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Deven Desai

The Catholic Church’s New Driver’s Test and More

Dave Hoffman has been writing about his experiences in Italy. In this post he noted that “Italy has one of the highest car accident rates in Europe” and reflected on the relationship between written law and rules that allow us to interact socially. Coincidentally the Vatican has decided to issue Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road which AP is calling the Ten Commandments for Driving. The document itself does not seem to be available, but the AP article offers the list of the Commandments which I will post below the fold. (A hint: not killing is still in but the rest are aimed at being a conscientious driver; yes a stand against road rage and more).

But before that, although the articles covering the topic are choosing the best lede, they don’t bring out the other aspects of the 36 document to which they refer. The Vatican’s statement refers to four sections: “The pastoral care of road users, pastoral ministry for the liberation of street women, the pastoral care of street children, and the pastoral care of the homeless.” Thoughts on these points and the promised “Commandments” are below the fold.
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Revisionist Patent History

Today’s New York Times carries an op-ed by Timothy Lee that recalls Microsoft’s 1991 position on software patents and compares it to Microsoft’s position today. The piece has a great quote from Bill Gates and his earlier position:

“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”

For me the most interesting part of the op-ed is the observation of how a company will switch its policy position depending on its place in the market. As Mr. Lee notes in 1991 Microsoft had six patents whereas today it has more than 6,000. The question seems to be whether one should accept that a corporation has seen some sort of new light or is simply a making the best argument based on its current state of affairs. To be clear I don’t know that one can fault the company for advancing its position in this manner. It may be that whenever one is in a position of weakness, one will argue that the rules are unfair until one is in a position to take advantage of the rules previously claimed to be unfair. In any event, Mr. Lee suggests that copyright already addresses software protection well enough and as such software patents are a necessary: “In fact, companies, especially those that are focused on innovation, don’t: software is already protected by copyright law, and there’s no reason any industry needs both types of protection.” More on this idea below the fold.

Read More »Revisionist Patent History