Re: [Fsfe-uk] Arlene McCarty on software patents

[Ramanan Selvaratnam]

> Are these 'small fry' SME's hoping to 'licence out  inventiveness' and 
> create jobs in the far-east and not address the 'job losses' locally?
>  

Are you thinking of a certain well-known home cleaning device patent?

If one were to encourage software patents as a way to help 'small fry' 
SMEs, it is surely not in order to enrage the local populace who will be 
be subjected to the restrictions if they were to base another enterprise 
using the patented software.
Instead due to the *unique* nature of  digital networks this would only 
encourage sweatshops and other human rights violations outside the EU to 
be propelled into a new era.... probably more cruelly too. The jobs that 
any such patents hope to exploit (or even create as the MEP put it) need 
to be specified clearly instead of ranting ...'we will create jobs' 
without any understanding of the commodity being discussed.

There is definitely few jobs in spinning a way to manage a false EU 
ethical foreign policy and maybe another legal sector to put clauses to 
help local enterprises ....

> That's probably not a bad example to use.
>  
hardware != software but maybe there are parallels and analogies here

Best wishes,

Ramanan