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Patent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.

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Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Lawrence Lessig about "Software Ecosystems".

In a recent

article Professor

Lawrence Lessig wrote: "[...] The point in each case is not that we'd be better off without proprietary technology, or without property at all. The point, instead, is one that has been obvious since the birth of our republic - that a balance between proprietary and nonproprietary property is better than either extreme. As Bradford Smith, general counsel of Microsoft Corp. has written about software, "Both open-source and commercial software are integral parts of the broader software ecosystem." Either alone, I might add, would produce a weaker 'software ecosystem'. [...]"

I currently think that this is an important conclusion which is also of relevance with regard to the current dispute on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. On the one hand, Mr. Stallman's adherers should acknowledge that the IP landscape will never be such that running a computerprogramm on a processor can

under no circumstances constitute a patent infringement. On the other hand, reasonable steps should be undertaken by limiting the effects of patents that Free Software isn't eradicated, e.g. by exempting source codes from the scope of patents.

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