Posted by: hopethishelps
on September 12, 2004 07:35 AM
If the USA were the only country in the world, the situation would be hopeless because the established corporations like patents: patents effectively eliminate competition from start-ups. And the big corporations can buy the politicians.
But if some important region - maybe Europe - does not allow software patents, it will have a more competitive IT industry and cheaper software. When that happens, it will become more difficult for Microsoft etc to bribe our pols to keep software patents, because it will become obvious that software patents damage every consumer of software.
So there is a hope, if we can just win the political battle elsewhere.
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A political solution may be possible
Posted by: hopethishelps on September 12, 2004 07:35 AMBut if some important region - maybe Europe - does not allow software patents, it will have a more competitive IT industry and cheaper software. When that happens, it will become more difficult for Microsoft etc to bribe our pols to keep software patents, because it will become obvious that software patents damage every consumer of software.
So there is a hope, if we can just win the political battle elsewhere.
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