> You know WIPO isn't a U.S. organization, right? It's part of the U.N. It's in Geneva.
Yeah, and who created the UN? Denmark? Indonesia? The UN is about as Swiss as the Warsaw Pact is Polish.
> U.S. patents have no force outside the U.S.
You mean in theory, or in practice?
> First of all, people who don't like the patent system are not my enemies. They simply hold different beliefs than I do.
No, they are your enemies - for one simple reason. You're stealing from them. They may not know this, but I do.
> If one has gotten the short end of the stick in a patent dispute, I guess it could make him dislike patent attorneys.
It's not me personally - just my entire community.
> There's simply no reason to believe this. If Congress made a clear law prohibiting software patents, and it was a well-drafted law, then it would be followed.
Europe has a clear law prohibiting software patents. Parker v. Flook was a clear decision prohibiting software patents.
> So we've gone from you being "quite confident that you have never, ever once told any of your 'inventors'" . . . to "OK, but you don't say it often enough!
No, you misread. Intentionally, I imagine. I said: how often do you refuse to pursue a patent you're confident will issue, just because you don't believe it is morally worthy? I got my answer, between the lines.
> Just so you know, I've enjoyed our discussion today.
I have as well. I think you've been as frank and reasonable as is possible for someone in your profession.
> Parker v. Flook was a clear decision prohibiting software patents
Supreme Court jurisprudence about software patents has never been very clear. In any case, Diamond v. Diehr came out just a few years after Flook and made such a cut-and-dried reading untenable. And then there was the whole Bilski mess of an opinion...
This is what I mean when I say it'd have to come from Congress, and it'd have to be clear. If you want to prohibit software patents, you don't want 80 pages of Supreme Court justices all writing their own opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. You want a statute no more than, say, a third of a page long, clearly defining what's meant by "software" (and maybe also "business method") and prohibiting patents on it. That would be damn hard to argue about. Supreme Court decisions are notoriously easy to argue about.
> No, you misread. Intentionally, I imagine. I said: how often do you refuse to pursue a patent you're confident will issue, just because you don't believe it is morally worthy? I got my answer, between the lines.
Ah, I did misread. It was not intentional. But the answer you read between the lines was correct--I have never done that. Maybe when I'm the head of a law firm I can make decisions about turning away money because of a moral objection... but for now, that's a little above my pay grade.
Yeah, and who created the UN? Denmark? Indonesia? The UN is about as Swiss as the Warsaw Pact is Polish.
> U.S. patents have no force outside the U.S.
You mean in theory, or in practice?
> First of all, people who don't like the patent system are not my enemies. They simply hold different beliefs than I do.
No, they are your enemies - for one simple reason. You're stealing from them. They may not know this, but I do.
> If one has gotten the short end of the stick in a patent dispute, I guess it could make him dislike patent attorneys.
It's not me personally - just my entire community.
> There's simply no reason to believe this. If Congress made a clear law prohibiting software patents, and it was a well-drafted law, then it would be followed.
Europe has a clear law prohibiting software patents. Parker v. Flook was a clear decision prohibiting software patents.
> So we've gone from you being "quite confident that you have never, ever once told any of your 'inventors'" . . . to "OK, but you don't say it often enough!
No, you misread. Intentionally, I imagine. I said: how often do you refuse to pursue a patent you're confident will issue, just because you don't believe it is morally worthy? I got my answer, between the lines.
> Just so you know, I've enjoyed our discussion today.
I have as well. I think you've been as frank and reasonable as is possible for someone in your profession.