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.

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."

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.

[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

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.)

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.