Europe Votes Against Software Patents

BrightIce writes "It seems like things are getting better in Europe regarding software patents." The text of that article is in German, but thanks to Sebastian Bunka of Austria for providing me this translation: "On the CONVENTION ON THE GRANT OF EUROPEAN PATENTS all 20 memberstates have decided to not change the regulations to the patentability of software and to allow by this basically no patents on software." Else, you can check the fish, but the above is a better translation.

Comments

Re:Oh dear

[kyz]

i'm in the business of making money from my code, so i like being able to protect my product and my I.P This decusion makes it almost imposible to do that now, and that can only damage the growing IT market across the EU.

An excellent troll. You're conveniently forgetting many things - firstly, that copyrights protect your ideas from 'theft' in the largest respect. Secondly, that pure mathematical algorithims are still patentable - unlike in America.

While you might moan about 'protection', you'll find that most patent holders are large multinational corporations like IBM. How fair is it to find that you infringe some vague patent of theirs? How fair is it if you publish an innovative image processing method in a journal, then someone else patents your idea, and tries to charge you because the patent office is too fucking lazy to read the appropriate journals?

How can you dare innovate in a market based on fear, uncertainty and doubt - at any time, some IP company with no products of their own comes to sue you because you inadvertently stepped on a patent landmine? Does your product have multitasking? That's illegally patented in the EU. So are CGI scripts on a Web server. So is hardware emulation used for software testing. Breaking down pathnames into directories and files is patented!

There is no doubt in my mind that software patents cause more harm than good. The copyright law, contract law and trade secret law is sufficient protection for software. Using patents on software is an abuse of the patent process.

Re:Finally, some sense.

[LucVdB]

Working/residency: sort of free. As long as you've got a job it's easy enough. See this page for a short overview of the issues, from a UK perspective.

Re:Not good for all of us

[nagora]

Since this is usually imponce this is usually impossible to protect with copyright,

No, it is always protected by copyright; without copyright the GPL has no meaning.

What you are saying is "We use other people's work for free but we then have to do likewise. Pity us". Well, no. If you don't like the GPL then don't use GPL code, make your own and you can keep the "IP" to yourself and good luck to you.

The implication of your whine is that you can't use your "IP" well enough to see off other people who use it, even though you understand it better (since you wrote it) and had it before anyone else. Moreover, anyone that does use your "IP" will have to release their code, which you can then use. What is your problem?

TWW

Source Documents

[tagishsimon]

All of the source documents arising from the current conference are posted here . The purpose of the conference itself is described here. I'll try & find which document covers software patents specifically.

The whole schebang has to do with "European countries' collective political determination to establish a uniform patent system in Europe." Note, though, that from trawling through Europa earlier today, I get the impression that the final aim - a European Patent - has not yet been reached. So for now, member states signed up to EPO, it may be assumed, will amend their national legislation to match the EPO resolution.

Re:Source Documents

[tagishsimon]

Good article from TheRegister sets the decision within the EU context; EPO != EU.

The important rubric, from this document, runs:

17. Article 52 shall be amended to read as follows:
Article 52 - Patentable inventions
(1) European patents shall be granted for any inventions, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are susceptible of industrial application.
(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1:
(a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
(b) aesthetic creations;
(c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business;
(d) presentations of information.

Re:Xenophobia

[Nicolas MONNET]

Unfortunately, the European contries are at least as xenophobic as US, probably more so. Just about all EU contries have political parties whose main agenda is to keep foreigner out.

Those parties you refer to are really somewhat tame compared to Bush's platform. Oh yeah, they're racist and shit, and when you compare the numbers, you realize that they haven't killed as many people as Mr. Bush with the death penalty.

--

Re:Harmonization?

[Ed Avis]

The problem is not so much the EU as the European Patent Convention (EPC) and its patent office, the EPO. Most countries are members of both, but some non-EU members are part of the EPC. (And some EU members might leave the EPC - IIRC a German minister (Green party) said Germany would leave the EPC if software patents were allowed.)

Now the Convention specifically excludes computer programs from patentability, but the EPO has managed to bend the law by saying that many computer programs 'are not computer programs as such'. Hence the swpat horror gallery, full of patents on computer programs 'not as such'.

The EPO would like to change the law (the Convention) to remove this exclusion, letting the law 'catch up' with the EPO's bending of it. This would give real weight to the patents already granted, which at present are of dubious validity.

What has happened is that EPC members have voted to wait for the outcome of the European Commission's (ie the EU's) consultation before reaching a decision. This makes it even more important to send your comments on software patents to the Commission and possibly to your national political representatives.

The Commission have commissioned (!) a slightly biased but not totally stupid report on the economic impact of software patents, and are invit ing comments. What the Commission recommends will heavily influence the decision made by EPC members.

Re:Good news for North America

[matthew_gream]

>Patents are what are socialistic; they're about >as blatant a form of industrial policy as >exists. In a true free market, people would be >free to copy someone else's invention and >undercut their price

And why would people bother to create new designs if they were going to be stolen by some large corporation ? We'd all have to work for large corporations in veils of secrecy! No patents are just as bad as too many patents, there is some sort of equilibrium in the middle.

Patents help competition if used appropriately - but just like anything else, they can be abused - the same goes for virtually everything else in society. I am sure there are endless analogies.

The problem is that the "spirit" of patents has been long lost into the quagmire of technicalities, patenting everything and anything and various other forms of abuses. Part of this is the nature of how society is changing, perhaps in the future, patents will be seen as redundant, because society has moved into a new plane where the free flow of ideas is the way to go.

Re:Finally, some sense.

[0xdeadbeef]

I think in Europe, people are a little more tolerant to others moving to their countries, and are aware of the fact that their country is not the only one in the world.

Hardly. Both France and Germany have very active and militant anti-immigrant political parties. And Austria recently elected a government that, from what I've read, seems somewhere between Pat Buchanan and David Duke on the political spectrum.

It's probably the same as the hypocrisy in the way people think of Canada and Mexico in the US. You're only considered an immigrant if you're poor, the wrong color, and speak the wrong language.

--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom

Change the headline...

[gadders]

It should be "Useless Corrupt Tw*ts at the EU Finally Manage to do Something Right, but it was Probably an Accident."

Re:Change the headline...

[cyber-vandal]

The EU do a lot of things right, like being able to work anywhere I want in the EU, it's just that the little-Englander press in the UK write lies rather than the truth. And our government is every bit as corrupt as the European parliament, it's just not reported on.

Re:Good news for North America

[rlk]

Patents are what are socialistic; they're about as blatant a form of industrial policy as exists. In a true free market, people would be free to copy someone else's invention and undercut their price.

Xenophobia

[Per Abrahamsen]

Unfortunately, the European contries are at least as xenophobic as US, probably more so. Just about all EU contries have political parties whose main agenda is to keep foreigner out. These parties usually get about 10% of the vote, sometimes more (like in Austria). They have a huge influence as the mainstream parties try to adopt their politics in order to compete for the same narrow minded part of the poulation. In Denmark, all the popular parties compete on who can be toughest in foreigners, and the most popular stories in the media are about criminal foreigners or decendents of foreigners.

Of course, "foreigner" does not include other EU citizens, or even North Americans. It is only Moslems and Africans and poor people in general who "we" want to keep out.

Re:Finally, some sense.

[Forkenhoppen]

1) Celcius. That whole Farenheit thing is stupid. It makes much more sense for the temperature of water to freeze to be 0. I don't want this Farenheit B.S. anymore.

2) Metric system. All of our cars (that last more than 3 years) are built using this system of measurement. Our cars have kilometers per hour below miles per hour. Our drugs are measured in this system. It is a much easier system to remember, and is much better organized than the crazy crap we use.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this already attempted once before? If I remember correctly, I think what happened was that a bunch of morons started shooting down roadsigns, etc.

Not that I'm saying that it'd automatically be doomed to failure, if it were attempted again. I'm just saying that you should wait for that sector of the population to die out before attempting to reimplement metric.

A much better idea would be to start replacing existing signs, etc., with a dual system, whereby information is listed in both imperial and metric.

Even then, I wouldn't be too optimistic. Forgive my Canadian bias, but Americans just don't seem all that flexible in this regard. It would require changing school curriculum, and seeing as what's taught to children appears to be a somewhat taboo topic.. (just look at the arguments over creationism) I doubt you're going to be able to get the population to change, unless something drastic happens. (And I mean something drastic. Look how little came of the Columbine shootings; instead of going after the source, or trying to figure out the truth, you see the media and the police demonizing a whole innocent sector of the population. I get the sense that, even if something on the scale of Golipoli happened to a group of Americans due to an imperial/metric mixup, they'd find some way to shrug it off as a result of poor schooling by their teachers, or blame it on the shoes they were wearing.)

In the meantime, if you're interested in moving to a place that uses metric, I should point out that Canada's always an option. We've had metric for a good while now, and for a lot of us, it's the only one we know. (Although there are quite a few imperial mainstays. There's a tendancy to measure peoples' height in feet and inches, still, and the same with building materials. But other than that, and meat being weighed by the pound..)

More info about softwarepatents

[pointwood]

If you would like to know more about (software) patents (and you ought to if you if you are in the software business and live in Europe), here is some links:

SSLUG (Skåne Sjælland Linux User Group) has created an article called "Software patents - No thanks!". You can find it here.
"The EuroLinux File on Software Patents" also has a lot of information right here


Greetings Joergen

Re:What this means

[Tallus]

There is nothing to stop any country in Europe enacting a law about software patents.

I'm no expert on the EU but I would be very surprised if the EU wasn't trying to move towards harmonization on patent laws as it is in many other areas. So while existing may not be affected the ability to patent software in the future will be - hence its importance.

Paul M

"There are no innocent bystanders. What where they doing there in the first place"

What this means

[buttfucker2000]

This is concerned with EU law. Not national law.

There is nothing to stop any country in Europe enacting a law about software patents.

In any case, the good news is actually no such thing, since software patents already exist in Europe; for example, the lzw patent, which affects gifs, plus many thousands of other software patents, are effective in many European countries (mainly Britain, for strategic, rather than legal reasons).

Re:What this means

[buttfucker2000]

> It's called EU law breaks national law,

No. EU directives, which would cover this, do not *break* national law. However, within a directive there would be a timetable for implementation, and if a country broke this, it could be taken to the ECOJ. Important directives which have led to laws include that on Consumer Protection [sorry can't remember the name], which led to the Sale and Supply of Goods Act.

In any case, however, the EU legislative force stems from an Act of Parliament, and there is therefore nothing to stop the UK repealing that act [the European Communities Act]. But it is important to note that to extend EU powers, would require EU member states to ratify a treaty [in the UK this would include enaction of an Act of Parliament, since treaties have no legislative force.]

Re:What this means

[JanneM]

..since software patents already exist in Europe; for example, the lzw patent..

Well, yes and no. As far as I remember, the lzw patent (as well as other software patents) is the use of lzw 'as part of a device'; you can't patent the algorithm itself, merely its implementation as part of a device.

What really complicates matters seem to be the Bern convention, which requiera signatories to respect patents in other countries. That seems to give the lzw patent greater protection in europe than it would otherwise have had.

Re:What this means

[opkool]

As a member of the Strategic Studies Center of one of the EU countries I must disagree.

There are quite a few differences on how the law works in the United States of America and the European Union.

USA is a country with federal laws. It is composed of states that have state laws. The higest law appliable anywere in the USA is the federal law (am I 100% right? any USA law expert here?). The highest court is the USA supreme Court.

EU is an association, a legal organization, if you wish. All the members are countries. The higest law appliable anywere in the EU is the EU law made by the EU Parliament at Brussels. The highest court is the EU Highest Court.

This can sound ridiculous: a legal association taking precedence to the federal(US)/national(EU) law?

Since the Maastrich Treaty, all the EU members (not the associate members) gave up part of their national sovereignity inorder to provide it to the EU Parliament. All of them changed their constitutions to reflect this.

What does all this mean?

All the laws of the EU countries must be in compliace with the EU laws.

And, for this topic, the law on patents issued by the EU parliament takes priority over any national law from any EU country.

Not bad for the IT guys in Europe, isn't it?

Cheers

Legal Implications (i'm confused)

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so the EU have ruled against Patents for Software. I'm still confused about the whole legal aspect of patent infringement, and how whatever "International Treaties" that may exist affect this area of the law.

Let's say I start a computer software company here in England, and my product includes a feature that is the subject of some silly United States patent. Can I freely market that product everywhere but the United States without fear of being chased by the patent owners lawyers?

If so, and I then decide I do want to sell into the United States, can my "license fee" then only apply to copies sold in the United States?

Or what?

Regards,
Confused of the Thames Valley, United Kingdom.

Re:Legal Implications (i'm confused)

[kyz]

Let's say I start a computer software company here in England, and my product includes a feature that is the subject of some silly United States patent. Can I freely market that product everywhere but the United States without fear of being chased by the patent owners lawyers?

Well, the US lawyers will immediately come and claim for infringement, but they have to argue it in a US court, and if you don't have a US revenue stream they're not likely to get much from you.

If so, and I then decide I do want to sell into the United States, can my "license fee" then only apply to copies sold in the United States?

It's up to the patent owner. They have the monopoly, only they can grant you use of their patent. They can demand three camels per copy sold if they really want. They might even refuse to license you, and can demand that all copies of your product in the USA be siezed if you ignore them anyway. Perhaps this could affect UK shops who are owned and supplied by US companies.

Re:Legal Implications (i'm confused)

[DaSpy]

Imagine the following scenario:
I own a software company somewhere in Europe, and I create some code that could be valueable to, let's say, Microsoft. Now, since I am located in Europe I cannot patent my code. So Microsoft comes along, takes my code and patents it in the US.
Would something like this be possible? Please, someone enlighten me on this.


Who believes he knows, must know he believes.

Re:Legal Implications (i'm confused)

[nafmo]

Sure, that's the way LM Ericsson started in the telephone business (but the other way around, he patented the telephone in Sweden).

Finally, some sense.

[nharmon]

Boy, I'm sure glad there is some good sense in this world. We're finally getting politicians to understand the blatently dangerous consequences of patenting software. What's next? The United States? Ye gods, I hope so.

And let's not go off and start up about this only effecting EU. Because you have to understand the international treaties are two-way streets. I mean, America isn't the only place where if a law is enacted, other countries follow. EU has a lot of influence, and this is definetely good news, even in America.

I would have liked to see them extend this wisdom to bio patents, but unfortunately they decided not to discuss that.

Re:Finally, some sense.

[tswinzig]

Forgive my Canadian bias, but Americans just don't seem all that flexible in this regard. It would require changing school curriculum, and seeing as what's taught to children appears to be a somewhat taboo topic.. (just look at the arguments over creationism)

Excuse me. Are you trying to equate the teaching of an unsubstantiated myth in public schools thereby violating the constitutional separation of Church and State, with teaching kids in the metric system?

By the way, the metric system will become common just as soon as:

1. The NFL disappears (and its 100-yard field).
2. Machine gun ammunition round lengths are changed (as opposed to 'the whole nine yards').

and most importantly

3. Monkeys fly out of my butt.

I love those people that can't understand why we still don't use the metric measuring system, as they drive on the "wrong" side of their cars and their roads.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Re:Finally, some sense.

[Decimal]

I doubt you're going to be able to get the population to change, unless something drastic happens. (And I mean something drastic.

Yea. Something terrible, like mixing up the units and smashing a valuable satellite into the surface of Mars or something.

Oh wait...

Re:Finally, some sense.

[b0z]

I mean, America isn't the only place where if a law is enacted, other countries follow. EU has a lot of influence, and this is definetely good news, even in America.

Actually, we have quite a few examples of things even simpler than law that the U.S. has NOT followed the rest of the world in. Here's a quick list:

1) Celcius. That whole Farenheit thing is stupid. It makes much more sense for the temperature of water to freeze to be 0. I don't want this Farenheit B.S. anymore.

2) Metric system. All of our cars (that last more than 3 years) are built using this system of measurement. Our cars have kilometers per hour below miles per hour. Our drugs are measured in this system. It is a much easier system to remember, and is much better organized than the crazy crap we use.

3) $country is a part of Earth. I think foreign policy can be an important thing, especially for a country where 99.9% (a stat I made up) of the people are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. All the xenophobes that want to "protect our jobs" from Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, etc. need to grow up. These people labelled as "foreigners" have as much right to be here as anyone born here. Just because our government discriminates against these people, and just because rich Americans like to make these people into slaves (or indentured servants with the H1B visas) doesn't mean that everyone else has to be mean to them. I think in Europe, people are a little more tolerant to others moving to their countries, and are aware of the fact that their country is not the only one in the world.

Anyways, I just think that the U.S. government will ignore the decision of the Europeans and Americans, and continue to do whatever the hell they please. Especially when big businesses are the ones paying our politicians by choice rather than by extortion (taxes.)

Makes sense

[Creepy13]

Good to see that European politics sometimes DOES make sense :-)

Statement from Eurolinux

[Anonymous Coward]

Bruxelles, Copenhagen, London, Madrid, Munich, Paris. 2000-11-22. With the exception of Austria, Lichtenstein and Switzerland, all European countries voted in Munich yesterday against an extension of the patent system to software. The exception on computer programs will be maintained in the European Patent Convention after its revision. This move is a clear victory for democracy, since it allows the European Commission to proceed with its public consultation on software patents, together with the European Parliament. National governments in Europe which are currently reviewing in detail the pros and the cons of an extension of the patent system to software, will also be able to participate the debate.

Nicolas Pettiaux, belgian representative for the EuroLinux Alliance of software publishers and non profit organisations, warns however that "yesterday's vote should not be interpreted as a vote against software patents, but rather as a vote to postpone any decision on this matter until the consultation launched by the European Commission is closed". But, according to Stéfane Fermigier of AFUL, member of EuroLinux: "the General Directorate for Internal Market at the European Commission, which is in charge of the consultation, has approached the software patent issue with an ideological point of view. Both their interpretation of the Law and their call for the consultation are obviously biased in favour of software patents. Furthermore, until very recently, they paid no attention to the economic effects and to other side effects of software patents, as they should have according to the Rome and Amsterdam Treaties. We are still very far from a decision to ban software patents in Europe."

Future EuroLinux actions will be targeted at convincing the European Commission to take a balanced approach on software patents. As the FFII/EuroLinux Software Patent Horror Gallery shows, the European Patent Office is already abusively granting many patents on pure software methods. Such kind of patents are then cancelled by national courts in case of dispute. A clarification is still needed in Europe, either in favour or against software patents. EuroLinux considers that software patents should clearly be banned in Europe because they harm innovation and that software should be protected through copyright.

References

European Patent Office - http://www.european-patent-office.org ;
Software Patent Horror Gallery - http://petition.eurolinux.org/examples Statements for Software Patent Free Europe - http://petition.eurolinux.org/statements The EuroLinux Public Consultation - http://petition.eurolinux.org/consultation
The EuroLinux Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe - http://petition.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux File on Software Patents - http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference

Re:Oh dear

[molog]

You didn't answer his other points though. If you are posting here, it means you are probably a small company. You can not stand against the patent machine of the large multi-nationals or the Patent-it-and-sue-em companies out there. Anything you come up with unless really, really new, will most likely infringe on one of the big boys' patents an then you are screwed. Also if I came up with an idea myself, without knowledge of your patent why should I have to pay you to use my own idea? That is the major reason that the patent system is unjust and a travesty.
Molog

So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

Yes it affects us

[IGnatius T Foobar]

This is a victory for the free software world, even in the United States. It demonstrates that someone out there has a clue, and (perhaps more importantly) that other countries aren't just going to roll over and adopt the US's unique brand of stupidity.

I wonder if the BushGore fiasco has had anything to do with it (i.e. "those Yanks can't even vote in a president, why should we let them dictate our trade policies?").
--

Is your company violating GPL?

[lorax]

First, GPL code is protected by copyright, and thus, your companies code is too, you are just
forced to allow it to be copied under certain conditions.

Second. I believe if you release the code under GPL, you are automatically giving a license to anyone who wants to use/modify the released code
(the code is still under GPL of course)

Relevant sections of the GPL:
From the Preamble:

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Further down under the terms and conditions section 7:

If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

You should probably get advice from a lawyer before depending on this.

(I didn't mean to post the last one anonymously.)

Patents and software-- implications

[einhverfr]

Yes, this is good for Open Source software, but i'm in the business of making money from my code, so i like being able to protect my product and my I.P This decusion makes it almost imposible to do that now, and that can only damage the growing IT market across the EU.

It may be just me, but I think that what is good for open source software is good for "continued software development" as you put it. It is a mistake to think that open source software will go anywhere when it is written by a bunch of amateur geeks in their spare time. This is not the case with Linux or Apache, nor can it be an effective method of software development.

Rather what occurs is that businesses (some of whom charge money for the service) contribute to such projects. The market model is fundamentally different because the programmer charges for services, rather than making money on royalties.

It is my opinion that this market model is more stable, in part because maintanance programmers always outnumber programmers that program software for sale. In the US, 95% of programers are maintance programmers. In this way, these programmers can more easily create in-house applications based upon Open Source software then they can with propriety software. Furthermore this development power can be harnessed to produce better software faster that better meets the end-user's needs.

Re:Good news for North America

[rlk]

I am opposed to patents in general, but it would be less of an issue if people were more honest about what patents are for. Cloaking patents in terms such as "property" confuses the issue. The goal of patents is to promote innovation by giving inventors exclusive rights to their inventions for a limited amount of time. If it's admitted that patents are an attempt to increase innovation, we can discuss them on pragmatic grounds: where are they needed, what qualifies as sufficiently novel, what the terms should be in particular instances, and so forth. Instead, because of the word "property" a lot of people are convinced to believe that there's somehow an inherent right to a patent of the same degree as the right to own personal property.

If there are going to be patents at all, I don't see any particular reason why a patent couldn't apply to a particularly innovative software-based mechanism if it's determined that that's what's needed to encourage innovation. But the rules should be analogous to those for hardware inventions; software patents as they exist today undoubtedly have the opposite effect. Part of that is because of the incremental innovation that's so common in software, where using components as building blocks for other components is a common method of construction, and part of it is due to the proliferation of really trivial patents that just create barriers.

However, even if the goal is to be stimulation of innovation, we should look at it more closely; merely stimulating innovation doesn't necessarily result in progress. If people are stimulated to merely seek slight variations on the same theme in order to grab a patent, it isn't terribly productive, and likewise if people have to spend a lot of time working around existing patents.

Finally...

[Ektanoor]

It's a great move. As it allows software to keep its development dynamics. And it will allow to have several properietary forms on binaries and sources. With a system of patents this would lead objectively to a stall in some critical points of development.

Of course this will not satisfy those who see a copyright claim not enough for protection. And this does not mean only corporations and cash-hungry egoistic personalities. This means small developers that want to get some money from an hard and original work.

I'm a anti-patent partisan. But I believe that anyone has the right to distribute his work under the conditions that fit most his interests. And it is pretty clear that stamping "My Copyright #### - All rights reserved" is not enough for protection. So how to get out of this?

Patent protection is a nonsense in software and even most hardware systems. However the software product is something real and which allows to evaluate the cases when someone grabs unlawfully its code. Besides software has a property that other Works of Art don't possess. It can be reproduced with a 99% accurancy. So why not to create a Software Depositary where people who wished to protect their works, would keep an copy of their original work? In cases of plagiates, theft, piracy, this would help a lot in litigation processes. Besides it would not hamper development. If someone makes a parallel discovery then he also gets the right to give life to it.

One interesting point. Such institution would not need to see the original code to process registration. Microsoft could well bring all Windows source code in a sealed box and claim it when it wanted to sue someone. However if such things would be there then this institution should have a building stronger than Cheyenne Mountain.

Re:How about being Pro-Active?

[molog]

Actually my post was more to the point that in the current system you can't stand against them if you play the patent game. That is their game, you can't play them at their game with their rules and win. I want a change and I am active in writing my representatives and I vote. The problem is that the multi-nationals pay for the campaign of our officials. I will continue to fight it but until more people stop being apathetic to the whole thing it isn't going to be an easy fight.
Molog

So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

Re:Good news for North America

[rlk]

Let me ask the inverse, since the ostensible purpose of patents is to encourage innovation: how are patents good for this industry?

Harmonization?

[buttfucker2000]

Having studied EU law, I can tell you that at present there is no harmonization. In particular, a judgment of the [ECOJ] court in 1994 affirmed that Article 113 of the EC Treaty *did not* cover intellectual property.

Since then, Article 133 has been introduced, but this only covers intellectual property disputes, and not law per se.

I'm Just Glad

[Alien54]

I'm just glad that *someone* had an attack of good sense.

even though it is still a little dicey for the EU to start taking over such things on a continental basis.

As a contrast, imagine patent law in the USA if all 50 states had their own patent offices. It gets scary very quickly.

Re:Good news for North America

[Tarquin Sidebottom]

You seem to imply that socialism is wrong, and that is to ignore some of its positives. However I'm not about to declare that capitalism is wrong, as it too have advantages. The answer, as it always is, is somewhere down the middle - enough capitalism to reward excellence and hard work. Enough socialism to stop explotation and poverty.

Some good news at last!

[mikethegeek]

Nice to see that not all governments are entirely brain dead or totally owned by corporations.
There are too many stupid patents being granted. There's even a patent for using a flashlight/laser pointer to play with a cat! I kid you not.

Now the EC needs to strike down the horribly Tony Blair RIP bill that not only allows police to raid your computer for data, but makes it a crime not to hand over your encryption keys on request.

Good news, but only temporary

[kalifa]

This decision is actually only temporary. The EU is waiting for the end of a large consultation which should end december, 15. As such, the EU decided not to precipitate. But the issue is not solved yet.