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This probably won't be seen by many people at this point but what the heck.

My own introduction to the realities of the patent system came in the 1980s, when my client, Sun Microsystems--then a small company--was accused by IBM of patent infringement. Threatening a massive lawsuit, IBM demanded a meeting to present its claims. Fourteen IBM lawyers and their assistants, all clad in the requisite dark blue suits, crowded into the largest conference room Sun had.

The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process.

After IBM's presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on (without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues--all of whom had both engineering and law degrees--took to the whiteboard with markers, methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM's claims. We used phrases like: "You must be kidding," and "You ought to be ashamed." But the IBM team showed no emotion, save outright indifference. Confidently, we proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun's technology infringed even that one.

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.

In corporate America, this type of shakedown is repeated weekly. The patent as stimulant to invention has long since given way to the patent as blunt instrument for establishing an innovation stranglehold.

Gary Reback

How do you like dem apples?

Demosntrating for bandwith, that I agree with, but what the fuck does it have to do with pirating? And how is linking the 2 in the same demonstration goin to help the other?

Apart from the typical "Arrr" comments made around here, I'd like to tell everyone I think this is seriously fucked up and not helping A) bandwith demands and B) piracy, should I have some sympathy for it. If I didn't know any better, I would suspect the RIAA dressed up and staged this in order to get e-liberal governments like the Swedisch gov to back down. If these are truely 'e-pirates' then I think they just organised the most backwards effective event ever. It's hard enough that people are having to put up a hard fight over better patent regulations in EU, now those clowns are trying to bring the world the virtues of 'piracy'. Blatant fucktards!

The Irish presidency is now handling the software patent issue. After the EU Commission proposal got blasted by the Parliament (thanks Parliament!), Ireland has now put forth a "compromise" that's even more pro-swpat than the original Commission one. So why not remind them of the main anti-software-patent organization and the 300'000 signatures by spelling "FFII" across the Dublin sky?

Only the US grants software patents per se. All GB and EP patents should have some element of technicality to them, and so are only software related. This fact removes most of the US style problems. Not to say the odd one doesn't get through :(.

You are making a false distinction between a patent on "a computer program" and a patent on "a computer executing a computer program in its memory using a processing means and blablabla". There is no functional difference between the two, they boil down to exactly the same thing.

This is not just my opinion, it's literally what the EU Software Copyright Directive of 1991 says. It defined a computer program as literary work as

the permanent or temporary reproduction of a computer program by any means and in any form, in part or in whole. Insofar as loading, displaying, running, transmission or storage

As you can see, the process executed by a computer program is identical to the computer program as such as far as this directive is concerned. This directive cannot be overruled by the patent professionals running the EPO.

There's a complex relationship between inventive step and technicality that means these two issues are closely related. If you can show something's fairly obvious, you can usually show it's not technical too.

Whether or not something is non-obvious has nothing to do with whether or not something is technical, except in EPO case law. Even juridically this trickery is not allowed by TRIPs: it states that the conditions for patentability must be the same for all inventions in all fields of technology. Therefore, if you insist on declaring algorithms interpreted by a computer as "inventions" and data processing as "a field of technology", then you cannot make special rules regarding the patentability of this kind of "inventions".

A 'good' software patent for me is one that is definitely technical,

What is technical in your book? It's one of those words thrown around by everyone, but none of the proponents of software patents wants to define it. If you don't define it, it can mean anything and as such is an empty condition.

has a well defined scope and has a major difference between the it and the prior art. If you really want to know some examples, I might find one later, but can't promise anything. Of course not all patents are amazing and totally revolutionary, but just baby steps from the prior art. This is true for all fields of invention.

Indeed, and it's one of the reasons patents are traditionally not applied to the fields of mathematics, logical reasoning, business methods, computer programs etc. In those fields, almost all advances are baby steps and a programmer makes tens of those baby steps on an average working day. Giving monopolies on those baby steps is nefarious and does not serve any purpose: without the incentives offered by patents, they will be made as well because that's simply how things work in these fields.

No non-technical patent should be granted in the EP or UK. The big problem I think is the lack of patent based prior art for examiners to find. Since most of the relevant stuff is not in there, but fairly well hidden elsewhere, it's not surprising that examiners might not no of it, especially since they're not programmers.

Please finally read this page. It has nothing to do with incompetent examiners. Lack of documentation is part of the problem, but just a very small part. Technical means squat in the current patent jargon.

Patents are not going to go away. They exist at the moment, and there are negative consequences for disposing of the whole idea. This means, in the conservative nature of the real world, they won't ever go, at least in our lifetim

One thing I can see is that many people in the OS community spend quite a bit of time bellyaching about patents, software and non-software (I bet reading /. to much has colored my perception) but if they actually spent the same amount of time actually doing something about it (sending in a 'Hey - that is obvious' or 'Hey - prior art' message to the patent office) they would actually get quite a bit further than just complaining.

Suggesting that people should support this malpractice by working with the system, is like saying that a law which allows the police to lock up people based on merely a hint of suspicious activity is good, and instead of complaining about it, people should gather evidence that proves that wrongly locked up people are innocent, so they can be set free again by the authorities. It's just the world turned upside-down.

The link you posted in this discussion is very interesting, and I think relevant here.

Even if people took it upon themselves to help out the Patent Office (any one would do, US, UK, Martian) by writing in, it would seem that the majority of the patents would still pass because of the way the law for patent tests is applied ...

Howabout a "turn off slashdot" week?

Oh wait, Slashdot is already refusing to participate in a website shutdown this week.

I for one will not buy any more Nokia products.

The numbers correspond to amendments. In general you can say, the more green boxes a MEP has, the better.

It might be good to start with a look at the European Software Patent Horror Gallery which is being assembled by the FFII.

Software built in India or China will not be legal in the US if they don't adhere to these ridiculous software patents.

That's not a problem.

Software will be made in India, China and elsewhere, and web sites based there will sell their software over the Internet to US customers, despite the infringement of US patents. US home customers are sure to buy and use it, even when businesses daren't.

Ironically, the shareholders will be based in the US for a while longer. Looks like you guys are funding your own replacements! :)

This will extend to programmable consumer hardware too. For example, patent-infringing mobile phones from China face obstacles to being sold in the US (except on the black market), but firmware upgrades which add new features can easily be sold over the 'net.

There are two ways for the US to retain its market strength. One is to cut down on its own patents and reduce the economic friction they cause; the other is to extend the friction to other countries. The latter strategy seems to have the upper hand right now, and is one reason for the push toward global patent treaties. Fingers crossed.

-- Jamie

While the submarine-enforcement of the MP3 patent is bad, the actual patent is perfectly valid. Why shouldn't Fraunhofer IIS get royalties for the technology they paid for and developed.

There is no single MP3-patent, it's covered by a lot of patents. The basic one covers iterating *any* mathematical function over a sound sample until you can represent it in a desired number of bits. That's it. You can find the claim (in German) at the EPO, here's the English translation:

Digital coding process for transmitting and/or storing acoustic signals, specifically music signals, comprising the following steps.

• N samples of the acoustic signal are converted into M spectral coefficients;
• said M spectral coefficients are subjected to quantisation at a first level;
• after coding by means of an entropic encoder the number of bits required to represent all the quantized spectral coefficients is checked;
• when the required number of bits does not correspond to a specified number of bits quantization and coding are repeated in subsequent steps, each at a modified quantization level, until the number of bits required for representation reaches the specified number of bits, and
• additionally to the data bits the required quantization level is transmitted and/or stored.

And that is the basic problem with software patents: there is no way you can put in the law that they can't be as abstract as this one. Even if you have some innovation in abstract reasoning that is such an achievement one could think about granting its discoverer a temporary monopoly, the resulting monopoly is way too large compared what was discovered.

If you can patent an improved screw head ("Torx(R) Plus"), why not an algorithm? If you developed a new compression technology or a new encryption technology, why is that any less of an invention than an improved screw head?

You are asking the wrong question. The correct one is "Will granting patents on new compression algorithms make sure that more and better compression algorithms will be developed?". All empirical studies carried out until now answer that question with either a "We don't know" or "NO!" (Bessen&Hunt, FTC study, European Commission Directorate General on Research study, ...).

What we really need to fight are bad patents. Amazon's "one click" patent is one. Patents are *bad* when they are to broad or don't cover a real invention. But bad patents are a problem with the review system.

It's not just a problem with the review system, but with the patent system as a whole being unfit for monopolising advances in abstract reasoning. See this discussion between a programmer and the Deputy director of the UK patent office. The latter concludes with:

However, they [patent examiners who are also programmers] might express the communication problem the other way around - it's very difficult to persuade programmers that just because an invention is "easy", does not make it any less patentable.

Patents were never intended to sort out brilliant inventions from stupid ones. The "non-obvious" condition is simply not fit for that purpose.

This is so fitting with the Slashdot mentality that "software should be free" and that "copyright is bad".

I don't know about the rest of slashdot, but in case of software patents, the opponents are actually great proponents of copyright. The problem is that software patents completely undermine copyright. What good does it do that you have the right to sell you self-written program if even its publication is prohibited because someone own a software patent it infringes on?

http://petition.eurolinux.org/

on my webpage. also it looks like they'll be

organizing a demonstration on 14th of april

in brussels.

From this link:

Nokia's Patent Department is collecting signatures from CTOs for this letter in support the "working document" of the EU Council "Working Party on Intellectual Property", a group of patent administrators who run the European Patent Office. The letter portrays this document as a "balanced compromise" which "takes the Parliament's concerns into account" and says that this is needed in order to assure that electric household applicances, medical technology etc do not become unpatentable. Thereby the letter drafters deceive both their signatories (CTOs who usually do not read the directive proposals) as well as their readers.

It disturbs me to see Nokia taking taking the role that they have been. Their statements seem to be quite misleading, and it is clear that they will have significant gain from software patents. With all the heat they've been getting lately, you would think that they might try to take it easy on such controversial issues. Either way, I am fully against software patents.

I hate to tell you that this is not really a substantive limitation. Even if software can't be patented per se, it can still be patented by referring to the computer and software together, and including a technical effect of the invention. Either way, software is going to be patented.

Read for yourself, especially articles 2 and 3.

Actually, they do. That wealthy society exists because of the laws that protect all types of property. Think about how much wealth you could create without the law, then tell me who's creating the wealth. Law and lawyers create the system that supports the very possibility of a capitalist society.

Just look at e.g. this study carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Intellectual Property no less. Look at the graphs, e.g. page 15. Companies use other things to protect software creations and to gain competitive advantages. Patents mainly introduce extra costs, strategic patenting and legal insecurity (because you never know whether you will be able to sell the product you are currently developing).

What they have in common, if you'll think about it for a moment, is that the author in one instance, and the engineer in the other, both have to work around previously existing works that are protected.

Nokia is actively campaigning pro software patents in Europe, and spreading misinformation doing this.

Software patents are bad. They do not protect huge investments in research, they protect trivial ideas. The European Parliament reached a good compromise. The parliament's decision to limit software patentability has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs and dozens of economists and scientists.

For consumers, software patents lead to higher prices, less choice. For (Open Source) developers, investors and users alike, software patents would mean legal uncertainty: a patent minefield. With the current flood of trivial patents legalized, software innovation would become a dangerous enterprise in Europe.

More info on software patents at FFII.

The Council of Ministers is pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by patent lawyers. Here Nokia is very active, campaining pro software patents, and spreading misinformation doing so. Nokia's behavior is irresponsible. Do you want to buy products from a company that is untrustworthy? I would say no.

I call upon everyone around the world not to buy Nokia products.

You may copy this page.

Imagine many copies of this call for action against Nokia on the web. Nokia makes much more money selling phones than it can from software patents. Nokia is vulnerable: it needs to be hip. It is not hip. It needs to choose. Pro phones, against software patents.

For Nerds only: unite!
Nerds are often in an advising role. Advise against Nokia. Be proud. Use legal ways. And win. Don't let the dinosaurs win. Is this the information age, or not? Defend your freedom. After the Boston Tea party, the Brussels Tea party. Stand up. Make this a revenge of the nerds.

Nokia is out.
Spread the word.

Nokia is actively campaigning pro software patents in Europe, and spreading misinformation doing this.

Software patents are bad. They do not protect huge investments in research, they protect trivial ideas. The European Parliament reached a good compromise. The parliament's decision to limit software patentability has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs and dozens of economists and scientists.

For consumers, software patents lead to higher prices, less choice. For (Open Source) developers, investors and users alike, software patents would mean legal uncertainty: a patent minefield. With the current flood of trivial patents legalized, software innovation would become a dangerous enterprise in Europe.

More info on software patents at FFII.

The Council of Ministers is pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by patent lawyers. Here Nokia is very active, campaining pro software patents, and spreading misinformation doing so. Nokia's behavior is irresponsible. Do you want to buy products from a company that is untrustworthy? I would say no.

I call upon everyone around the world not to buy Nokia products.

You may copy this page.

Imagine many copies of this call for action against Nokia on the web. Nokia makes much more money selling phones than it can from software patents. Nokia is vulnerable: it needs to be hip. It is not hip. It needs to choose. Pro phones, against software patents.

For Nerds only: unite!
Nerds are often in an advising role. Advise against Nokia. Be proud. Use legal ways. And win. Don't let the dinosaurs win. Is this the information age, or not? Defend your freedom. After the Boston Tea party, the Brussels Tea party. Stand up. Make this a revenge of the nerds.

Nokia is out.
Spread the word.

Nokia is actively campaigning pro software patents in Europe, and spreading misinformation doing this.

Software patents are bad. They do not protect huge investments in research, they protect trivial ideas. The European Parliament reached a good compromise. The parliament's decision to limit software patentability has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs and dozens of economists and scientists.

For consumers, software patents lead to higher prices, less choice. For (Open Source) developers, investors and users alike, software patents would mean legal uncertainty: a patent minefield. With the current flood of trivial patents legalized, software innovation would become a dangerous enterprise in Europe.

More info on software patents at FFII.

The Council of Ministers is pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by patent lawyers. Here Nokia is very active, campaining pro software patents, and spreading misinformation doing so. Nokia's behavior is irresponsible. Do you want to buy products from a company that is untrustworthy? I would say no.

I call upon everyone around the world not to buy Nokia products.

You may copy this page.

Imagine many copies of this call for action against Nokia on the web. Nokia makes much more money selling phones than it can from software patents. Nokia is vulnerable: it needs to be hip. It is not hip. It needs to choose. Pro phones, against software patents.

For Nerds only: unite!
Nerds are often in an advising role. Advise against Nokia. Be proud. Use legal ways. And win. Don't let the dinosaurs win. Is this the information age, or not? Defend your freedom. After the Boston Tea party, the Brussels Tea party. Stand up. Make this a revenge of the nerds.

Nokia is out.
Spread the word.

Nokia is actively campaigning pro software patents in Europe, and spreading misinformation doing this.

Software patents are bad. They do not protect huge investments in research, they protect trivial ideas. The European Parliament reached a good compromise. The parliament's decision to limit software patentability has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs and dozens of economists and scientists.

For consumers, software patents lead to higher prices, less choice. For (Open Source) developers, investors and users alike, software patents would mean legal uncertainty: a patent minefield. With the current flood of trivial patents legalized, software innovation would become a dangerous enterprise in Europe.

More info on software patents at FFII.

The Council of Ministers is pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by patent lawyers. Here Nokia is very active, campaining pro software patents, and spreading misinformation doing so. Nokia's behavior is irresponsible. Do you want to buy products from a company that is untrustworthy? I would say no.

I call upon everyone around the world not to buy Nokia products.

You may copy this page.

Imagine many copies of this call for action against Nokia on the web. Nokia makes much more money selling phones than it can from software patents. Nokia is vulnerable: it needs to be hip. It is not hip. It needs to choose. Pro phones, against software patents.

For Nerds only: unite!
Nerds are often in an advising role. Advise against Nokia. Be proud. Use legal ways. And win. Don't let the dinosaurs win. Is this the information age, or not? Defend your freedom. After the Boston Tea party, the Brussels Tea party. Stand up. Make this a revenge of the nerds.

Nokia is out.
Spread the word.

Nokia is actively campaigning pro software patents in Europe, and spreading misinformation doing this.

Software patents are bad. They do not protect huge investments in research, they protect trivial ideas. The European Parliament reached a good compromise. The parliament's decision to limit software patentability has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs and dozens of economists and scientists.

For consumers, software patents lead to higher prices, less choice. For (Open Source) developers, investors and users alike, software patents would mean legal uncertainty: a patent minefield. With the current flood of trivial patents legalized, software innovation would become a dangerous enterprise in Europe.

More info on software patents at FFII.

The Council of Ministers is pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by patent lawyers. Here Nokia is very active, campaining pro software patents, and spreading misinformation doing so. Nokia's behavior is irresponsible. Do you want to buy products from a company that is untrustworthy? I would say no.

I call upon everyone around the world not to buy Nokia products.

You may copy this page.

Imagine many copies of this call for action against Nokia on the web. Nokia makes much more money selling phones than it can from software patents. Nokia is vulnerable: it needs to be hip. It is not hip. It needs to choose. Pro phones, against software patents.

For Nerds only: unite!
Nerds are often in an advising role. Advise against Nokia. Be proud. Use legal ways. And win. Don't let the dinosaurs win. Is this the information age, or not? Defend your freedom. After the Boston Tea party, the Brussels Tea party. Stand up. Make this a revenge of the nerds.

Nokia is out.
Spread the word.

The orgininal FFII servers seem to be down. A mirror is available at www3.ffii.org

Webshop.ffii.org is still available thanks to Google's cache

Software patents are good things. It's the fact that frivolous patents are awarded that are too expensive to contest that is the real problem here.

However, they [patent examiners who are also programmers] might express the communication problem the other way around - it's very difficult to persuade programmers that just because an invention is "easy", does not make it any less patentable.

Secondly, these losers aren't against patenting the obvious, they're against patents per se.
Look at www.ffii.org. Neither are they only against patenting the obvious nor are they are they against patents per se, they are against software patents. While many are critical about the consequences of patents in other areas, few suggest abolishing all kinds of patents. There are many arguments against patents on software and business models, both theoretical ones (algorithms are, like scientific theories and works of art something different from technical inventions) and practical economic ones (software patents stifle competition and innovation).

I suggest they stop patent protection of all European companies and make freely available all intellectual property of: a) European pharmaceutical companies b) European car companies c) European software companies (SAP, etc.)

Here in Basle, where the headquarters of Novartis are, they certainly wouldn't be happy about that. It's a bit radical, but it might be a good move. As a response, US and Japanese patents in Europe would also be invalidated. There would be cheaper products more competition and fewer patent disputes. On the whole, the European economy would probably profit more, because it seems the largest patent portfolios are in the hands of US and Japanese companies.
But such radical steps aren't necessary, it would be enough if the US and Japan abolished patents for software and such general things as business models and both they and the EU prevented trivial patents in areas where patenting makes sense in principle.

FFII's lastest political situation report has some pretty choice things to say about about it:

"All of Europe's innovators, including individual inventors, small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), as well as large multinational companies, require patents to protect their inventions, provide incentives to undertake research and development in Europe, and to promote licensing and technology transfer", claims the letter.

"Nokia doesn't seem to be counting Opera among the European innovators", comments Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software Inc, an innovation leader in the web browser market and producer of much of the software used in Nokia's mobile phones.

And, as Hartmut Pilch president of FFII and speaker of the Eurolinux Alliance explains, Opera is just one of "more than 5000 European CTOs and 2000 CEOs who have publicly endorsed our petitions against software patents".

Pilch continues:

"The Nokia patent department's claim that patents are needed to fund research in the software sector looks like a desperate attempt to mobilise the misconceptions of people who are not familiar with the ICT sector. All the economic studies we know of, including those ordered by the European Commission and by member state governments, have shown that software patents are only of very secondary importance as a means of securing investment in research and development. The main drivers of competitive advantage are copyright, in-house capability, unavoidable complexity, and the ability to react quickly to customer needs. In fact, according to the most detailed economic studies, patent investments in the United States have actually tended to reduce spending and divert it *away* from R&D investment in this sector. These points came out particularly clearly in the testimony given by directors of large companies to the US Federal Trade Commission at governmental hearings in the USA last year".

"The letter from Nokia is written from a perspective of a corporate patent lawyer concerned about a possible erosion of his department's importance within his company. Ministers should see it for what it is."

FFII's most hollow laughter is directed at the claim that the Irish proposed text would not "unduly hinder interoperability".

Jonas Maebe, Belgian speaker of FFII, explains:

"The Industry committee, and the Legal Affairs committee, and the full session of the European Parliament, all demanded a special provision to allow data to be inter-converted between different packages and software platforms. Otherwise companies can use software patents to lock in users' data to a particular program or operating system, and competition would be impossible".

"It's a systematic problem. Each and every market niche is individually potentially at risk. That's why, in the final vote in September, the European Parliament voted in favour of the provision by 393 votes to 35".

"But according to Nokia, the Council Working Party has 'responded' to the European Parliament's call, so everything's all right. And how (despite a valiant last-ditch opposition by the Luxemburgers) does the Working Party propose to respond ? By deleting the European Parliament's clause entirely, and instead replacing it with a recital that says any problems can be left to existing antitrust law".

"Remember, this is the antitrust law which has just taken four years, at vast expense, to go after a /single/ accused company, Microsoft; which Microsoft says it can tie up in appeals for another four years; and which at the end of the day looks like the case will be settled with a cosy cross-licensing deal between Microsoft and Sun, and Samba definitely not invited to the party".

"One starts to wonder about what kind of idealised dreamworld these people live in."

These are large and succesfull OSS products that are not encumbered by software patents, despite the fact that software patents already exist.

All these software patents are just time bombs waiting to go off. Everything you implement could be patented already, and if the owner of that patent doesn't like you, your project or your company, you're royally screwed.

These are large and succesfull OSS products that are not encumbered by software patents, despite the fact that software patents already exist.

All these software patents are just time bombs waiting to go off. Everything you implement could be patented already, and if the owner of that patent doesn't like you, your project or your company, you're royally screwed.

If you want to be kept up-to-date, register as FFII supporter and in subscribe to the uk-parl mailing list under the "Subscribe to news forums" item of the main menu.

If you want to be kept up-to-date, register as FFII supporter and in subscribe to the uk-parl mailing list under the "Subscribe to news forums" item of the main menu.

It already is possible.

See FFII: Microsoft and Patents

As far as I remember they patented parts of the Office XML specification....

Join the web strike (find banners etc here)
http://demo.ffii.org

Take a look at this demo of things to come w/ software patents:

http://webshop.ffii.org/

And if you're an European citizen, please sign the petition:

http://petition.eurolinux.org/

"Like in August last year, these events will be accompanied by an online demonstration whereby webmasters are asked to close their websites in protest. "

This online protest started April 5th... Why hasn't Slashdot joined this protest? Too European? Too much revenue at stake?

When it comes to reporting about how much they hate patents, Slashdot is tops. But when it comes to action, zero is taken. Arguing impartibility, with the high number of editorial opinions usually appended to story submissions, is weak.

Don't forget to look at this demo of things to come w/ software patents:

http://webshop.ffii.org/

And if you're an European citizen, please sign the petition:

http://petition.eurolinux.org/

...your country.
Please don't start with the "I have nothing to hide so what" comments, because they mean nothing. The fact that people are treated like a criminal before they ever committed a criminal offense is plain wrong. This, apart from the possibility that people are wrongfully accused.

I think the European parliament agrees, they didn't whistle Bolkestein (yes, the same person that loves software patents) back from his deal with the US for nothing.
Time will learn whether perhaps a mass drop in tourism and business-trips to the US will have an impact on this decision.

Harmtut Pilch of FFII provides a great Analysis on Montis decision.

Hartmut's document in short:

EU Boosts Microsoft's Monopoly

The European Commission's competition procedings against Microsoft have led to a verdict which gives a big boost to Microsoft's monopoly position in the OS market and helps Microsoft expand this position to other markets. While the Commission may have earned substantial revenues for itself by imposing a one-time fine of 1% of Microsoft's liquid cash reserves, the smallprint of the verdict gives Microsoft green light to kill its main competitors in the operating systems market. This smallprint was simultaneously reinforced through backroom deals in the Council's Patent Policy working party, of which copies have been leaked to FFII. Immediately after the announcments the stock value of MSFT rose by 3%.

Good catch. Let's expand on this a little.
Microsoft has recently hired the guy who built up IBM's formidable patent portfolio.
Microsoft recently floated a trial balloon by asking for miniscule royalties on FAT16, the filesystem that goes into the little flash memory cards in cameras, PDAs, etc.
Microsoft may pay the $900MM now, but will get back much more later (note the "Sun and Microsoft will pay each other royalties"). In other words, McNealy has opted for short-term gain instead of long-term viability; expect Microsoft to use the patents to crush Sun in a couple of years.
The patents will also be Microsoft's key weapon againt the OSS community. Here's a snippet from an article :
Asked by CollabNet CTO Brian Behlendorf whether Microsoft will enforce its patents against open source projects, Mundie replied, "Yes, absolutely." An audience member pointed out that many open source projects aren't funded and so can't afford legal representation to rival Microsoft's. "Oh well," said Mundie. "Get your money, and let's go to court."

It's not just the Australian Free Trade treaty.

The US is using economic threats to force contries all over the world to sign "Free Trade" treaties. Australia, all of Central America, a cluster of south African countries, Jordan, Morrocco, and thoses are merely the ones I've stubmled accross on the net. They are doing it all over the globe. And I am ashamed to say that "they" is my own government.

Treaties foring them to include language requiring them to enact the DMCA, to criminalize (prison time) non-commercial copyright infingement, imposing the US's broken internet take-down proceedures,requiring rather extrodinary enforcment proceedures, denying the right to remain silent, reqiring court orders to issue against people without any need to inform them that they are being targeted in court and thus no opportunity to respond, and more more more.

And they are also including language requiring countries to reverse their patent rules. The US if hammering hard to get everyone to admit patents on "business methods" and on software. A US dumb-ass idea that "business methods" and software are patentable. Patent law all over the world states that MATH IS NOT PATENTABLE. The US had such a rule until recently. Programming is in fact a field of math. All software, all programs, they are in fact nothing more than elaborate math equations. You plug in some numbers (any sort of input) and out pops a different set of numbers (any dort of output).

To quote one such treaty: shall take all steps necessary to clarify that the exclusion from patent protection of "mathematical methods" in Article 4B of Jordan's Patent Law does not include such "methods" as business methods or computer-related inventions.

They need that "clarification" because the rule against patenting math does in fact prohibit software patents.

US - EU negotioations are all about " EU law on patentability of computer programs and software related inventions must be brought into line with the United States and Japan"

The United States urged the Japanese Government to take a number of measures in this area, including ... protecting business method patents - same source as above link. So add Japan to the extensive global list I gave before.

In May, the U.S. threatened to walk out of negotiations if the treat does not mandate patents for all fields of activity, whether or not they fall within common notions of "technology" - same source.

The US is waging an Economic war against the world, to force the entire world to fall in line with the US's twisted and oppressive "IP" laws. Laws to imprison anyone who commits "circumvention crime" by fixing the DVD player he bought such that it with play the out-of-region DVD he bought.

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* Patent law. This is probably Microsoft's best bet, but it's terribly thin. You patent a process, a way of doing something. Even software/algorithm patents get a lot of criticism, though they're still a process. An API is static. There are not changes involved, nothing to patent.

Which they hopefully won't, and to accomplish that, I would urge everyone who can to join us in a demonstration in Brussels (press release) on 14th April, as well as to participate in another online demonstration like last September whereby websites go on strike.

Preparations are still in progress, hopefully we'll be with more info soon on slashdot's front page :)

* Patent law. This is probably Microsoft's best bet, but it's terribly thin. You patent a process, a way of doing something. Even software/algorithm patents get a lot of criticism, though they're still a process. An API is static. There are not changes involved, nothing to patent.

Which they hopefully won't, and to accomplish that, I would urge everyone who can to join us in a demonstration in Brussels (press release) on 14th April, as well as to participate in another online demonstration like last September whereby websites go on strike.

Preparations are still in progress, hopefully we'll be with more info soon on slashdot's front page :)

* Patent law. This is probably Microsoft's best bet, but it's terribly thin. You patent a process, a way of doing something. Even software/algorithm patents get a lot of criticism, though they're still a process. An API is static. There are not changes involved, nothing to patent.

Which they hopefully won't, and to accomplish that, I would urge everyone who can to join us in a demonstration in Brussels (press release) on 14th April, as well as to participate in another online demonstration like last September whereby websites go on strike.

Preparations are still in progress, hopefully we'll be with more info soon on slashdot's front page :)

Remember the BSA and the European Commision directive?

"Interestingly, the MSWord document contained a hidden author's field with the name Francisco Mingorance. This indicates that he has at least revised the text on his machine, and further evidence suggests that he played a major role in the drafting."

Fight. Fight, I tell you.

For the software patents directive, you can see the score of each individual MEP here. A similar table will be made for the IPR-vote, though you can expect a lot more red :(

Well, this time it is possible to make a informed decision: results In short Finnish Greens and Conservatives (Piia-Noora missed the vote because of a traffic jam but she persuaded the rest to vote against..) + Seppanen + Thors voted against and SDP and Center party for the directive.

It's called the European Union Copyright Directive and it was enacted into the national law of many member states last year. Imagine the fun if the worst provisions of this Directive get adopted into national law (they may not necessarily be so enacted) and the EU caves in over software patents - could a programmer's bank account be frozen and his house be raided at midnight for unkonwingly infringing a trivial and obvious patent? As has been remarked round these parts, George Orwell was right but out by 20 years...

It's called the European Union Copyright Directive and it was enacted into the national law of many member states last year. Imagine the fun if the worst provisions of this Directive get adopted into national law (they may not necessarily be so enacted) and the EU caves in over software patents - could a programmer's bank account be frozen and his house be raided at midnight for unkonwingly infringing a trivial and obvious patent? As has been remarked round these parts, George Orwell was right but out by 20 years...

Can you cite any instances where MS unleashed the BSA hellhounds on someone for anything OTHER than unlicensed software use?

So this particular hellhound isn't restricted to biting, if there's a politician around it can lick as well.

Show me an example of Microsoft suing anyone for patent infringement.
They haven't. They don't do business that way.

Of course they do business that way. They just don't need that when they have the opportunity to buy their competitor. But when the competitor cannot be bought (think of a free software enthusiast in his garage), they don't even need to sue, intimidation is enough. See for instance the VirtualDub issue.

Perhaps their latest rash of applications are more defensive than offensive.

A patent is a granted monopoly right, it does not have to be defended. In fact most trivial patents are not defended at all (defensive). But when a company fails in the market they may "pull a SCO" or the patent assets are bought and exploited by a patent attorney company. So trivial patents and software patents are weapons of mass destruction, a danger for E-Commerce.

You misunderstood the case. This IPR Enforcement directive is NOT about the legal validity of software patents. The software patents directive was corrected by the EU parliament in September and is is going to be "recorrected" by the council, so the main focus of FFII laid on this.
SO FFII and all the others (AEL, EF Finland ecc.) defend the current corrected former swpat directive.

The IRP enforcement directive is about enforcement, giving power to the rights owner, orginally against product privacy some persons introduced DRM, TCPA ecc. This was already removed. The problem is as so many different spheres of law are comprised by the unscientific, unjudicial term Intellectual property rules that apply well for product privacy cause much trouble for patent enforcement. FFII UK explains this very good on their site.

There are several groups that critizise the directive, FFII has a moderate position as they are in favour of copyright. I suggest you to read the current council draft of the directive by yourself and look for problems. You can easily see in the proposal that it is premature. The language used is often inappropriate and infringes on certain legal standards.

Good news: DRM and TCPA was deleted, most groups were concerned about this, so the directive already failed from the viewpoint of those who drafted it. We won! So let's get rid of the ugly rest.

"Article 21
Legal protection of technical devices

Deleted"

But this does not mean that it will not be reintroduced by MEP amendments ecc. Criticism of the directive goes trough all parlamentary groups.

What FFII wants get out is that the directive also apply for patent legislation. Because patent infringements are very easy and criminal sanctions against patent legislation may be a danger for business. This is also the industry position. FFII is no mayor player in the IPR Enforcement debate. Most was done by IPjustice or other DRM activists. FFII was very busy with the swpat directive, so they could not devote time to the IPr enforcement directive or ENISA.

You misunderstood the case. This IPR Enforcement directive is NOT about the legal validity of software patents. The software patents directive was corrected by the EU parliament in September and is is going to be "recorrected" by the council, so the main focus of FFII laid on this.
SO FFII and all the others (AEL, EF Finland ecc.) defend the current corrected former swpat directive.

The IRP enforcement directive is about enforcement, giving power to the rights owner, orginally against product privacy some persons introduced DRM, TCPA ecc. This was already removed. The problem is as so many different spheres of law are comprised by the unscientific, unjudicial term Intellectual property rules that apply well for product privacy cause much trouble for patent enforcement. FFII UK explains this very good on their site.

There are several groups that critizise the directive, FFII has a moderate position as they are in favour of copyright. I suggest you to read the current council draft of the directive by yourself and look for problems. You can easily see in the proposal that it is premature. The language used is often inappropriate and infringes on certain legal standards.

Good news: DRM and TCPA was deleted, most groups were concerned about this, so the directive already failed from the viewpoint of those who drafted it. We won! So let's get rid of the ugly rest.

"Article 21
Legal protection of technical devices

Deleted"

But this does not mean that it will not be reintroduced by MEP amendments ecc. Criticism of the directive goes trough all parlamentary groups.

What FFII wants get out is that the directive also apply for patent legislation. Because patent infringements are very easy and criminal sanctions against patent legislation may be a danger for business. This is also the industry position. FFII is no mayor player in the IPR Enforcement debate. Most was done by IPjustice or other DRM activists. FFII was very busy with the swpat directive, so they could not devote time to the IPr enforcement directive or ENISA.