Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
"Imagine a world," writes Alfred Essa, "in which Socrates not only originated the dialogue form of inquiry but also filed a patent claiming "intellectual property" rights for his invention and then vigorously enforced his patent against the Sophists to ensure the 'purity' of his learning method." This situation gets at the heart of the problem with software patents - they allow people to claim the ridiculous as 'intellectual property'. But we also need a strategy for what to do in an environemnt (such as the U.S.) where software patents are legal, which Essa provides. No surprise, then, to see Seb Scholler describe the article as "worth reading."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 06:40 a.m.

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