{"id":5,"date":"2006-03-05T13:51:25","date_gmt":"2006-03-05T17:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=5"},"modified":"2006-03-05T13:51:25","modified_gmt":"2006-03-05T17:51:25","slug":"virtue-foiled-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=5","title":{"rendered":"Virtue foiled again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone needing proof that the IP system is horribly broken need look no further than here: the European Patent Office has invited me to a consultation in Munich in late April to bloviate on the strength of my piece in the Guardian<\/em> last autumn denouncing software patents. I hope to learn something, too.<\/p>\n\n

This being the EPO, <\/span>they will fly me business class from the airport of my choice. So I thought I would be environmentally virtuous — and have a lot more fun — and take the train instead. I never have in fact travelled in Eurostar and good (ie non-British) trains are much more comfortable to work on than planes. They also stimulate more thought, becasue they pass through foreign countries rather than airports.<\/p>\n\n

But when I look into it, the cheapest train tride I can get to Munich is £515 return, in second class; even Lufthansa is less than that (£453) and British Airways is £276. None of these air fares require that I share a couchette with strangers. If I want a first class train ride, it’s another couple of hundred pounds. I don’t feel I can stiff the Patent Office for more than a business class flight from Heathrow would cost. In the end I will probably end up flying coach from Stansted. It saves me about an hour’s travelling time each way, and the discomfort of a coach class seat is no greater than the discomfort of spending any time at all in Heathrow Airport. But I need to check that both flights would go to the same Munich airport (or Stockholm Munich, as Ryanair would call it).<\/p>\n\n

The odd thing is that this has nothing much to do with deregulation, free markets, or anything like that. It is primarily a consequence of aviation fuel being tax-free, a purely political decision.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone needing proof that the IP system is horribly broken need look no further than here: the European Patent Office has invited me to a consultation in Munich in late April to bloviate on the strength of my piece in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}