Bonum Certa Men Certa

Famous Economists Continue to Call for Abolishment of Software Patents, Google Continues to Collect These

Gary Becker
Gary Becker. From Wikipedia.



Summary: Another new example of the everlasting call to kill all software patents and an example of Google entering the software patents fray

Economy (or "economics") is not much of a science and economists are not scientists. It's more like a religion, or dianetics, a scientific-sounding cult (the cult of patents is another story). The senior members adhere to man-made social constructs and propaganda of conformity. It's sounds like ecology, but there is nothing natural about it. It's artificial and subjective. Conformity to the group gets one a reward (e.g. from corrupt banking institutions). But some are wrongly called "Nobel-winning" -- an often-perpetuated mistake we got suckered by and a mistake repeated by this author who says advice against software patents comes from a "Nobel-winning economist" (here is what this prize actually is). To quote GigaOM:



Nobel-winning economist: end software patents and cut patent protection to 10 years



America’s patent system has been under fire for years but, in recent months, the criticism has grown louder than ever. There are currently six bills before Congress to fix the problem of “patent trolls” and now a leading economist is calling for even more dramatic measures.


Gary Becker is colleague of Judge Posner, who is also against software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. There are numerous economists who challenge the patent system based on purely economic grounds, not just ethical grounds. They also antagonise software patents. We have covered examples here, noting the consistency for years.

The corporate press continues to glorify patents as though they are a business. Speaking of software patents, it is disappointing to see Google continuing to accumulate some more of them rather than pressure Congress to annul software patents. Here is Google's latest acquisition:

Google has acquired from the SR Tech Group a portfolio of U.S. patents and patent applications that includes several speech related patents.


The British press covered this too. For years we have urged Google (including by E-mails to managers there) to kill software parents, not legitimise them (see the InterDigital saga [1, 2]). Google is not being evil, but it is not being good here, either. It could use some public pressure. As one of the biggest lobbyists these days, Google sure could contribute to the end of software patents.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
 
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025
Judges Would Never Rule for Men Who Strangle Women or Against Women Who Merely Wrote Articles About Abuse They Had Received From Men
We don't intend to do "trial by media", so we won't be disclosing claims and defences until it's over
Windows is an Unnatural Disaster, It is Also Avoidable
there's a wide window of opportunity opening
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Less YouTube and More Station
Links for the day
In Some Countries, Such as Thailand, Firefox is Already Measured at Less Than 2% (One Day Firefox Will Get Blocked, Not Only Lack Support)
Web consolidation around Chrom-isms will doom the Web as we know it
Killing the News With Spam and Slop Benefits Those Whose Desire is an Uninformed Population
adoption of Free software depends indirectly on political activities/activism
Links 29/03/2025: Trademarks Battles, Fires Destroy More Than 3,000 South Korean Homes
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: An Introduction
Perhaps tomorrow or perhaps next week we'll share more information about what happened and what was reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency
Links 29/03/2025: More Crackdowns on Science, "Hey Hi" Slopping is Flopping
Links for the day
IBM's BS (Bait, Switch) Regarding Ways to Stay Onboard
PIPs, RTOs, and forced relocations are just an illusion of choice (or ability to recover)
Costa Rica Almost Bankrupt Because of Microsoft
the incidents in Costa Rica are Windows incidents
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Art of Looking, Wireguard, EMacs
Links for the day
Links 29/03/2025: Attacks on Social Security and War Updates
Links for the day
Banned evidence: Ars Technica forums censored email predicting DebConf23 death, Abraham Raji & Debian cover-up
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 28, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 28, 2025