Re: IP Newsflash

[Michael Deutschmann]

On Mon, 1 Aug 2005, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> No. [the term "intellectual property" is] a fake blanket designed to
> induce people into treating patents, copyright and trademarks,
> instinctively, as one and the same thing.

Correction: It's a fake blanket designed to induce people into treating
patents, copyright, trademarks AND PHYSICAL PROPERTY, instinctively, as
one and the same thing.

Also, it could sway courts, which is rather more serious.  IANAL, but I've
heard now and again that the Americans are incapable of passing a law to
invalidate existing software patents, because their judges are apt to view
it as "confiscation of property", which their constitution forbids.

---- Michael Deutschmann <michael@talamasca.ocis.net>