Re: Gates Patents Flipping a Light Switch

[AES/newspost]

In article <x5wu2fe2u5.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> 
wrote:

> Uh, you are forgetting one thing: everyone else has the option of
> buying a licence from you.  That's the whole point in the first place.

a)  Buying a license is NOT an option that's necessarily available to 
everyone else -- only if the patent holder chooses to offer a license, 
at whatever price he sets.  Other than a few exceptional situations, 
there's no general requirement that a patent holder offer licenses; he 
can just bar everyone else from using the idea at all.

b)  And in any case allowing the patent holder to make a profit on the 
patent is not at all "the whole point in the first place".  Read the 
Constitution; the (alleged) purpose is "to promote progress" of the 
broader community.