EU Study Looks At Software Patents

Cardinal Biggles writes: "A study into software patents commissioned by the EU seems to conclude that software patents are OK, it's just the U.S. Patent Office that sucks. It addresses Open Source, but seems to suggest that Open Source projects should get patents of their own, and finance their project using the licensing fees. Meanwhile, the European Commission has opened a public consultation on whether software should be patentable. The request for comments itself, IMHO, sounds not very neutral about software patents. You can get your comments in until 15-Dec-2000!" The study appears to be pretty thorough. And I advise any European developers who care to get their comments in about software patents! It's your career...

Comments

Drop in the bucket

[DaveWood]

Expect the comission to be subverted, and software patents to persist in Europe. Software patents are good for large, established players, and they are good for lawyers, two very powerful lobbies, here and across the pond. It would take a miracle for the collective interests involved to miss their mark.

There are much larger problems at hand in government's relationship to industry anyway (i.e. bribes seem to be de facto legal). Focus on solving those first, and then worry about details like patents.

Fellow Europeans!

[Peter Dyck]

It's time to get organized and impose the slashdot effect on the European Commission.

I for one am going to write a snailmail letter both to my representative in the Parliament and the Commission (lucky to have one) and urge him investigate this matter and act against software patents. I've got a couple of friends whom I've managed to get to act as well.

The time to act is now!

Re:Patent vs Copyright

[DaveWood]

Copyright covers plagiarism, which in the context of source code means I could be violating someone's copyright if I cut-and-paste their code and call it my own, use it for my own purposes, etc... without their permission, that is. And open source authors effectively give that permission to everyone, pending a few small details (GNU, for instance, has a number of preconditions - such as that you have to distribute the sourcecode yourself, etc.) Of course, I can read someone's code, learn from it, and write my own code that does the same thing. It may even be very similar, but that would be legal (again, there are a few caveats here, but that's basically the case). Even as a relative radical when it comes to intellectual property law, this pretty much seems fine to me.

Patents are much, much worse. Software patents enable Compuserve, for example, to patent a compression algorithm or a program that reads or writes a specific file format. Once such a patent is granted, it is illegal for me to write a program that uses that compression, or reads or writes data compatible with that format - no matter how I implement it.

The fun part is what people patent: Windows, pull down menus, command-line interfaces, GIFs (you've heard about the infamous GIF patent, of course!), one-click shopping, word processors that can right align text, you name it, the US Patent Office will grant it to you. I honestly don't think they even read them anymore. And if someone from the USPO wants to show up and self-righteously say "Oh yes we do read them" then... my God, that's even worse.

The reason you can tell the EU is going to have software patents is because their argument - that the USPO is the problem, not software patents themselves - is patently false. An obvious placation.

In a world with software patents, every programmer is likely to violate hundreds of patents throughout their career. There is no way they can know which, since they cannot read and remember the entire patent base, no matter how well-maintained. Every program is a ticking time bomb of patent litigation, as you never know when someone might turn up and say, "Hey! My grandfather patented that in 1986! That'll be 70% of your gross please, or get ready to spend $100-300 thousand defending yourself in court!"

Enough said.

At least patents expire!

[bluGill]

okay, in theroy caopyrights expire too, but there will be none (in the US) that expire for the next 20 years or so... Patents expire, and in a fairly short timeframe.

When I think of all the old games that I used to love on my 8 bit atari, well all are copyrighted, and so I cannot legally copy them anymore. with 5-1/4 disks going bad all the time there isn't much that we can legally do to save those classics. If those games were patented instead, at least I could legally copy them. (Note, that I still don't think patents should apply to whole games, maybe the concept, but not the game)

I think that software patents should be allowed, but not yet! That is until we get to the point where a new software takes a lot of work to devolpe, and most concepts are worked out we shouldn't allow patents. Once things have settled down, sure you can patent your auto-spell checker in your word processor, because word processors as a concept a mature. However you shouldn't be able to patent a GUI menuing system because these systems are still undergoing research and are not mature. (This is an example, please don't disagree with the examples, disagree with the idea behing them)

Re:They REALLY don't get Open Source!

[dbarclay10]

Finance Open Source projects through licensing fees?
Further proof that the Eurocrats are basically nitwits who couldn't get work in their own countries!

Oh, pay attention. An open-source project can make money, TODAY, using the same principle.

You have a GPL'd library. A good one. No proprietary app can link against it, either! Sounds great, eh? :) Well, if you hold the copyright(and if you're the author, you do), and Mr. Big Software Company Exec would like to make a proprietary app that links against your code, you can let him, either for free or for a wad of cash. You own the copyright, you set the licensing terms.

It's the same idea with patents. You patent a rather ingenious algorithm, and make an open source(GPL) implementation. For anyone else to use that algorithm, they have to get permission from you, else they'd be in violation of patent laws. In this case, EVERYONE has to ask permission(unfortunatly, this includes Open Source initiatives). It's really no different than with the regular GPL using copyright laws. Except it applies to everyone, so you can deny other Open Source initiatives the priveledge of using your patented algorithm.

Yeah, that's not the best, but it's not like you make it out to be.

Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,

Re:So where does one add a comment?

[cybaea]

Here - there is even an e-mail address:

The public at large and all interested circles may direct their comments to the Directorate General for the Internal Market, either by mail to the following address: European Commission, DG Internal Market (MARKT/E/2), Rue de la Loi, 200 (C100 5/13), B - 1049 Brussels, or by e- mail to be directed to MARKT-SOFTPAT@cec.eu.int . Any comments should be received on or before 15 December 2000.

I recommend all EU slashdotters to comment. It is more important than voting! Get on with it.