What is it called when you patent something in order to try to stop anybody from practicing the patent because you believe the technology is evil or simply likely to be abused? I first heard that people were trying to do this in biotechnology in order to prevent anybody from practicing certain genetic engineering techniques, or perhaps cloning techniques. Of course, this only works for the lifetime of the patent, but perhaps it seems like a delaying tactic and people might hope that, during the intervening time, laws or norms or architectures might have changed enough that the technology would no longer be used to quite the same ill effect.
Is this tactic simply hopeless because of the costs of enforcing a patent (especially for noncommercial purposes and perhaps without trying to obtain damage payments)? Is it a good thing for people to do this, assuming that they are right in their judgments about how a technology is about to be used? If this practice became somewhat prevalent, would it be a new source of pressures for patent reform?
Apart from genetic engineering, I've heard talk about patenting concepts in censorware and DRM not in order to collect license fees but in order to try to prevent people from building modern censorware or DRM systems. I don't know of any such patents that have been granted, and I've never yet heard of anyone even threatening to enforce a granted patent for solely ideological reasons.
If you wanted to pursue this, an interesting field is the technology of proximity detection (recently discussed here), how machines can try to tell whether other machines with which they communicate are physically near or far. There are a lot of subtleties about this that are likely to be considered patentable subject matter, and perhaps there would be some good in having unlicensable patents held over the heads of people considering implementing proximity control schemes, or considering improving those that don't perform well.
I'm working on an article on contemporary Latin for Other. I'm having a difficult time getting interview responses and was hoping to speak with some more Latinists. So perhaps I should just include my interview questions here and invite anyone who can understand them to respond (December 2004).
This isn't really my best Latin writing; this was more a matter of quick and dirty notes for interview questions. There may be some grammatical errors or nonidiomatic usage lurking here. And I haven't translated two questions that I wanted to ask (about what academic classicists think of modern Latin, and about machismo or difficulty as a motivation for learning Latin).
Ubi et quando linguam Latinam didicisti?
Magistri tui Latine docuerunt? De Latine loquentibus quid opinati sunt?
Cui prosit discere Latinam?
Quare debemus hodie discere linguam Latinam? Et, cum discere decet,
quare debemus hodie loqui Latine (non modo legere, aut legere
scribereque)? Quomodo respondere soles, cum aiunt linguam Latinam
mortuam esse? Roduntne te amici, familia, discipuli, etc., tui propter morem tuum locutionis Latine? Rodit te aliquis?
Ubi invenire soles verba nova, sicut de rebus novis quorum verba non
habuerunt Romani nec habuerunt scriptores aetatibus mediaevalibus?
Quis valet eligere verba nova? Suntne scholae multae Latinitatis
modernae, quorum quisque sequitur auctoritates suos? Quid opinaris
de fontibus variis verborum novrum (circumlocutio, sive periphrasis;
retroformatio; capere ex linguis aliis sicut lingua Gallica, lingua
Hispanica, linguave Lusitanica; fingere analogias classicas)? Estne
quidquid inaptum temptando extendere, propagare, etc., vocabulariam,
literaturam, et culturam Latinam? Debemus ullo modo dicere literaturam
Latinam terminavisse victoria literaturae vulgaris Europae fine
aetatum mediaevalum?
Quibus occasionibus loqueris Latine? Quando incepisti?
Nonnulli credunt linguam Latinam esse hodie id quod olim fuit lingua
Graeca Romanis: lingua difficilis nec utilis laboribus, quem pecuniosi
soli igitur discere potuerunt, quia culturae artibusque studere
versarique aestimabant nec uti poterant labore. Ullo modo consentis
(aut pensas eam olim veritatem fuisse)? Quid scis de quomodo discipuli eligunt ad discendum linguas?
Quare inceperunt magistri Latinae docere linguam modo scriptam, et
quid suadebit illis ut morem illum alterent?
Nathaniel pointed me to a pair of articles by his friend in the Ukraine, a supporter of Yushchenko. Part 1 (about Yushchenko) and Part 2 (about Yanukovych) discuss the "pro-Western" and "pro-Russian" ideas in terms of economics, political ties, and language issues.
Also, some U.S. conservatives, supporters of Yanukovych, are saying that "pro-Western" means "pro-European" and not "pro-United States". (Among other things, they say that Yushchenko wants closer ties with European Union, not with the United States, and wants to reverse Ukraine's policy of sending troops to Iraq.)
Everyone seems to agree that Russia has actively favored Yanukovych, but that doesn't seem to be enough by itself to merit the term "pro-Russian"! Similarly, the U.S. government has favored Yushchenko, but that doesn't seem to be enough to call him "pro-Western". An immediate question might be why the Russian and U.S. governments favor any particular candidate in the Ukrainian election, and what led them to favor different candidates. It isn't that this question is impossible to answer, it's just that I haven't seen any press reports that have analyzed it. Clearly Russia would like to support people who are "pro-Russian", for example, but that's a little circular.
I really wish the press could be clearer about this. I found several other references to politicians who were called "pro-Western", but what does that mean? Supporting Enlightenment values? Entering lots of bilateral treaties with the United States? Speaking Romance languages? Trading with European countries? Doing whatever the U.S. administration asks? Running a public relations campaign about the virtues of Americans? Being secular? Being Christian? Having a lot of friends in New York City or London? Joining the E.U.? Protecting human rights? Admiring the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, or some particular periods or event in European history? Loving cowboy movies?
