The State of Thought

[Skreech]

This is pretty old article but it seems to be even more pertinent today. Companies and people are making money from other people's ideas by simply getting rights somehow to patents and then suing everyone who may even remotely be associated with the technology including people who are simply using it. So if someone has the patent on a toaster that uses a timer that dictates how toasty your toast is they will sue toaster makers as well as anyone who bought one.

This is of course particularly stupid and is even more so in terms of Software Engineering where the intent is to have reusabilty of code. If someone patents some functionality of software and then sues anyone who uses/implements something similar without buying it from them first then nearly all software is liable for something which seems a natural progression for advancement. I'm not sure what the Jamaican stance is on IP especially for non-physical products.

I'm not certain what the views are of persons so I'd just like to know if you are worried about IP and patents in the Jamaican setting

[Skreech]

This is a great summary of what pitfalls exist in the patent world

[Skreech]

Checked out JIPO for what the stance is on patents. You can copyright anything that's creative and you can patent anything that's not an expression of thought. Software is therefore copyrightable but not patentable (I know those aren't really words) So that's the state in Jamaica

[Skreech]

Read a talk about the state of copyrightt and thought that it was a fantastic summary of what we face stepping into the Digital age.

[Force]

I like this article man. Well thats the same thing we do at school right.

[Skreech]

In what way? And which "we"do you mean?