Re: Lawyers want to gut our tools

[Doug Isenberg <disenberg -at- GigaLaw -dot- com>]

	The lawyer and patent law bashing in this thread is pretty loud and, in 
many cases, misinformed.  Neither lawyers nor patent laws is inherently 
evil.  I'd like to think I know.  I can't speak about the merits of the 
Adobe-Macromedia dispute, but I can say that the purpose of patent law is 
actually to encourage innovation; that is, without legal protection, many 
inventors would not spend considerable time, effort and money inventing -- 
and, as a result, we'd all suffer.  Patent laws are not perfect, nor is 
every patent granted actually valid.  (That's what patent lawsuits are 
often about.)  But we have a system, with origins in the Constitution, 
that's worked pretty well for a couple of hundred years.

	For a little background reading, take a look at the articles on patent law 
on GigaLaw.com, at http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/patents.html

Doug Isenberg
Attorney at Law
Editor & Publisher, GigaLaw.com
FREE Internet law news daily via e-mail!  Subscribe at 
http://www.GigaLaw.com/news


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