Re: The patent process [Was Re: Sharing the Family PC is Patent-Pending]

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In article <jb40a09i6a3e3gbkaoenrgqlkoldkhidf1@4ax.com>,
 Just Another Alias <startle348@comcast.net> wrote:

> >* Doing so may have significant negative impact on the judicial rights 
> >of any individual who offers such comment and is subsequently accused of 
> >infringing the same law or regulation?
> 
> Not if you're not an infringer.

An ALLEGED infringer, of an possibly -- if not probably -- invalid 
patent (keeping in mind that roughly HALF of all litigated patents are 
found to be, in fact, invalid).

It's when you're an alleged infringer that you NEED the maximum possible 
judicial rights -- and it's when you're having to resort to litigation 
to get back rights you should possibly (or again, probably) never have 
lost that you *deserve* the maximum judicial rights.



> Can you think of any other instance in which the term "right" or
> "rights" is used in the Original US Constitution as ratified, other
> than protecting IP rights?

I read Art. 1, Sect. 8, as *granting* a special and temporary right, for 
a public purpose -- not as protecting a pre-existing or in any way 
"unalienable right", as that term is used in the Declaration of 
Independence.

Moreover, the essence of a patent is not to give the inventor the right 
to use his idea; he already has that.  It's to *take away* the right of 
anyone else who independently comes up with the same idea to use that 
idea.

And in any event, it's the *process* involved in judging patent 
applications and granting the patents that I'm severely criticizing, not 
necessarily the valid patents that might still be granted with a better, 
fairer, more useful process.