From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4891 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Toby Bartels Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: patenting colimits? Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 17:04:37 -0700 Message-ID: Reply-To: Toby Bartels NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1243389236 22993 80.91.229.12 (27 May 2009 01:53:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 01:53:56 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed May 27 03:53:54 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1M98Kx-0003Y6-6W for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 May 2009 03:53:47 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1M97kr-0003vx-4C for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 26 May 2009 22:16:29 -0300 Content-Disposition: inline Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4891 Archived-At: Vaughan, I agree with nearly all that you say about how good it would be if category theory found practical, commercially viable application. The only thing that I don't understand is why you see patenting it as a *good* thing, when (as you say) the purpose of a patent is >temporarily (namely until 2025) barring entry of others >to whatever market turns out to have been created by this application, that is, to *prevent* (in part) commercial application. I can only suppose that this is because patents are one of >the usual protocols of the business world along with many other anti-competitive practices. (Interestingly, software patents are unavailable in much of the world, so I'm not sure that it really makes sense to call them "usual".) I know that if *I* ever come up with a commercially viable application (ha!), I would not wanted to be hobbled by a patent on the relevant mathematics. --Toby [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]