. The patent offices of different EU member states have different criteria for accepting the validity of software-related patents, a situation that the Commission's proposal aims to remedy. MEP McCarthy said in a June analysis of the proposed directive that there were links between the patentability of computer-related inventions and the growth of IT industries in the United States. Such patents aided "in particular the growth of small and medium enterprises and independent software developers," she wrote, citing a study on the issue carried out for the European Parliament by London's Intellectual Property Institute. But in a recent letter criticizing the directive, a group of economists poured scorn on any notion that software patents and business growth are connected, saying most economic research does not support this claim. They argued that the directive in its current form would "have serious detrimental effects on European innovation, growth, and competitiveness." Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London. ---- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Heise Online: Software Patent Controversy Heating Up Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 17:40:06 -0400 From: "Seth Johnson" <seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org> Reply-To: C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org To: C-FIT_Community@Realmeasures.dyndns.org, C-FIT_Release_Community@Realmeasures.dyndns.org, fairuse-discuss@nyfairuse.org, DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org, DMCA-Activists@gnu.org, fsl-discuss@alt.org CC: rms@gnu.org -----Original Message----- From: Jonas Maebe <jonas.maebe@elis.ugent.be> Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:14:38 +0200 Subject: Fwd: Controversy about software patents in EU is heating up Translation of the Heisse article from another list. >> Begin forwarded message: From: Dirk Hillbrecht <dirk@hillbrecht.de> Date: woe sep 3, 2003 16:39:36 Europe/Brussels To: swpat@ffii.org Subject: Controversy about software patents in EU is heating up Hello everyone, I just translated the very well written article of heise online about the patent issue into English and pass it hereby over to list. Perhaps, it is helpful for someone... --- Controversy about software patents in EU is heating up On monday evening, Arlene McCarthy, spokeswoman of the commission responsible for the more and more controversial EU directive about patentability of computer-based inventions, lost her temper. After the voting about the proposal has been delayed into the last parliament's session week of September, she complained about the "huge amount of desinformation" against the proposal in a statement for her british representative fellows. Her most suspicious sources for the misinformation seem to be open-source-driven groups and small and mid- sized companies, who temporarily closed down their web servers last week "due to software patents" and demonstrated against the directive in Bruxelles. "This is an in-honest and destructive campaign, which spreads confusion about the targets of the parliament", she outraged. The unexpected lobbyists and demonstrants would assail the representatives with demonstrably false claims and organize phone call campaigns to the offices of the members of the parliament. If they succeeded, this would be "the deathblow for the cleverst and best European inventors, whilst the US and Japan call for license fees from European companies for the usage of their patents." The future of the whole European economy was at stake. This dramatically voiced press release, which is not yet released officially, is the newest example for the nerves to be all on the edge in Bruxelles and Strasbourg. The dispute is now more than one and a half years old and it seems as if noone had thought that Open Source advocates could become a serious lobbyist party at the European stage. Further support came from small and mid-sized programming companies like the Berlin music software specialist Magix and renowned European economists, who just declared to have "serious concerns". The strong opposition against software patents seems to be simply unforseen by the makers of the directive and therefore unplanned. Currently, the situation is listless. The proponents of the directive as McCarthy or commission member for the European Single Market, Frits Bolkestein, stress again and again that software "itself" should not be patentable. Only in conjunction with hardware and a "technical function" this kind of monopol protection should be grantable. The opponents like Hartmut Pilch from FFII say this to be a cant and to be contradictive to the written content of the directive proposal. In their opinion, the paper continues to miss any means against patents on simple software logic. Examples are the highly controversial Amazon patents which seem to be found worth for a patent by the European patent office. In the final state before the vote several changes have been suggested. On the one hand the patent lobby tries to invalidate even the currently existing "interoperability clause" 6(a) of the proposal. This clause protects conversion programs between different data schemes against patent claims. A reformulation of this clause, which is also supported by McCarthy, now anullates this exception. On the other hand, small parties like the Ecologists [Grüne] and other liberal or radical groups have introduced suggestions for changes. They demand to change article 2(b) of the proposal in a way, that the often cited "technical contribution" of the invention is defined in the text. A possible definition could be based on the "connection between cause and effect in the usage of controllable natural forces". It is questionable whether a compromise will be found by the end of the month or not. Even parliamentarians from the German Conservatives, who followed the directive proposal more or less without a doubt so far, do mention the change suggestions now on request. They even neglect explicitly software to be a technical part on itself. The British ministry of Foreign Affairs, contrariwise, has sent a letter to the country's members of the European parliament, which supports the McCarthy reasoning. The European Socialists, of which McCarthy is a member, plan to search and agree on a common way to continue in this week. (Stefan Krempl) --- Best regards, Dirk Hillbrecht -- --- Dirk Hillbrecht, Hannover, Deutschland, Germany ----- dirk@hillbrecht.de - http://www.hillbrecht.de/ _______________________________________________ Forum swpat auf ffii.org http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/swpat ---- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: EU Software Patent Proposal Protested Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 12:15:03 -0400 From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> To: C-FIT_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org,C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org,fairuse-discuss@nyfairuse.org,DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org, DMCA-Activists@gnu.org CC: patents@aful.org, rms@gnu.org > http://dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?CALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=EN_RCN_ID:20801&TBL=EN_NEWS Draft legislation on patenting computerised inventions will stifle innovation, claim protestors [Date: 2003-08-28] On 27 August, proponents of a 'free Europe without software patents' gathered outside the European Parliament to protest against a Commission proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. The proposal, which will be submitted to European Parliament for plenary debate and a subsequent decision on 1 September, was initially drawn up with a view to eliminating ambiguity in the way software-related patents are handled, and differences in the way EU Member States interpret individual patents. Since then the proposal has passed through three different Parliamentary committees, where MEPS have made amendments with the aim of better defining the type of inventions to be covered by the directive. In particular, the term 'computer-implemented inventions' has been amended so that it does not cover computer software programs as such, but only devices such as mobile phones, intelligent household appliances, engine control devices, machine tools and computer program related inventions. However, those opposing the proposal believe that the amendments do not go far enough and describe the proposed directive as a 'wolf in a sheep's coat'. One of the protestors at the rally, Peter Gerwinski from the Germany based foundation for a free information Infrastructure (FFII) told CORDIS News that the Commission proposal's is deceptive. 'Those that have drawn up the proposal are trying to give the impression that they are forbidding software patents, while in fact they are introducing them.' Dr Gerwinski referred to the first draft of the proposal, which defined the term 'computer-implemented inventions' as 'any invention, the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having one or more prima facie novel features which are realised wholly or partly by means of a computer program or computer programs.' 'The current draft of the proposal has been amended so the above reference is very well hidden, but the message is the same: Software is patentable,' he argued. Dr Gerwinski is a software developer by profession and runs a software development company in Germany. He strongly believes that the Commission proposal will have dire effects upon innovation and the future of small software companies. 'When patenting of software is introduced in Europe as it is in the US, which is planned in the long run, I will be forced to close down my business and go and work for one of the big players,' speculated Dr Gerwinski. Despite the existing EU directive (91/250/EEC), which excludes software from patentability rules, a total of 30, 000 software patents have already been granted by the European Patent Office (EPO). 'The existing patents are enough to forbid every software I write,' said Dr Gerwinski. 'Very basic techniques like the progress bar have already been patented, meaning that small companies are being squeezed out, leaving bigger companies to monopolise the market'. However, according to MEP Arlene McCarthy from the Parliament's legal affairs committee, the draft legislative resolution takes into account concerns regarding the potential impact on small businesses. One amendment in the draft legislation calls on the Commission to monitor the impact of the legislation on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). During the rally, web administrators opposing the draft legislation demonstrated the potential consequences of software patentability by temporarily blocking access to their websites. 'We wanted to show what would happen if a patent owner forbids the use of a specific piece of software - all websites connected to that software would go down,' explained Dr Gerwinski. More than 150,000 people have expressed doubts about the proposal and have signed a petition in support of 'a free Europe without software patents'. Among the supporters are some 2,000 company owners and chief executives, 2,500 developers and engineers from all sectors of the European information and telecommunication industries, as well as more than 2,000 scientists and 180 lawyers. They claim that patents and software do not go together and that copyright is the best solution for protecting the work of those that write software. 'Patenting software is like patenting an onion and then forbidding its use in recipes,' explained Tinne Van Der Straeten, an activist from the Belgian group, the Young Greens. Dr Gerwinski agreed that this illustrates well the illogical nature of the current proposal's objective. His organisation is calling on MEPs to examine the proposed legislation more closely and then read the FFII's comments before casting their vote on 1 September. For further information about the draft legislation, please click here: http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?L=EN&OBJID=30318&LEVEL=3&MODE=SIP&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N ---- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Dvorak: "Patent Riots" of 2003 Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:35:28 -0400 From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Reply-To: C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org Organization: Real Measures To: C-FIT_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org,C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org,patents@aful.org, fsl-discuss@alt.org,DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org, DMCA-Activists@gnu.org CC: developers@dotgnu.org > http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1236389,00.asp Patent Riots of 2003 By John C. Dvorak September 2, 2003 Well, the title of this column may be something of an exaggeration, but there seems to be a strong protest movement that has begun in Europe regarding software patents. It could easily become a juggernaut that will make legislative bodies reconsider the tendency to approve dubious copyright and patent laws that benefit nobody but large corporations. In the copyright arena, there are a lot of people complaining about how Disney made its fortune using public domain stories and characters such as Sleeping Beauty and Bambi (to name a very few), then spent most of its efforts preventing any of its own creations from ever becoming public domain. That battle is looming next. For now, the issue is how oppressive the laws are surrounding software patents. And remember that before 1980 a software patent was incredibly rare. The protest fomenter is the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure—FFII (www.ffii.org)—based in Germany. It has organized a lot of physical protests and now is promoting online protests to shut down Web sites. Much traffic from shuttered sites gets redirected to the protest page http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/. A laundry list of examples, the "list of horrors" at http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/effects/index.en.html details many of the complaints. None of this is a surprise. The tendency to allow patents for just about any concept has been encouraged by governments worldwide. That lawyers are behind this is no coincidence. It's is a pure bonanza for them. Unfortunately, it has the potential to kill innovation and progress. And clearly this is not what the original concept of patents was all about. I was the moderator for a Commonwealth Club debate between fabled Law Professor Larry Lessig and Todd Dickinson a couple of years ago. Dickinson was the director of the US Patent and Trademark Office under Clinton and a huge promoter of the idea that business models should be patented. From what I could tell, he thought everything should be patented. So I asked him if a football play could be patented. He said probably not, since there had to be something technological about it to qualify. "But what if this was a timing play?" I asked. My jaw dropped when he said it could probably get a patent! I was stunned at such an outrageous and stupefying notion. What can you say to a guy like this? For a moment I thought about some plays that might get patented. Since then, I've heard tales about patents for how kids can swing on trees and thousands of other idiotic patent ideas. Dumb patents have been around from the first days, but software patents are a recent affliction, and they're going to kill the computer business. Here are two examples from the FFII horror-story bank. The first is the Ugly TrueType and OpenType Font Display Patent. According to the FFII site: "Rendering of Fonts is ugly and slow on Free Software Systems. This is because when the TrueType standard was promoted by Apple and Microsoft, they held a few patents which they never asserted. The FreeType project has asked Apple to clarify the situation, but did not get an answer. Instead, fearful customers of Linux distributors such as SuSE and Redhat (sic) have demanded that any possibly infringing FreeType features be disabled on these distributions. TrueType is the dominating font standard and it is also a part of new standards such as OpenType, in which Adobe participates. Adobe also holds a few patents on which OpenType infringes. These formats must be supported if GNU/Linux/XFree users are to be able to use existing fonts on their platform of choice." And then there is one of many Adobe actions. This one is good since it impinges on GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program): "In summer 2001 Adobe attacked Macromedia for infringing on its US patent no. 5546528 which lays claim to the idea of adding a third dimension to menus by grouping them as tabbed palettes one behind the other. The European Patent Office (EPO) has illegally granted EP0689133 with exactly the same set of claims and priority date of 1994-06-23 on 2001-08-06, after five years of examination period. Many programs, including free software such as The GIMP, infringe on this patent and will therefore be at the mercy of Adobe, if the EPO's practice of granting software patents is made enforceable by a Directive from the European Commission." I have been relentlessly looking at these and other issues and must conclude that the way things are currently rigged, the big companies can easily lord it over the small fry unless the small fry are also loaded. This is neither a level playing field nor a productive environment. What do I tell people who see this as a problem? I just tell them to patent every idea they can and never produce any sort of product. It looks impossible to develop anything in this environment except patents and lawsuits. Yeah, like this is going to fix the economy. My conclusion: support the FFII. Discuss this article in the forums: http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag/messages/?msg=28039 ---- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Economists Letter Against EU Software Patent Proposal Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 12:39:51 -0400 From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> To: C-FIT_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org,C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org,fairuse-discuss@nyfairuse.org,DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org, DMCA-Activists@gnu.org CC: rms@gnu.org > http://www.researchineurope.org/policy/patentdirltr.htm An Open Letter to the European Parliament Concerning the Proposed Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions The undersigned economists have grave concerns about the proposed Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions that has emerged from the JURI committee of the European Parliament and that has been tabled for vote on 1 September 2003. While clothed as an administrative clarification, the proposed Directive will provide opportunities and incentives for the construction of extensive portfolios of software patents. The exploitation of these portfolios will have serious detrimental effects on European innovation, growth, and competitiveness. Unlike most complex technologies, the opportunity to develop software is open to small companies, and even to individuals. Software patents damage innovation by raising costs and uncertainties in assembling the many components needed for complex computer programs and constraining the speed and effectiveness of innovation. These risks and liabilities are particularly burdensome for small and medium sized enterprises, which play a central role in software innovation in Europe as well as North America. Moreover, within the ICT sector, expansion of patent protection has been found to lead to an increase in the strategic use of patents, but not to a demonstrable increase in innovation. Copyright and other rules of competition permit small and medium sized software enterprises to grow despite the overwhelming resource advantages of large companies. As a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences in the US concluded: “[D]eveloping and deploying software and systems may cease to be a cottage industry because of the need for access to cross-licensing agreements and the legal protection of large corporations.” While some small and medium-sized firms will be able to prosper in this new environment, many will not. In particular, validating loosened standards on patentability will cloud the prospects of Europe’s ascendant free and open source software industry while preserving the dominance of present market leaders. We are concerned that the analysis made available to Parliament by the Commission and the JURI committee fails to acknowledge the problems of strategic patenting that have been the growing focus of attention and research in the U.S., as well as the unique characteristics of software development and use.[1] We urge the members of the European Parliament to reject the proposed Directive in its present form and to request that the Commission develop an economic analysis that properly considers the potential consequences of software patenting for European software developers and users. Birgitte Andersen, Birkbeck, University of London Paul A. David, Oxford Internet Institute and Stanford University Lee N. Davis, Copenhagen Business School Giovanni Dosi, Scuola Sant'anna Superiore David Encaoua, Université Paris I Dominique Foray, IMRI Université Dauphine Alfonso Gambardella, Scuola Sant'anna Superiore Aldo Geuna, SPRU, University of Sussex Bronwyn H. Hall, University of California, Berkeley and Scuola Sant'anna Superiore Dietmar Harhoff, Ludwig-Maxmiliens Universitaet Peter Holmes, SEI, University of Sussex Luc Soete, MERIT, University of Maastricht W. Edward Steinmueller, SPRU, University of Sussex 25 August 2003 [1] For a detailed critique of the rapporteur’s explanatory statement see http://www.researchineurope.org/policy/critique.htm ---- DRM is Theft! We are the Stakeholders! New Yorkers for Fair Use http://www.nyfairuse.org [CC] Counter-copyright: http://www.boson2x.org/article.php3?id_article=21 I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or distribution of this incidentally recorded communication. Original authorship should be attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation might hold for usual practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of exclusive rights.
Received on Monday, 8 September 2003 22:29:25 UTC