MIT 6.805/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier
in coordination with
Harvard Law School: Internet and Society
Fall Semester, 1999
Week 8, Oct. 25 - 29:
Software patents; cheap speech; privacy
Overview
On Tuesday, we'll finish our segment on intellectual property by
discussing patents and the problematic issues raised by software
patents, both in terms of law and policy. On Thursday, we'll
introduce a new section, first with an interlude on "cheap speech" and
then move on to issues of privacy and databases.
Readings for Tuesday (be prepared to discuss these in class):
- October
23, 1999: Amazon Sues Rival Over 1-click System
- Against
Software Patents, by the League for Programming Freedom, February
1991 (also in Communications of the ACM, January 1992). This
paper argues that patents are flatly bad for development of software
and that software should not be patentable.
- Paul Heckel, Debunking
the software patent myths, Communications of the ACM,
June 1992. This paper was written as a rebuttal to the paper above.
- David Suhl,
The Evolving Paradigm of Software Patentability.
This paper, written as a term paper for a Suffolk
University Law School class, gives a clear exposition of
the change in the status of software patents over the
last few years. Note that it was written before the
State Street decision. (And also note that the
author is unabashedly pro the increased patentability of
software.
Tuesday class, Oct. 26: Software and patents
Readings for Thursday (be prepared to discuss these in class):
Thursday class, Oct. 28: Meets at Harvard (note the change!)
- Panel on ThirdVoice and "cheap speech" sites
- Some really scary stuff about privacy and databases:
presentation of thesis work by Latanya Sweeney
Writing assignment: No writing assignment for this week.
Additional resources for this topic
The following pieces are not assigned, but you may find them useful
to browse though or to use as references if you plan to write a paper
on this topic.
- The 6.805/STS085 archive on Software and patent
law contains several pointers to good overview articles, as well
as the rulings in the most important cases.
Return to course calendar
Return to course home page
Hal Abelson (hal@mit.edu)
Mike Fischer (mfischer@mit.edu)
Danny Weitzner (djweitzner@w3.org)
Jonathan Zittrain (zittrain@law.harvard.edu)
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Last modified: October 24 1999, 1:11 PM