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On 16/02/13 07:09, Simon Avery wrote: > > What's this got to do with linux? US patent law is why most GNU/Linux distros don't ship with all the multimedia codecs you might want, because to ship them in America costs money per copy in licensing fees. That they could ship them in Europe and don't is another issue but I imagine it is hard to run multiple copies, and deal with the legal details when you can just make it an end user problem. Although to be honest not sure Obama understands the issues. The firms trading in patents are a sign that patent legislation is doing what it is suppose to, and that the market in patent licensing is effective and healthy. You can't make "ideas" into property, and complain that when there is a market in that property, that you don't like the people who happen to own an "idea" because they have specialised in owning ideas. This specialism is the kind of thing you see in markets that are working, it would be more worrying if patents were only owned by firms that made things, as it would suggest that there was no market and thus patent legislation hadn't worked. The problem is patenting software itself. He could try and harmonize with European legislation and drop "software only" patents. Indeed there is precious little evidence that patents are good things, or achieve what they set out to achieve, so heck abolish patents entirely. But it won't happen because patents make monopolies, monopolies make people rich, and well America has the best government money can buy. Simon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq