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EU Board Votes To Allow Software Patents

Posted by Hemos on from the bad-times-in-bentime dept.

scamp was one of the folks who wrote from Europe with the news that an administrative board for the European Patents Office has voted 10-9 to allow patents for software in Europe. There's still a final conference to be held in Novemeber to ratify the decision - so there's still time to sign the petition against it. The conference in November should be close - the multinationals, US and Japan are applying heavy pressure. BTW, if you can't read German, use the fish.

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. To my fellow Europeans by h_jurvanen · · Score: 5
    Every time something like this has come up in the US, some Europeans have been pretty snide, remarking about how fascist and corporation-driven America has become, and generally taking a superior attitude. It's time to wake up and see that the same powers are moving inside Europe, but just taking a little longer to make their wishes known. Once they see the kind of legal protections that American companies are getting, they will demand the same in the name of "fairness," "competition," etc. The largely nebulous enlightenment of Europe and Europeans may soon fall victim to raw corporate power. Don't rest easy!

    Herbie J.

  2. Agree and disagree by morven2 · · Score: 5

    It is, indeed, fundamentally illogical to suggest that one should be able to patent hardware but not software that does the same thing.

    The problem in the US is not so much software patents *per se*, but how badly the US Patent Office has gone about issuing and regulating them.

    I have no problem with people being able to patent something truly innovative, whether the product of lots of hard work or a sudden flash of inspiration.

    One should not be able just add '... on the Internet' to existing ideas and patent them, for example.

    One thing I will take issue with: your bringing up the millions of dollars companies spend. An idea is not and should not be patentable simply because you've spent millions on it. In fact, patents are MORE defensible for the little guy, the backyard inventor, the small startup with a good idea.

    If you spent a million dollars and came up with a poor, lame-ass idea that's not all that original, you don't deserve a patent for it.

  3. Non-Babelfished translation by vertical-limit · · Score: 5
    Been a while since I've had German, but this should get the meaning across:

    The board of directors of the European Patent Office voted to allow the unrestricted patenting of software. The authority recommends the cancellation of the current clause of the European patent convention which states that computer programs "as such" are not patentable.

    In doing so, the EPA placed itself in the same boat as the proponents of software patents -- mostly international corporations that want a change in the European legal situation towards one more similar to the United States and Japan, where where software is practically patentable without restriction. The German delegation in the 19-member EPA committee voted against the raid in 10-to-9 decision.

    Programmers of free software as well as smaller software houses stand against software patents, since the potential danger of patent suits from larger corporations makes their work practically impossible. Already today large American companies protect themselves with numerous patents on minor developments - a move which also allows them to resist by counter suits if another enterprise files a patent infringement suit against them. However, free programmers and small companies do not have the financial means in order to be able to exact such a strategy and therefore formed an alliance against software patents.

    The endorsement of software patents by the EPA modifies nothing in the existing legal situation, but serves as a preliminary decision for a conference in November, where the nations that have taken part in the EPA want to finally rule on the batter. At the beginning of of July, leaks from the European Union indicated that the organization did not want to permit American-style software patents in Europe. However, organizations, like the EuroLinux alliance and the Linux federation LIVE, pointed out that the commission had, at the time, already ruled itself as being basically unopposed to software patents.

  4. Bruce Perens on patents by bat'ka+makhno · · Score: 5

    A couple years ago, Bruce Perens penned Preparing for the Intellectual-property Offensive for LinuxWorld. It's an interesting perspective on the potential for the subversion of the patent system by unscrupulous (is there any other kind?) proprietary software vendors.

    Some noteworthy ideas, including that of "open patent" development, which keeps resurfacing whenever patents are discussed, but doesn't really seem to have taken hold yet.
    --
    Violence is necessary, it is as American as cherry pie.
    H. Rap Brown