[766] in libertarians
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paddington Bear)
Sat Feb 25 13:36:25 1995
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 95 12:33:09 CST
From: Paddington Bear <deanjens@midway.uchicago.edu>
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
>possible. Independent invention is no defense. Before you can produce
>any product, you should technically clear everything with the government
>to make sure no part of the rights of that creation have been assigned
>by it to someone else.
This seems to me your strongest point; I think ideally independent invention
should be allowed, but of course it would in most cases be very difficult to
prove one way or the other. I think that a temporary monopolies are,
ignoring ethical grounds, a lesser evil than the substantial disolution of a
reason to develop new technologies, as far as utility goes. As far as actual
rights go, I still believe you have a right to your creation, though I am
bothered by the point made above. I currently see it as an imperfection of
the real world.
> So what is your opinion of the Zimmerman-PGP patent issues? Note
To the extent that I understand it it sounds like an overgeneral patent. I
certainly oppose the US law that is being used to prosecute Zimmerman.
-Dean Jens
