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i am basically for stronger enforcement of copyright laws.. does this make me 'anti-tech' or 'pro-tech' in this survey view?

anti-tech, you douche.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1763
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=01 97

http://jorge.cortell.net/
http://www.benkler.org/
http://www.dklevine.com/
http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books.htm

http://swpat.ffii.org/
http://creativecommons.org/
http://www.piratbyran.org/
http://www.stealthisfilm.com/
http://www.cambia.org/
http://www.plos.org/
http://www.fsf.org/

while India has already ordered legislation of software patents.

Typical Dutch freedom and simple clarity of ownership. I guess MS hasn't been able to bully the Netherlands into submission. I wonder what the Danish version says?

Excuse me, but since WHEN did "the people" have ANYTHING to say in any government of a "large" country, ever ?

Well, the EU is not a country, but we as an NGO composed of "the people" surely had quite an influence on the software patents debate in Europe. And yes, there was a lot of undemocratic crap happening. But it's too fatalistic to think you can't have influence or even win. It does cost a lot of effort (I and several others basically spent two or even more years of our life on almost only this), you lose several battles, you'll get called anything from communist to terrorist, but that does not mean you can't have influence or that you can't even win.

Few people want to spend so much of their life on battles where they think the odds of winning are very low though, so in general you either need a very perseverant and inspiring figurehead person, or a situation which is so dire that the masses finally snap. We had the former.

The difference, ever so subtle, is that "the people" can only "elect" those they want to SPEAK FOR THEM, instead of speaking for themselves.

With that attitude you don't get anywhere, except in a place where you can complain even more about how the world and politics suck.

The simple question "what is a software patent?" is suprizingly difficult.

It's actually pretty easy to get a definition of "pure" software patents: any patent with either program product claims, or whose process claims can be reworded like one of those.

• IBM
  
• Microsoft
  
• SUN
  
• Siemens
  
• Nokia
  

• IBM
  
• Microsoft
  
• SUN
  
• Siemens
  
• Nokia
  

• IBM
  
• Microsoft
  
• SUN
  
• Siemens
  
• Nokia
  

• IBM
  
• Microsoft
  
• SUN
  
• Siemens
  
• Nokia
  

• IBM
  
• Microsoft
  
• SUN
  
• Siemens
  
• Nokia
  

I wouldn't be surprised if the ONLY reason they used this against Amazon, is because Amazon does the same thing to others.

Then be very surprised. IBM has a long history of strong-arming other companies with its patent portfolio and extracting license money from them. In fact, Marshall Phelps (who now works for Microsoft fwiw), turned IBM's sleeping patent portfolio into a $1+ billion profit.

And because Microsoft hates software patents that much, they didn't lobby for their introduction in the EU through organisations such as EICTA

http://wiki.ffii.org/EictaSme050425En

"Campaign for Creativity"

http://wiki.ffii.org/CampaignForCreativityEn

and of course BSA

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/index .en.html

Also, Microsoft didn't file any swpat applications at the EPO

http://swpat.ffii.org/gasnu/microsoft/index.en.htm l

or well, at least they were filed for "defencive" (sic) purposes, not for threatening users of FOSS

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/ballmer_li nux_lawsuits/

Indeed, we Europeans just have too much fantasy and dreamed all of that up. It never really happened because Microsoft hates software patents.

Seriously, software patents are a powerful anti-competitive weapon, and Microsoft only hates them if they happen to be on the wrong side of the barrel. They really don't like to swallow their own bitter medicine. That's why they are currently lobbying for changes to US patent law that will make it easier for big companies to defend against patent infringement claims from small companies or individuals.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/m ar05/03-10patentreform.mspx

And organisations representing small inventors (some of which may even profit from software patents, but of course only if they don't write any code themselves) are up in arms over the reform proposals.

http://www.piausa.org/patent_reform/congressional_ testimony/

If there is anything Microsoft or Steve Ballmer hate, it's Linux and Google. I don't think they really hate Apple, though, or at least that would be a love-hate relationship. They need Apple to continue to innovate so they can imitate (typically poorly). A simple case of give and take where Apple gives and MS takes.

And because Microsoft hates software patents that much, they didn't lobby for their introduction in the EU through organisations such as EICTA

http://wiki.ffii.org/EictaSme050425En

"Campaign for Creativity"

http://wiki.ffii.org/CampaignForCreativityEn

and of course BSA

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/index .en.html

Also, Microsoft didn't file any swpat applications at the EPO

http://swpat.ffii.org/gasnu/microsoft/index.en.htm l

or well, at least they were filed for "defencive" (sic) purposes, not for threatening users of FOSS

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/ballmer_li nux_lawsuits/

Indeed, we Europeans just have too much fantasy and dreamed all of that up. It never really happened because Microsoft hates software patents.

Seriously, software patents are a powerful anti-competitive weapon, and Microsoft only hates them if they happen to be on the wrong side of the barrel. They really don't like to swallow their own bitter medicine. That's why they are currently lobbying for changes to US patent law that will make it easier for big companies to defend against patent infringement claims from small companies or individuals.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/m ar05/03-10patentreform.mspx

And organisations representing small inventors (some of which may even profit from software patents, but of course only if they don't write any code themselves) are up in arms over the reform proposals.

http://www.piausa.org/patent_reform/congressional_ testimony/

If there is anything Microsoft or Steve Ballmer hate, it's Linux and Google. I don't think they really hate Apple, though, or at least that would be a love-hate relationship. They need Apple to continue to innovate so they can imitate (typically poorly). A simple case of give and take where Apple gives and MS takes.

And because Microsoft hates software patents that much, they didn't lobby for their introduction in the EU through organisations such as EICTA

http://wiki.ffii.org/EictaSme050425En

"Campaign for Creativity"

http://wiki.ffii.org/CampaignForCreativityEn

and of course BSA

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/index .en.html

Also, Microsoft didn't file any swpat applications at the EPO

http://swpat.ffii.org/gasnu/microsoft/index.en.htm l

or well, at least they were filed for "defencive" (sic) purposes, not for threatening users of FOSS

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/ballmer_li nux_lawsuits/

Indeed, we Europeans just have too much fantasy and dreamed all of that up. It never really happened because Microsoft hates software patents.

Seriously, software patents are a powerful anti-competitive weapon, and Microsoft only hates them if they happen to be on the wrong side of the barrel. They really don't like to swallow their own bitter medicine. That's why they are currently lobbying for changes to US patent law that will make it easier for big companies to defend against patent infringement claims from small companies or individuals.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/m ar05/03-10patentreform.mspx

And organisations representing small inventors (some of which may even profit from software patents, but of course only if they don't write any code themselves) are up in arms over the reform proposals.

http://www.piausa.org/patent_reform/congressional_ testimony/

If there is anything Microsoft or Steve Ballmer hate, it's Linux and Google. I don't think they really hate Apple, though, or at least that would be a love-hate relationship. They need Apple to continue to innovate so they can imitate (typically poorly). A simple case of give and take where Apple gives and MS takes.

And because Microsoft hates software patents that much, they didn't lobby for their introduction in the EU through organisations such as EICTA

http://wiki.ffii.org/EictaSme050425En

"Campaign for Creativity"

http://wiki.ffii.org/CampaignForCreativityEn

and of course BSA

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/index .en.html

Also, Microsoft didn't file any swpat applications at the EPO

http://swpat.ffii.org/gasnu/microsoft/index.en.htm l

or well, at least they were filed for "defencive" (sic) purposes, not for threatening users of FOSS

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/ballmer_li nux_lawsuits/

Indeed, we Europeans just have too much fantasy and dreamed all of that up. It never really happened because Microsoft hates software patents.

Seriously, software patents are a powerful anti-competitive weapon, and Microsoft only hates them if they happen to be on the wrong side of the barrel. They really don't like to swallow their own bitter medicine. That's why they are currently lobbying for changes to US patent law that will make it easier for big companies to defend against patent infringement claims from small companies or individuals.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/m ar05/03-10patentreform.mspx

And organisations representing small inventors (some of which may even profit from software patents, but of course only if they don't write any code themselves) are up in arms over the reform proposals.

http://www.piausa.org/patent_reform/congressional_ testimony/

If there is anything Microsoft or Steve Ballmer hate, it's Linux and Google. I don't think they really hate Apple, though, or at least that would be a love-hate relationship. They need Apple to continue to innovate so they can imitate (typically poorly). A simple case of give and take where Apple gives and MS takes.

but laws telling the government what to do have absolutely no punishment when the government breaks them

The EPO is not a government. It is an independent institute, that has the EC-granted power to award patents.

However, even the EC is now getting weary that, in practice, the EPO is actively involved in policy-making, instead of just executing the policies set by the EC.

http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn

More details
http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html

Also see:

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 9/21/2130243

but the most powerful force of human mentality is "Denial"
A matter of popular or promoted belief often having nothing to do with what honesty actually is.

What was defeated was the move to make software patents explicitly legal. Right now they are (IMHO) illegal under the European Patent Convention, but a rather jumbled mess of case law has built up to allow about 30'000 of them anyway.

The EPO, patent lawyers and some big companies wanted to make them really legal, but huge protests managed to turn the original proposal around to be rather against software patents. In the end, even the original proponents voted against it, and it was defeated by a wide margin.

What's brewing right now is the European Patent Litigation Agreement which would allow the European Patent Office a very strong influence in both granting and enforcing patents - no independent judgement available. In the words of the FFII

The EPLA would remove all national patent courts and put a single European-wide court in its place. However, the judges of this European-wide court would be appointed by the people who run the European Patent Office. Moreover, these judges could hold positions at the European Patent Office in parallel. Further, every six years these judges can be re-appointed if they live up to the expectations of, again, the very same people who run the European Patent Office.

EPLA puts an executive organisation in charge of running the judiciary. This is unacceptable.

Programming languages change and get better or new ones come along, etc..

But all of them are subjective to Abstraction Physics.

Though "Abstraction Physics" might sound way to advanced its basics is not. In fact its really more a matter of training self awareness as the human language they are using is also subjective to Abstraction Physics.

http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn

http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html

Once they understand how they are already using abstraction physics then they will be better able to grasp the subject matter of abstraction so widely used in programming.

If you are interested in more my email address can be found at the bottom of:
http://threeseas.net/vic/html/

but be sure to make the subject line something I will not skip over as that address has gotten on spam lists and I'm not going to give you another email address in public , but will privately.

Actually, yes, it does mean we should do away with a whole class of patents. Specifically, because your counter-argument for point 1) confuses two completely different things: math and physical objects. Without so much as explaining why, you lumped together mathematical equations (ideas) and physical objects (subject to laws of nature), and concluded from that if patents for ideas like mathematical equations are invalidated, all patents would be invalidated. Quite honestly, my head hurts just trying to figure out how you came up with this. For a very good discussion on the difference between the two and how patent law could accomodate the differences, check out this article on Michel Rocard's report.

This is how you would distinguish between the two, and this is how you would make sure that patent's on ideas don't completely stifle innovation, and make solely the domain of large corporations.

As for your comment that copyright doesn't protect ideas, you seem to be under the misguided impression that patents on ideas are righteous. Quite frankly, the mere thought of it disgusts me. Besides the fact that the free exchange of ideas is what lead to the explosion of knowledge in the last 200 years, there's the problem that ideas are a dime a dozen, and that the devil is in the detail (to abuse cliches). Anybody can have ideas. Hey, here's an idea: let's create a device that creates energy from hot air! Great, ain't it? Now who should get credit for it - the guy (or girl) who dreams up the idea, or the one who implements it? In my not so humble opinion, the one who dreams it up should get a slap across the face for even asking for compensation. It is infinitely harder to create something that works than it is to dream something up. Putting a lock-down on ideas is nothing but the wet dream of lazy asses who want to get paid millions for breathing.

On a side note, I've talked to a few patent lawyers, and I find it fascinating the amount of work they put into crap justifications. I've heard everything from "I protect the little guy" (never mind that the little guy can't compete with a corporation that is willing to spend millions on a lawsuit) to "I protect people from theft" (see above for an idea on where I stand on that).

http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn

http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html

but rather it is an application of a human characteristic, which we all have as a natural right and duty to use, to prove we are human.

... genuinely free when it is easy enough to create that anyone can and will create it as they need.

By its very goal, that of making complexity easier to use and reuse, software will get this easy to produce.

http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn

thru the application of abstraction physics we can create, in analogy, a calculator capable of outputing an application as its result. Capable of prompting the user for refined information it needs to do so.

autocoding project:
http://lists.debian.org/lsb-discuss/2002/01/msg001 05.html

http://freshmeat.net/projects/victor1/

It is not surprising that the court has rejected the patent. Most EU courts reject software patents or business method patents even though the EPO (European Patent Office) will grant them happily (contrary to the text and spirit of the patent convention). So that court did its job and rejected something that should never be patentable in Europe.

However, this could change in the future: the EPO is lobbying for establishing a "(European) Community Patent" process and for having a single European patent court, which would rule in case of patent disputes like this one. Given that the judges in that new court would probably come from the EPO, there is a high risk that they would grant the patent.

Time to support the FFII and the FSF Europe...

Answering to myself here. Actully by reading the patent it seems like the files are stored in chunks with a timestamp on. This is obviously because it would be slow to search to the middle possition of a big multimedia file. But thats just an obvious optimization anybody building a multimedia system would come up with, and not worthy of a patent. You could actully call it a file system optimization and has probably been done thousands of time in other applications. Again, IANAL so I might have missed something.

Found a link to the European patent (probably in the EU software patent limbo right now).
http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1101356

But, if the patent involved a software program that did some technical job in a novel way, so long as the novelty did not lie only or primarily in it being a software program as such, then it could be patented. As I understand it, this is the stance of the EPO and is in accordance with the European Patent Convention.

You understand correctly, however stance and practice are different so your post could be misleading ;-)

The following email contains snippets from earlier EPO rulings involving art52. These rulings are clear and consistant.

http://lists.ffii.org/pipermail/news/2003-April/00 0138.html

Now for the EPO's current practice:

http://www.ffii.org.uk/archives/28

The EPO have become a joke!

You are wrong, the software patent problem is no 'prior art' problem
and cannot be solved that way.

"Prior art as a solution" is what the institutions want to make you believe.
The US debate focuses on prior art/novelty and obviousness/triviality. It is
a reason why they cannot fix it in the US. Two red herrings of patent reform
policy.

In Europe the patent system is in defense and the attempt Riordan decribes
are important to win grounds.

What we need is a strong US movement which is organised activists.

sure that they would be able to recover thoses costs by haveing the right to control how and by whom it is produced
This is a fallacy. Revenue is not magically generated by having control over production, nor is control over production a guarantee of profit.

Explain to me how even the current patent system hurts the inventor.

In many ways, but mainly because the patent system has become a game for the Big Guys who can afford the law suits or defend themselves by using their own patents. Small inventors with one or two patents don't stand a chance. This article is but one example of this scenario. The way the multi-nationals use cross-licensing as a legal way of creating cartels is also pretty sickening (I recommend the excellent book Information Feudalism by Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite for more on that).

For a more general discussion around the patent system and some of it's problems, I direct you to a few references on the topic:

http://wiki.ffii.org/Martin041109En
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/000902-3.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,73 69,665969,00.html
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020805/newman200207 25
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/21/business/wh o.php
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/again st.htm
http://www.cepr.net/publications/intellectual_prop erty_2004_09.htm

The real issue here is Copyright - what imbecilic government gave away every citizens right to copy text (or anything else) in the first place?

Have a look at the formulation of what Copyright really is - you might have to read it a couple of times to actually understand it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright - I think the example with "Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse" is a good one..

Maybe people don't understand it but just think that it shouldn't ever feel wrong to download, transfer or otherwise 'copy' a string of bits (ones and zeroes).

Consider this: If I make a T-shirt filled with ones and zeroes of a copyrighted text, am I infringing copyright? What if it's the ROT-13 version of the same text? Or the same text, just mirror-reversed? (which you can practice to read as fast as normal text, or just use a mirror..)

My point is; abstraction defeats copyright, therefore it shouldn't have been written into law in the first place. People downloading/copying copyrighted text or otherwise, is basically civil disobedience.

Another way of defeating copyright is;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

Next up; Software Patents: http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn

• Swinging on a swing - http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html
  
• Publishing on the Internet - http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/00/10/03/1523228.shtml ?tid=155
  
• Converting Windows File Names - http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/ep800142/ind ex.en.html
  
• Learning Language by comparing pronounciation - http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/ep461127/ind ex.en.html

• Swinging on a swing - http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html
  
• Publishing on the Internet - http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/00/10/03/1523228.shtml ?tid=155
  
• Converting Windows File Names - http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/ep800142/ind ex.en.html
  
• Learning Language by comparing pronounciation - http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/ep461127/ind ex.en.html

ROTFL :) Have a look here, in particular under the "president" entry (yes, our old site is horribly out of date regarding the board composition, but we are working on it).

I would rather recommend us business people to get organised and put your money where your mouth is. Combatting software patents means nuking patent lawyers. You need a strong movement and US activities are unorganised and misguided. You feed the scum that fights for (or against) individual patents. It is better to approach the legislator and improve the rules. It is easier to justify a payment of $500 000 to your patent attorney than $5000 to an advocacy group. But unlike an affected business guy our patent attorney will be willing to invest in lobbying and public patent institutions are polluted by these 'patent user' activists.

Who stands up for the small-to-medium IT firms?

Stop whining. Why not donate to FFII?

The European Union currently conduct a consultation on rfid. I really would like to know what the role of governments should be. Governments are lobbied like hell on rfid. Some civil rights groups call them spychips. And lobbyists approach governments. And the question is why? Shouldn't markets decide?

Anyway, I suggest you to fill out the questionaire.

Other intresting consultation links can be found here and here. It is important to get more people involved in these political procedures and legislature who actually know what they are talking about. And I would like to spam politicians with the request for 'better interoperability'. Here the regulator has to take measures. I found it very nice that the EU already considered it. "Interoperability, standardization, governance, and Intellectual Property Rights (1 June)"

So maybe it makes sense to report cases like these to the authorities to avoid madness. I guess they do not read Slashdot.

From the article:

Rai informed the meeting that a comprehensive draft report had been submitted to an ICAR committee to develop guidelines for intellectual property management and commercialisation of technologies in the national agricultural system under the ICAR.

Your comment reminds me of the large US hi-tech companies accusing the Chinese of "stealing their IP" and then getting caught with their pants down when it turns out they were not delivering the "IP" they promised in their contracts.

The "all the Chinese, Indians and other Asians can do is copy our great Western inventions" story is getting old very quickly, and more untrue every day. It would surprise me if they don't soon overtake the Western companies concerning the amount of awarded patents and things like that.

Just days before the European Commission's next hearing on patent policy that is still being hatched despite the last directive's overwhelming defeat in Parliament, several recent publications discuss developments of the law on Tux' home continent, and successful steps to avert software patents: The huge new book on "The War over Software Patents in the European Union" by the founder of NoSoftwarePatents has just been released for download. If you prefer a few hundred pages less, see the latest issue of the International Journal of Law and Information Technology for a scholarly article.

...combine with similar movies about software patents and trusted computing.

This is how the patent system should work. A guy came up with an idea and tried to make his buck.

Actually, this is independent of how the patent system should work. The only goal of the patent system should be to promote innovation. It is not there to "help the little guy get his share from large companies" any more than it is there to "help large companies crush little guys with their huge portfolios".

Only if the chance that other people would come up with this on their own is very small, and if the "original discoverer" would not publish it without getting a 20 year monopoly in return, and if the downsides of this 20 year monopoly don't outweigh the upsides of disclosure, then there could be a justification for granting the patent. On a macro-economic scale, this is not true for software patents.

In this particular case, it's about patent US 5,701,400. Let's have a look at claim 1, which as a whole consists of a single sentence of 506 words. Below, you can find a summary of the meat of that claim:

a program in execution by said computer for controlling operations thereof for receiving user input defining one or more analysis rules to be applied to user specified data from said memory,

We have a program with rules operating on data

each said analysis rule being a user defined arithmetic and/or logic test to be applied to user specified items of said data and for controlling said computer to receive and store user entered data defining the alphanumeric text of a diagnostic statement associated with each true result of each said analysis rule,

Each rule is a mathematical or logical expression returning true or false, and its outcomes are associated with text strings (i.e., if-statements with a string as result)

each said diagnostic statement comprised of a user defined alphanumeric text string which the user can program to define the significance of the true result, its relevance or any other expression which provides meaning to the user of the true result of the analysis rule, and for controlling said computer to receive user input controlling which of said analysis rules are to be applied to said data,

The user can specify the "then" and the "else" outcomes of these "if" statements.

and for applying said analysis rules so designated to the data designated by said user and returning a true or false result for each analysis rule so applied depending upon the state of the data to which each analysis rule was applied,

You can apply the if-statements to different inputs, and the output will depend on the input

and for each true result returned by an analysis rule, controlling said computer to store in a file in said memory the user programmed text of a diagnostic statement associated with each true result as a diagnostic in a diagnostic database,

Those earlier mentioned text strings are stored in memory once those if-statements are evaluated.

and for controlling said computer to receive and store in said memory user input defining one or more expert tests, each expert test comprising a user defined arithmetic and/or logic statement to be applied to one or more diagnostics selected by user input from the diagnostics stored in said diagnostic database, said arithmetic and/or logic statement comprised of mathematical operators and/or logical operators from any logic set such as predicate logic or Boolean logic including at least the AND, OR and NOT functions, each said expert test returning either a true or false result, and for controlling said computer to receive us

Stallman's answer in 1985 was to create F/OSS software, not to outlaw proprietary software, nor to use unlawfully copied proprietary software. F/OSS was and is able to compete in the marketplace.

Hmmmmn, good point - my analogy was flawed.

Now let's look at DRM. DRM is a flawed, ultimately unworkable attempt to control copying of "content" files. If the FSF had a workable alternative to DRM, then they should put it forth and let it compete for our hearts and minds and dollars.

DRM can be used to protect any digital file - including software. It affects the FSF directly (DRM measures can remove some freedoms granted by the GPL) and is a legal and social problem, there is no technical solution.

Better yet, if they want to work a political angle, why not work on/against legislation such as the DMCA? Why waste the effort on DRM, which in my estimation is going to turn out to be one of the big non-issues of the century.

I take your point that the DMCA is the whip that enforces DRM, but the FSF is going working on the DMCA, not too mention even more dangerous items, like the wipo netcast treaty, and software patents.

Just 'cause they're attacking DRM doesn't mean they've forgotten everything else!

The EU is planning to make all "intentional" and "commercial scale" copyright and patent infringements a criminal offence. Note that in criminal law "intentional" does not necessarily mean "kowingly infringing", but simply that the act (which happens to be infringing) is carried out consciously and not accidentally.

Therefore, the interpretation of the Technical Board of Appeals, namely that "software executed by a computer" is a "computer-implemented invention", is as logical as it is fallacious. It's logical, since the only thing you can implement in a computer is software. It's fallacious, because software cannot be an invention (computer-implemented or not).

If you are thinking of ABS braking systems (novel use of measuring friction energy to prevent slipping) and things like that: those are better described using the term "computer-aided invention" or similar, as proposed by several MEPs back in the day of the swpat directive.

You cannot implement brakes or washing machines inside a computer, but when you invent such things, the operation of those things most likely will be in someway aided by the use of a computer (running software, obviously).

Thanks.

I reckon it was a little passive-aggressive outburst that caused them to give the answer in a .doc file instead of a standard format of some kind. Not happy campers about having to give up the power and prestige that would have accrued them if their desired interpretation had been accepted.

Fortunately a readable copy is to be found a click or two from the page you linked, here so now us long-haired smellies can read it too.

Pretty sure the reporter has it wrong... Europe has never allowed 'software patents' instead, they allow "Computer Implemented Inventions

What actually happened is "the European Commission has confirmed that the European Patent Office's (EPO) case law is not binding for member states... For the first time, the Commission has also clearly stated that computer programs are not patentable subject matter, without hiding behind the infamous "as such" cop-out."

Go to a reputable source for this if you want accuracy: European Commission: EPO Case Law Not Binding - Software Not Patentable..

This is a great development, it's far from the end of the story.

Patents e.g. http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1376387

This needs to get discussed first.

RIM's Chairman recently said he will work to bring an end to Software Idea Patents.

It would be great to see RIM financially support initiatives like NoSoftwarePatents.org and SWPat.ffii.org, whose aims are to stop the legalized extortion by the Patent Leeches and Patent Mafia.

But on second thoughts, all this will encourage is many more mindless software patents by the big firms to cover their asses.

Secondly, they actually paint a nice shiny target on themselves by getting all those defensive patents, making themselves more likely to be sued (see the Q&A at the bottom of the page)

From: Jon Smirl
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 23:55:58 -0400

After talking to representatives of both companies, it seems that the
patent system has completely perverted the IP situation between them.
But are staying secret because of fear of being sued by the other for
infringement. This is exactly the opposite of what full disclosure of
patents was supposed to achieve.

I wish they could just get together and agree not to sue each other
over stupid things like register designs and programming models. The
designs are horrible on both cards due to accumulation of historical
cruft. Save the lawsuits for the core of the engines if you really
have to sue each other.

--
Jon Smirl

From: Jon Smirl Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 23:55:58 -0400 After talking to representatives of both companies, it seems that the patent system has completely perverted the IP situation between them. But are staying secret because of fear of being sued by the other for infringement. This is exactly the opposite of what full disclosure of patents was supposed to achieve. I wish they could just get together and agree not to sue each other over stupid things like register designs and programming models. The designs are horrible on both cards due to accumulation of historical cruft. Save the lawsuits for the core of the engines if you really have to sue each other. -- Jon Smirl

Interestingly the root of evil is US broken patent law. This is an internationally recognised fact. The cases are just effects.

What's different in the Us is the lack of an organisation such as FFII which puts pressure on parliament and proposes solutions to solve the mess. US citizens prefer to leave Us patent reform to Ms lobbyists and the pharmaceutical industry. And then we also see some usual suspects EFF action and numerous eloquent commentators -- not the right approach to get impact and solve the damn problems.

The funny part of it is that you will hardly get a company to donate 1 Million to these civil society organisations of software developers which enables them to solve the mess (sure they would be able to with less lobbying money). But they will pay 56 million$ for settlements with the EVIL GUY (tm) which funds the US patent enforcement industry. And they will pay millions to unsound clueless lobbyists for "more and better protection" of "intellectual property".

US Companies just pay the prize for their good business relationships with the community of patent attorneys and lawyers.

The european parliament is an elected body (by the people, seats according to population, much like the US congress), while the european comission consists of the (elected) governments of the member states (imagine a senate where senators are the state governors). Which part of this system is "undemocractic"?

So what does it feel like to not be able to make your own country's laws?