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Software Patent Reform Stalls Thanks To IBM and Microsoft Lobbying
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington post reports on the progress of a piece of legislation many hoped would address the glut of meaningless software patents used as weapons by patent trolls. Unfortunately, the provision that would have helped the USPTO nix these patents has been nixed itself. The article credits IBM, Microsoft, and other companies with huge patent portfolios for the change, citing an 'aggressive lobbying campaign' that apparently succeeded. Quoting: 'A September letter signed by IBM, Microsoft and several dozen other firms made the case against expanding the program. The proposal, they wrote, "could harm U.S. innovators by unnecessarily undermining the rights of patent holders. Subjecting data processing patents to the CBM program would create uncertainty and risk that discourage investment in any number of fields where we should be trying to spur continued innovation." ... Last week, IBM escalated its campaign against expanding the CBM program. An IBM spokesman told Politico, "While we support what Mr. Goodlatte's trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we'd be forced to oppose the bill." Insiders say the campaign against the CBM provisions of the Goodlatte bill has succeeded. The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a markup of the legislation Wednesday, and Goodlatte will introduce a "manager's amendment" to remove the CBM language from his own bill. IBM hailed that change in a Monday letter to Goodlatte.'"
"So what if rich companies can communicate more widely than you?"
The "so what" is that they have a darned good whack at drowning out all voices but their own. Inherently undemocratic.
You can't make every YouTube video a viral hit. You can't make every citizen equally wealthy and influential. All you will do is undermine democracy by censoring some people. Communism causes more problems than it solves, news at 11.
Agreement is not the issue, their message is not better than anyone else's, and does not deserve amplification.
The cool thing about a free democracy is that neither you nor the government gets to decide who "deserves amplification". If the speaker spends his own money to get his message out, then only he gets to decide whether it's a worthwhile exercise or not. Isn't freedom great?
For me, liberalism is caring more about people than institutions ( corporations, powerful people's , states, etc ).
Your error is that you forgot that corporations are people, and are not owned by the government or the country at large. Of course corporations are not individual people, but they are owned by people, run by people, responsible to people, generate profits for people. It's people all the way down! And once again, you don't get to decide that those people don't get a political voice.
"Waaah, there are rich people who have more money than me. Make them stop putting up yard signs and making political movies, since I don't have enough money to do the same."
You are wrong on several items in your post; let's pick a few.
...A-a-a-and you have egg on your face.
1. If by "buying favour" you just mean spending money to communicate a message, then it shouldn't be censored. Speech should never be censored without a really good reason.
2. Here in the USA we spell it "favor".
3. The idea that corporations are people is not disastrous, it is simply true. Corporations are neither owned nor run by robots. You seem to be trying to make corporations be run and de-facto owned by the government, which is more worthy of Cuba or Venezuela than the USA.
4. Mr. Goodlatte is not an IBM executive, he is actually a member of Congress.
5. What's wrong with opposing bills even when you're not a member of Congress? Are we not supposed to have opinions? Are we supposed to shut up about our opinions? Seriously, what in the world were you thinking in saying that only Congress may oppose bills?
Forgot to mention -- liberals also lack a sense of humor. There, now my definition is complete.
You use the word "amplification" as if it's a privilege the government should wisely withhold from the rich. But in fact the "amplification" you speak of is not a privilege under the control or ownership of the government at all -- it is just the fact that some people have more money than other people. At root, your complaint is that rich people can do more than poor people can, and you want to fix that. So your way of fixing that is by censoring the political speech of rich people or groups of people.
You are arguing for government censorship of the expression of political opinions. That's it, short and sweet.