We’re probably not that far apart on patents. Unqualified support for them on the part of fanatics gives the rest of us who like quality patents a bad name.

Hmmm. So you don’t like patents for pure algorithms. Do you distniquish between software and business patents at all then.

Also, the book is not just published by the BI Press: I’ve been a Guest Scholar at the BI for about three years now, and am writing this from here on the eight floor of Brooking’s main building. So I am very much in touch with the guys at the AEI, and have had many a conversation with some of them.

Nor do I feel that I’m crazily out of line with them. It would be false to say that I’m anti-IP or anti-patent. The book takes pains to point out that patents, applied correctly, can be a good thing and can foster innovation. It also argues that patents are very inappropriate for informational inventions like software, business methods, or storylines. If you asked anybody else here or at the AEI, I expect that they would all offer a similar pragmatic optimism about IP law: it is a basically good idea, but the implementation is never obvious.

Also, the book is not just published by the BI Press: I’ve been a Guest Scholar at the BI for about three years now, and am writing this from here on the eight floor of Brooking’s main building. So I am very much in touch with the guys at the AEI, and have had many a conversation with some of them.

Nor do I feel that I’m crazily out of line with them. It would be false to say that I’m anti-IP or anti-patent. The book takes pains to point out that patents, applied correctly, can be a good thing and can foster innovation. It also argues that patents are very inappropriate for informational inventions like software, business methods, or storylines. If you asked anybody else here or at the AEI, I expect that they would all offer a similar pragmatic optimism about IP law: it is a basically good idea, but the implementation is never obvious.

I gather that you’re not a programmer, nor have you written any code before.

“He also talks about how one could write up a symbol table to translate any given program into lambda calculus expressions, which are pure math by any definition of the term. If pure math isn’t patentable, and a program can be translated into a pure mathematical expression, then where does the program get off being patentable?”

It sort of struck me that (as pointed out at the end of the review) copyright should be much more suited to code than patents. I’m obviously not the first one to think about this and was wondering if many people agree with that position?