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EU & US Patent "Syncing"
Christian Treczoks writes "Software patents are threatening Europe, too. The EC said "we want software patents to harmonize with the US", but the public - private persons and small to medium businesses - objected. So they made an "Analysis" of the replies.
Effectively, 91% are against patenting software, but, as the majority of the proponents are important business figures, it's a draw. " Mmmm...corporate interests. "Fun".
Furthermore, most European software vendors would like to sell there wares in the States, and to do so they must license the patents anyway.
If you had a patentable invention, I guarantee you it would be worth your time to have it patented. Individuals and small companies patent things *all the time*. Just because an inventor is lazy or is loath to excerise his intellectual property rights, it doesn't mean that he couldn't.
Agreed! And I would add - WELL DOCUMENTED SOURCE CODE IN A READABLE LANGUAGE. Pseudocode should qualify.
All open sourcers now have to rot13 their source code, which is then decoded just before compilation. Anyone who tries to look at the code to investigate a potential patent infringement is then guilty of a criminal circumvention and can be charged under the DMCA.
As somebody already pointed out, there was an organized effort to respond. Quoting from the Executive Summary of the analysis:
Now you can see where that 91% came from.
Oh, you meant that kind of organization. Well count me out.Depends on who the "world" is....
Quote: "A total of nearly 1450 responses were received before the closing date. These have been analysed by an independent contractor and summarised in a report which has been made available to the public."
;-)
It was stated on forum before, about how "independent" people believe this report was.
One contributor (jbennetto) says, "The terms "restrictive" and "liberal" themselves are judgemental, and skew the debate"
IMO it is indeed a bit more serious than that.
From the way the entire report is worded, it is obviously biased.
I wonder if they were 'guided' by big business - if you know what I mean
To use those terms as example - they completely switch the meaning of words:
The group that is for a more open and liberal approach - are called 'restrictive'.
The group that is for more closed and restrictive approach - are called 'liberal'.
Quote from report:
"Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented inventions"
P.S. The authorities know solution to trademark and domain conflict - it is on WIPO.org.uk
The answer to this is to develope a GPL-compatable Patent licence. then all the OSS developers can patent all thier Ideas like crazy, but the catch is that there would be no financial restricitons on use, even to big corperations (to help encourage its use). no need to worry about the corp using the code and not giving back because that is what the GPL is for. this patent would just be used to keep big corps from exploiting new technologies.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Any piece of software is a device to process data.
No it isn't. A device can't be copied without the expenditure of resources which are themselves property. Software can be copied at minimal cost, or even kept in one's brain. It can be broadcast through speach. It can be broadcast over the air waves.
Surely a patent for a device should contain details on the processing it performs, rather than just saying "this thing does stuff".
The difference is that software IS the description of the details on the processing it performs.
Property is something that there is a finite amount of (land, ore, etc.) While property can be created (cars, houses), it is created from other property. Copies of software does not require the usage of other property.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
Seeing how capitalism is the only economic policy that remains that has created societies worth a damn, why don't you crawl back under your socialist rock where you belong. Your ideas are tired and the evidence of their failure is evident in every country that has implemented them.
The WIPO Treaties (yes, there's more than one) call for the outlawing of the act of circumvention when performed for unlawful purposes. But it doesn't call for an outright ban on circumvention devices. That's a result of intense lobbying by the entertainment "industry". You can be Russia (also a WIPO "contracting party") won't be getting a DMCA.
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
I was thinking the same
I've overclocked my brain!!!
You raise some very good issues. I agree that in some special circumstances, the government may be, in effect, subsidizing its own research efforts by giving up patents and copyrights. Companies that see commercial potential in a research project will be motivated to compete, and this would generally have the effect of driving down costs.
a ct-us.html), . pdf) , pg 603)
Also, I by no means believe that all Federally funded research is "corporate welfare". Actually, under the right conditions, I think that funding research is one of the most important functions of government. Under the right conditions, research funding stimulates innovation, creates entire new sectors of the economy, and has the effect of breaking down monopolies that otherwise naturally arise in a capitalist system. By the "right condtions", I mean an economic climate that encourages small business start-ups, and a research policy that mandates the free exchange of ideas and scientific knowledge. Unfortunately, the trend in recent times is towards restricting information flow and encouraging corporate merger and consolidation. Both of these trends are inherently anti-competitive, and under these conditions government funding of research sometimes can be corrupted into a form of corporate welfare.
Finally, I want to address your statement below:
I would agree that the government funds a lot of research, especially in the form of grants to Universities in order advance technologies in certain areas, but this is only a small portion of the research that goes on in this country.
If we look at the broad category of total research and development, you are actually correct in that industry spends more than government:
(Weird Table Warning - Circumvention device for slashdot lameness filter protection. When numbers are lame, only lamers will have numbers)
(Note dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation)
Year, x, Total R&D, x, Fed Gov, x, Industry.
x, ($1 x 10E9), x, (%), x, (%).
1960, x, 13.711, x, 65.02, x, 32.94.
1980, x, 83.332, x, 36.04, x, 37.13.
1999, x, 247.000, x, 26.66, x, 68.55.
(Additional funding sources are Universities, Non-profits, and Non-federal governments)
(Source: US Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the U.S.:2000 (http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstr
Section 20, Science and Technology (http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/sec20
It is interesting to note that the proportion of total R&D performed by industry has increased dramtically over the past 40 years. It is not that government funding for R&D has decreased (since 1980, at least, in terms of real dollars government funding for R&D has increased by 34%),
rather, that corporate R&D spending has increased even more rapidly than government funding.
However, if we look at funding for basic research (not including product development costs and applied research), we see that the federal government still outspends industry:
(Note dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation)
Year, x, Total R&D, FedGov, Industry, Univ., Nonprofit, NonFed Gov
x, ($1 x 10E9), (%), x, (%), x, (%) x, (%), x, (%).
1993 x, 28.754, x, 57.1, x, 24.8 x, 7.9 x, 6.9, x, 3.3.
2000 x, 47.903, x, 48.7, x, 33.9 x, 7.7 x, 7.0, x, 2.8.
Proportionally, corporate funding of all basic research is increasing, but is still significantly less than federal funding.
Finally, it is interesting to look at which institutions are receiving the funding for basic research:
(Note dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation)
Year, x, Total R&D, FedGov, Industry, Univ., Nonprofit.
x, ($1 x 10E9), (%), x, (%), x, (%), x, (%).
1993 x, 28.754, x, 9.12 x,24.1 x, 57.8 x, 9.1.
2000 x, 47.903, x, 7.36 x,33.6 x, 49.0 x, 10.1.
(Source for the previous table: National Science Foundation,
National Patterns of R&D Resources: 2000 Data Update table 2A
Universities (and to a lesser extent, government labs) have been steadily losing their share of the total. Not surprising, as corporations tend to fund research internally.
That's an idea I've thought about, too.
However, the patents should not be licenced for free to everyone, only to those who release their source code under the GPL or other Open Source Licences.
Commercial organizations would have to pay for it - or trade in their patents.
This way, patents could be used to boost Open Source software.
Claus
So those people who are primary to developing software, the engineers, the programmers and the companies that pioneer new software approaches, are all against software patents. In other words, those whose intellectual work will be patented, are against patenting it.
Compared to the primary producers of software, lawyers, lobbyists, bueorocrats and corporate controllers, those who are secondary to the software are in favor of patenting software.
Those who didn't actually make the software want it patented, those who did, don't want it patented. This is a very messed state of affairs when the producers choose to give up these IP protections of what is really their intellectual property, though maybe not in a legal sense, and those who are leeches, who don't actually make it, want these patents. Obviously software patents are not made to help those who do the intellectual work, but the corporate interests. And the sad thing is, the leeches are winning.
Now, I'm not a major fan of Ayn Rand's ubercapitalist ideas, but her assement of the morality of leeches in Atlas Shrugged is pretty accurate, and useful here. The corporations are asking for government welfare to the rich, and that's a bad thing. This isn't the way that value gets added to a system, it's a way those who leech can keep their lower-value systems the standard. No sensible economic or moral philosophy is in favor of this, so why does everyone follow it? The only answer I can think of is greed and stupidity make an excellent team.
Erik
"You," Bite me.
"Each and every one of you." Bite me.
Have you read anywhere that it would criple it, in a scientific article ? I don't, on the contrary : some studies already show that it would give the economy a good stir-up. And even then : if nothing would be done against the environmental damages, the economy would criple anyway.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
i don't recall mentioning socialism
in fact i didn't mention _my_ ideas at all
you might want to study the many meaningful civilisations and their means of production/distribution
capitalism will collapse like all other systems because that's what systems do
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
a one click coke machine would either:
a) know who you are and your credit card or bank account numbers when you walked up so that you could press the button and get your coke.
b) have a coin/bill slot by each choice so that you didn't have to press the button.
modern vending machines are all two or three click these days: insert money, then press button(s).
It was discovered that the PDF had a virus..
..Oh, and that virus was protected by international copyright law. By spreading the virus without charge, you may run into some legal problems.
air and light and time and space
A much better example would be if I studied hard for an exam, and you were peeking over my shoulder at my answers because you didn't do the studying. Where your analogy falls apart is that your little bro didn't spend hours slaving over the idea to come up with it -- he probably found it by accident.
The reason we have patents is because it takes time and effort to do the research to come up with a new idea, and people who come up with these good new ideas deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.
Now it's definitely a good point to make that the current patent system in the US is broken, but to go to the opposite extreme would only break things differently -- it's the "I can make you forget about that headache by breaking your arm" strategy.
Don't jump to conclusions. If you read the first paragraph of the report, you'll see that 1200 out of the 1447 responses they received were from a Eurolinux petition drive - that's about 85% right there. It seems the submitter conveniently failed to mention that.
Governements policiy in matters which don't appeal direcly to citizens because they feel that they are not informed or think that these things too complicated for them are mainly done by lobbies and big corporation. This is a really sad state of affairs, and a lack of democracy.
>All software patents must include the FULL SOURCE CODE.
An important part of a patent is that you must teach everything about your invention so that a person can understand the entire invention. I'm sure there are patents that include source code, but many more include flow charts.
If the full invention is not described, then somebody screwed up. I suppose the patent could be invalidated if it was ever litigated.
The report does not include the most important reason why open-source folks are opposed to software patents: that the patents and open-source licenses are incompatible.
This is rather worrying. It may be obvious to us, but your average politician isn't going to be aware of that fact. It's a bit late now, but it's imperative that they understand this point.
I wrote a bit more about it on my website.
-- colin
Even if we could collect every penny from every man, women, and child from this earth we would still not have enough. Unions do not accomplish really anything but a threat to an employer to icnrease worker wages. Many are overpaid. The guys at McDonalds have the worst jobs in the world and these union members working in air-conditioned assembly plants with nothing but a hs education keep complaining that they only make 12/hr. Ohhh poor babies. Well they only hurt those working for 6/hr at a mcdonalds due to inflation in housing and living costs for those working at worse jobs.
I believe we need to elect smart politicians like American John McCain who can stand up to the system and try to change it. Many politicians hate greedy lobbiests but have no choice but to use them. Since lobbiests funds are increasing sky high, politicians are really concerned because every law they want to write or change will someone get in the way of a contributor. Many like John McCain are fustrated like hell and want to say enough is enough.
http://saveie6.com/
Any piece of software is a device to process data.
Surely a patent for a device should contain details on the processing it performs, rather than just saying "this thing does stuff".
Sometimes I get the feeling that "Open Source Advocates" are really regurgitated TeamOS/2'ers.
Now I like OS/2. I like Linux. I like FreeBSD. But I've run into MANY people who have the TeamOS/2 mentality, "It's the BEST, and you should just know it."
Ever play a game with a guy who always won, and always rubbed it in your face?
Sometime you gotta let the 'badguy' win a few, just to look good to your fans, and maybe win a few more over in the process.
I'm not saying this patent thing is a good thing, but you gotta give a little bit sometimes..
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I don't think so : in general, europe is being lead by something that lies in between socialism and kapitalism : with much backup's for the weakest in society, with as a result of which poverty is WAY lower in europe than it is in US, and there are much fewer horribly rich people, which is a good thing.
You do know what socialism is do you ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
This makes one wonder - should all patent laws be revised?
karma capped
The more you tighten your grip Tarkin...the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
So what exactly does your pithy quote mean in this context?
Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents Members - Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented inventions Members - Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies
Isn't it interesting that the groups of people which traditionally are responsible for the greatest amount of innovation are almost unanimous against the idea of software patentability. Yet the rhetoric used by the other groups to defend software patents always seems to revolve around "protecting the interests of those who innnovate". Are we really to believe that the segments of the population responsible for the greatest volume of innovation are that clueless as to their own interests and the interests of continued innovation?
Rome was never a democracy. It was a republic. The US is a democratic republic. The main idea of democracy is 1 person, 1 vote. In a republic, its voting for representatives who will then vote in your best interest. Either way, its not what we have now.
Although the centimetre is good and easy (based on tens not dozens etc), most folk here still think in feet and inches (Britain adopted the "newfangled" metric system/introduced decimalisation in 1969, or a few years before, whichever comes first) even if they were taught metric in school, because we've always worked on the imperial system before (roads still, however, use yard/mile measurements and cars are cheifly built to indicate speed in MPH). That's one of the reasons why the British don't like European ideas ;)
You were expecting a sig?
This first for Ida. She's a europeans against software patents too.
Eurolinux provided 1200 written responses from individuals along with the petition and the organization's response. However, most of the 1200 were very brief in me-too style.
While there is something to be said for harmonizing policies, I am not sure that it is in anyone's interest (other than that of large corporations) to use US laws as the basis of that standardization.
We cannot achieve a global concensus on REALLY important things like environmental issues (not that the politicians have ever really tried) and this is the sort of thing that they are working towards?
Ask yourself - does the world really need a global DMCA?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Obviously, the corporations will win this one. If anything, they have better (as in "more expensive") lawyers, and can lay the case in a form that will not even convince the government, but also the regular John Doe, that this is a good thing. ... whatever), but when we see it happening everyday ... ... but only when the regular John Doe had some other corporation backing him (in most cases, some media corporation).
Thats a regular history. In whatever for on shape (on Comunims, they are Political "Corporations"), the corporations hold the reins. And why should they think they should not ? After all, they are the ones that "elected" the politicians.
Yes, I know, that is quite a negative view to have about our government systems (capitalism, socialism, comunims
Oh yes, of course some Corporations have lost a few times
I'm not holding my breath. These patents will get through, and we will all suffer from it.
morcego
Isn't in interesting that the groups of people which traditionally are responsible for the funding of the greatest amount of innovation are almost unanimous in wanting to guarantee funding for more research?
the Amazon one-click thing is not bad because it's a software patent, right? it's bad because it's a patent on something that a lot of people here think is too simple to do, or already too common to be patent-worthy. right? the same with the LZW patent. people are more upset about the way Compuserve and Unisys handled the situation, not because LZW compression is somehow unworthy of IP protection. right?
people put thought into developing various processes; wether that process is physical or software-based should not matter, to IP laws.
of course i'm not talking about the moral validity of IP laws here. i'm only saying i see no reason why software should be any different than hardware under the current IP laws.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Typical slashdot: patents are bad! Boo to property rights!
/. and get back to hacking on .NET!
Fine, if property rights are so bad, I'll just take your car and bank account, okay?
Bill, stop reading
After all, couldnt somone else come up with a similar function, but using a different method? THAT is innovation, and that is the kind of innovation that traditional patenting fosters
I'd like to think you're right, but I'm afraid you're not.
Many years ago I talked to a visiting senior IBM researcher about patents, and he (rather proudly) gave some advice on them. "Many people fall into the trap of patenting the thing they invented," he said. "They think that what took all the work and what was new should be patented. No. You should patent the basic, fundamental thing that everyone must do to do any solution to your problem. Then there's no way around it."
It disheartened me then, and it still does now.
Jamie
Damn I wish I had some moderator points to through at this. Ahmen!
http://james.nontrivial.org
I would agree that the government funds a lot of research, especially in the form of grants to Universities in order advance technologies in certain areas, but this is only a small portion of the research that goes on in this country. How much do you think Intel invests in developing new processors. How about IBM and Lucent? The government has also moved away from simply funding research in many areas. In defense they don't usually fund resesearch, they pay for a product to be developed that they want. The companies that are developing the product do often end up with something they can develop into a commercial product and sell to other customers. However in this case, the government isn't usually getting ripped off. The company that is developing that product can bid the cost of the project lower than it costs them to develop it, and make back that money by selling the product commercially. That's why the government will pay for development on something, yet let the developer patent parts of the design. If they didn't they would have to pay considerably more in development costs. The government also gets to tax the company and their employees. So if the company does well, the govenment gets more money. This isn't "corporate welfare", it's the government working toward it's own best interests. Even the govenment has to invest money to get money back sometimes.
...I clean forgot to put in the <sarcasm> and </sarcasm> tags! Ya can't be too careful these days.
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Why didn't they organize a bunch of people to write in advocating for patents? Because they know they didn't have to. Why do that when you can just slip a few million under the table?
I mean a truly democratic organization of people working in the industry, joining together to work for our common interests. I would be opposed to anything else. If you are an employer, I can see why you would oppose such a thing -- because our interests don't always coincide with yours.This is, as I see It, just another step for the EU to become like the "big boys", the US..
IMHO the EU was founded just so that the politicians here in Europe wanted to play in the big boy's sandbox. The EU is a big load of politicians getting paid waay too much, and the member-countries pay lots of money every year to keep it alive.. Sometimes it seems like Finland is the only country that actually pays these member-fees and the rest just don't give a damn..
If this continues I'll buy a small island and make it a soverign state ;)
I cannot agree.
As a small software company owner and consultant, without the EuroLinux petition, I would have never heard about the consultation (which obviously didn't made it to mainstream media).
Big lobbying corporations with lots of IP lawyer, on the other end, where more aware of the subject.
The fact that most anti patent points of view came from EuroLinux is simply the sign that the consultation was not intented to be a democratic consultation of European individuals by a transparent transnationnal autority, but just an administrative tentative to validate an already made decision.
Ok. Who is the moron who marked this message flamebait?!? I only told the truth. One of those companys' CEO's publically said they were against software patents. Obviously, the truth MUST be flamebait.
Maybe we should have a test before allowing someone to become a moderator.
Rubbish. A friend of my aunt's here in the UK asked his prospective (eventual winner) MP about some controversial issue (not to do with 'puters) and was told that he should "stick it up your arse".
The papers were not interested.
Speaking as a researcher in Computer Architecture I find the idea software patents based on the system employed in the USA to be inherently bad. { Summary - US style software patents should not be implemented because.. @They patent ideas not methods resulting in overly broad patents which cut off research in the area. @The software industry moves too fast for a 20 year patent. @Contesting a bad patent is too expensive for all but the biggest corporations. @Applying patents would put european companies at a competitive disadvantage. @Copyright law is sufficient to protect most software. } This is mainly due to the overly broad specification of patents in an area which is little understood by the general public. In the USA software patents do not work in the same way as other patents. If I where to patent some worthy invention, for example a drug to cure cancer, I would have to describe its chemical structure and how it achieved its aim. This would not prevent other companies researching a method to achieve the same ends using a different chemical structure. However software patents only tend to describe what is done and not the method of achieving it. To continue my analogy this would be the equivalent of a pharmaceutical company simply patenting "a cure for cancer" instead of the method, thus excluding all other companies for the duration of the patent and effectively halting all research in the area, even if other companies could produce a much better chemical to achieve the same result. Even contesting such a patent would require enormous financial resources. Researchers, universities and most companies could not afford such an outlay, even if success was guaranteed. Many software patents actively retard innovation instead of promoting it by rewarding the inventors, protecting their creation while opening the design to the public. If we look at what happens when a patent expires we see many generic versions of the product becoming available. This could not happen with a US style software patent as nothing about the method by which the result is achieved is contained within the patent. Maybe this effect could be reduced by requiring an example (in computer programming code) to be submitted and stored with the patent to allow researchers in the field to understand (and possibly improve upon) the method involved. Furthermore, considering the speed of advancement in Computer Science having a 20 year patent for a software invention would be unnecessarily long. I would recommend a much shorter period for such a patent for example 5 years (as most software products go through 2 or more generations in this time). Implementing software patents within the EU could put many european software producers out of business due to frivolous patents granted in the USA. To allow such patents without a means of redress were they could be contested at little or no cost to the either party, would allow corporations within the USA to use their existing overly broad and non-innovative patents against european companies, effectively destroying any competition. Finally, copyright law as currently implemented should be sufficient to protect most software as it would allow for a different method to achieve a similar result. Copyrights do stopping simple copying or minor modifications by companies, therefore research is allowed to continue while outright piracy is prevented.
Physicists are said to stand on one another's shoulders while programmers stand on one another's toes.
- When a program is binary equivalent allthough compiled with a different source and does the same?
- When a program is binary different but compiled from the same source, and does the same?
- When a program is binary different and sourcecode different but does the same?
This is somewhat important for your story and unclear for me. I assume the second option, but I'm not sureNever underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
The strange thing is that the eurolinux petition claims more than 85000 (well, 85185 to be precise) signatures... I don't know how the consulting firm counts, but these alone are higher than 1447...
Of course, if they count only the people who sent in mails rather than simply signing the petition, then the firm may be nearer to the truth.
all the same, this is really really bad if they don't take my signature into account when calculating...
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
Almost 1200 of the 1447 responses came off of an online petition. Online petitions have as much credibility as a /. poll. What if MS sent out a company memo to all of their European employees to respond to this call for comments? Either way, it's astroturfing. (Ironic that this story follows the apology for astrotrufing.)
-sk
Take a look at the independent consultation run in the UK and its very different conclusions (I would go so far as to say much more sensible). If harmonisation were to be called for, Britain could create a stushio about it and kill it yet.
http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/concl usions.htm
Thirty years later, people will look back and be horrified to see how the patent system and the IP laws stifled innovations in science and technolgy and how it attempted to protect big corporate interests. Unfortunately, it will take that long for the society and the legal system to come to terms with this realization.
It looks like IBM thinks that the current EU standard regarding software patents should be used. (And if I am correct the EU standards are MORE RESTRICTIVE than the current US standards.)
But then again I could be worng.
The mentioned majority ids wuite a thin majority f 54%, but that's not the point. The problem is, that the EC seems to have forgotten who it is working for.
Many Important companys have lobbying representations there, but the people don't. The point is, that the majority of the people fears Software Patents and this is something the Comission should look at.
Check facts? What are your facts? Didn't you know that when arguing you're supposed to come up with some evidence or reasoning to support your argument? Go ahead, quantify...
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
I have had lots of patentable inventions.
Back when I was young and naive the company I worked for would put in patent applications for me and I was proud of it. I was principle inventor on 3 patents and a contributor on several others, and these were definitely not among the best of the ideas I have had
These were not things I would have patented myself, partly because these inventions were mostly pretty obvious to someone with the right facts at their disposal, but mostly because it was not a sensible economic bet.
Each full patent application costs several thousand dollars of patent attorney fees, several days of talking to the patent attorneys and explaining the ideas to them so they can translate it into inpenetrable legal jumble.
For someone with enough funds it makes sense to take out 100 of these if there is a good chance that one of them might eventually be worth several million dollars. However, even the useful patents are worth money if you can spare several hundred thousand dollars to defend them in a patent suit.
I have easily had 100 patents worth of software related ideas which would be patentable under the pathetic standards of USPTO. If I had enough funds, and ignored the moral issues, it would make sense for me to patent them. But it wouldn't make sense unless I had several hundred thousand dollars to spare.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Don't encourage that! Do you realize what you're saying? Having software patents is bad enough without having source code patents to go with them. If someone publishes their source code with a patent and it just happens to look like some code you just wrote, what happens then?
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Hell, he might have even had a patent on the concept of good programming.
Well, _that_ will stop microsoft.
The way things are going, it ought to get through.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
The workers control the means of production!
What I gleaned from the statistics is that those who are pro-patent don't actually contribute, but have jobs because of patents and the like, thus they are biased leeches. The pie charts in the report show this incredibly well. This, I think, is the real reason we shouldn't trust lawyers, because their buisness is helped by bad laws. Lawyers can offer a very good perspective on the effects of laws, and their validitity legally, but they are also going to be biased, and the ones who are patent lawyers or would submit their opinions are going to want effects of laws that are non-benifical to the creators of the works of intellect. Another thing you have to consider is that if this IS a moral issue, lawyers often have a large background on moral issues, that's why they don't have any. If you've ever known a really good policy debater, you can see an example, where people know alot, and ignore their knowledge because they know so much, they know so much is FUD; every side on any debate exaggerates and makes bigger deals out of things than they really are, and all facts are just one peice used to support a posistion, so facts don't really matter.
Erik
"You," Bite me.
"Each and every one of you." Bite me.
This is an interesting idea. Indeed, a patent needs to clearly document the process to which it applies.
However, patents apply to processes. So what if someone patents the process of writing code to encrypt/decrypt text using XOR, for example? I can definately see this as being a problem, especially when a large amount of investment is tied up in intellectual property. This leads to a situation similar to the availability of Reed-Solomon codecs, for example (generally implemented in un-reverse-engineerable silicon, and always requiring heavy licensing).
I should patent the process of depressing a shift key for the purpose of gaining access to other symbols on the keyboard... and then sue non-Free vendors for infringing on it (its hard to code in ANY language without the shift key)!
Paranoid
Bwaahahahahaa.
Your post shows the absurdity of software patents to begin with. They are either a buisness plan or a simple numerical algorithm. Alternate methods to the same ends should always be allowed and encouraged by patents. Alternate methods always exist in software. Software patents are always absurd.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The "inch", based on the size of three seeds of some plant (cant remember which) and hence not based on any constant and varies depending on the size of the seeds you find.
Or the "centimeter", based on the circumfrence of the earth divided by a million.
Yes this is a nice idea and could halt many broad patents. IANAL but I think you need to deposit the blueprints of any device or object if you want to patent it, the same should happen with software.
>After all, couldnt somone else come up with a
>similar function, but using a different method?
This is the central problem with patents as they are granted. In practice once a patent is granted it's very difficult to come up with a different program that has similar function. Witness the "one clik" patent. So in practice you end up patenting "EVERY" implementation and hence you patent the IDEA ! which is I believe impossible !!
There are several major differences between software and hardware(physical mechanisms) that are revelant when it comes to IP. The first one is what software patents contain, as opposed to what hardware patents contain. A hardware patent will give you all the nessecary knowledge to build that peice of hardware. This is the primary reason patents exist in the first place, progressive statesmen instituted the patent system so that machines would be shared for the good of humanity, but those who would invent these processes would be rewarded for this contribution. Patents would encourage inventors to release their inventions, in their entirety, to the general public, without fear of having their ideas stolen.
Software patents do not follow this model. Software patents don't have to tell someone how to build the software, they just have to stake a claim to a process, how it is achieved is unimportant. Thus, if someone writes a code that, going about it comepletely differently, does what a microsoft program does, they are violating the software patent. This is contrary to the purpose of hardware patents.
A good example of this can be found in the area of pharmecutical patents, which is not the most perfect of patent areas, but still a hardware type patent. Prozac, the popular happy drug is a seratonin reuptake inhibitor, and the company that makes it has until just recently had a patent on their drug. But that didn't prevent Zoloft, Paxil and a host of other drugs that also are seratonin reuptake inhibators also come out on the market, acheiving the same results with a different chemical combination, this can't happen with Software patents. Now that Prozac is coming down off of patent, a host of generic prozac-clones are springing up, if some patented software with closed source came down off patent, they wouldn't be immediatly replicated by a host of generics using the same process to acheive the same result, becuase Software patents don't disclose the workings of the software.
There are more issues than just this one, but this is a primary failing of the system.
Erik
"You," Bite me.
"Each and every one of you." Bite me.
> seems that the commission has already sided in favor of software patents.
If you get that from the summary, try skipping to the last two pages. They point out that there are already 20,000 Euro-software patents, and that the commission needs to make us all aware of how wonderful they are.
And what should the EU do? Among other things, "Make a public announcement to the effect that it supports the current EPO practice regarding the granting of patents on computer-implemented inventions." In other words, despite the fact that 91% of the responses oppose them, the "majority" (!) supports them so go ahead.
But there's good news! They do have a proposal to limit patent abuse: "Major players should refrain from ruthlessly exploiting opportunistic patents such as hyperlinks." We can all stop worring now, because the pro-patent committee just laid down the law: don't abuse patents, or else they'll, um... ask you very nicely not to.
And what justification do they have for ignoring opponents? "...the radical nature of their proposals would require substantial negotiation if the Commission were minded to pursue a restrictive policy regarding software patents." In other words, they're already heading down the track, and they have no intention of turning around.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
In the next election.. let's all vote UK Independance Party and be done with all this European stuff :). Britain can only take so many silly French ideas (the metric system and the single European currency for example).
Yeah, I hate European policy.
You were expecting a sig?
Now I won't be able to unmount a disc without paying a license fee!
FYI, Adobe is based in San Jose, California, US of A.
-dair
The terms "restrictive" and "liberal" themselves are judgemental, and skew the debate, at least from a business point of view. They imply that the anti-patent side is in favor of tight regulation, while the pro-patent side is in favor of free markets (using "liberal" in the European, rather than American, sense).
Nothing could be less true. Patents are about the government regulating and limiting the use of technology for the benefit of one person or company. Yes, they provide an incentive to innovate and share infomation, but (taking the pro-business argument) such drastic government regulation of the market should be weighed carefully against the costs.
Businesses, with only a few special-purpose exceptions, should be our friend on this one. They shouldn't want the government enforcing (seemingly) arbitrary monopolies any more than we do.
If software patents are so good, I'll take your car and bank account because they happen to look like mine.
(referring to the fact that independently implementing an idea is a patent violation, and the onus is on you to prove that the patent is invalid, e.g. obvious. Thus you can be forbidden from using an idea you came up with yourself.)
Take what you get for responses and send it off to your papers along with your opinion on why their stand, or lack thereof, is a good or bad thing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
you're not a true white european! you're a race traitor.
Software is not property.
Ideas are not property.
"Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." -- Thomas Jefferson
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
For myself I think that some sotware patents are just plain silly. What about the amazon one click buy patent, that is just stupid. (Not really differnt from pressing the coke button on a vending machine.)
I think the problem is that the people that looks trough the patent applications in some cases have no clue on what they are reading. Hence a large number of stupid patents slip trough. Did you hear about that Russian compay that managed to patent the use of a regular bottle?
One idea would be to make all patent applications public availabe, that way anyone could send the patent officials their input if they thought the patent was faulty. Only problem with this approch would be if a patent didn't go trough because of some minor detail, and sombody precived this and send in another application. But that would really be a minor problem in contrast to what's happening right now.
--
Slashdot signature: 'Laugh assist to nerd'
You're just jealous because you have 12 karma points and I have 48. Sellout!
Got Rhinos?
Put another way, you buy a screwdriver from Stanley. You don't like the screwdriver, so you modify it to suit your needs. You share your screwdriver modification technique to your friends. Stanley now sues you because you modified their tool. This is how patent law is applied to open source projects.
See how stupid that is?
THEY are out to get you. Beware of black choppers and remember to always wear a tinfoil coverage on your nose.
In fact, we're already seeing it in a few cases. RSA's public-key patents are an obvious example. Three years ago a lot of people were livid about the restrictions those patents placed on developing crypto software. Now the patents are over and we have software like OpenSSL which are better than the commercial alternatives. (Granted, development of much of this software started long before the RSA patents expired, but the point is, nobody is worried about these supposedly horrible, disastrous patents any more.)
Obviously 20 years is a long time in the software biz, but the point is, it's not forever, and the situation will improve over time even if the bad guys win.
Obviously 20 years is a long time in the software biz, but the point is, it's not forever, and the situation will improve over time even if the bad guys win.
You assume Free Software can survive, much less compete, in a world where the basic building blocks for software are patented and locked away for twenty years at a stretch. I am not at all certain this is true, and while a renaissance might become possible in twenty years (when many of us will be nearing retirement), it does not in any way diminish the coming dark ages such as victory for "the bad guys," as you so quaintly put it, might well entail, much less the two-decades of economic destruction such anti-competative monopolies will wreak upon the both so-called "new economoy" and the existing economy alike.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Hey, the US isn't "someone," we're a whole nation of self absorbed assholes! Or at least a nation run by them... ;)
China and other parts of Asia seem to be doing well enough.
"The French find it difficult enough to keep their language."
Then they should blame themselves for shooting themselves in the foot in 1066. It's OK for them to butcher our language until we're stuck with one of the most complex languages on the planet, but turnabout isn't fair play?
"The European Superstate will no doubt crumble and nearly all pretence to be in the interest of European citizens will continue to crumble."
Perhaps, but I see no reason to believe that this will be for economic reasons. In fact, I'm not sure where you're getting this argment from...
"With standard of life being assumed to correlate with GNP we are in an awful spiral of more work less life as our leaders persue the self-destructive path of increased productivity."
What exactly are you advocating? You're against increased productivity, so are you for artificial shortages and state-run monopolies? When last I checked, even the PRC is getting out of the pure command economy idea.
"Short term politics ensures that short term gains in GNP are the policies enacted upon and not the long sighted welfare of the nation."
Welcome to democracy. Long-term planning don't get you short-term votes. I realize that a number of economists and historians have tied together economies and the "greatness" of nations, but economy and the government are still separate entities (one much more intangible than the other). This isn't special relativity we're talking about here.
"And we can blame this on capitalistic thinking and being at the mercy of the futures, currency and stock markets."
Maybe I'm misinterpreting things, but that last one makes you sound like a devout communist.
I'll post this even if it means that the EuroPol will knock my door down this night.
There are no "elections" in Europe. There are only local elections. In these elections people choose representatives to the European Parliament. Unfortunately this "parliament" does not have any legislative power. All power is concentrated in the hands of the European Commission which is not a democratically elected body.
How else do you think this "socialist" Europe would still stand?!
Of course, the one with less money automatically loses. If Amazon patents "one click sales" and some small web store in the UK has the same patent, I wonder who will get the "global" patent?
I'm not an expert on legal matters, but if prior art means that if someone has done it before, and has it documented, you can't patent it, then let's continue cranking out ideas for OSDN.
I figure they don't have to be well implemented, just thught up and documented. That way the OSDN sites can (if not already) be a source for prior art searches.
Actually, we could just have a Open Ideas Network that would allow other people (who maybe can't program well) just describe their ideas and have people volunteer to start or continue on software for that idea......just dreaming.
- - This space intentionally left blank.
Things like Amazon's one click method aren't very clever or original and shouldn't receive much (if any protection). However, if someone were to come along and produce a cold-fusion device, this would be a wonderful thing, and the creators work should be protected. In reality, most patents today are just examples of someone winning the engineering race, and giving them a 20 year monopoly isn't fair to those who could engineer the same thing without much effort.
We should be working toward a peer review process to determine what amount of time is fair. I suspect that companies would realize that most of the patents they're getting for ridiculous "inventions" wouldn't be worth the time to file once the process is in place.
Patent protection for important advances is just. Patent protection for simple engineering is unfair to other engineers who could have easily developed the same thing.
You may want to compare the standards of living of capitalist countries to those of non-capitalist countries. You'll find that those with either completely centralized (socialist) or completely non-centralized (anarchist) live hand to mouth in primitive agrarian societies.
Your "meaningful civilizations" comment is wholly meaningless. *Every* meaningful civilization was economically capitalistic. The concept of communal societies was certainly thought of and practiced long before Marx appeared, but never spread beyond small, uninteresting tribes (where it actually worked well, within the tribe structure). But when humans interact for mutual benefit they need to exchange something, whether it be through money or barter. Such a system naturally produces a social hierarchy, which those at the bottom feel oppressed. And that has been going on forever.
So no, as a system, Capitalism hasn't collapsed.
At least if EU syncs pantents with the US there will be less ambiguity in international law, and it may even cause some foreign policy pressures against bad pending and future US software patents...
"Even the Devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes" - William Shakespeare
It would be nice to take a different stand here in Europe but with so much US influence we find it difficult to fight the US owned corporations.
The French find it difficult enough to keep their language.
The European Superstate will no doubt crumble and nearly all pretence to be in the interest of European citizens will continue to crumble.
With standard of life being assumed to correlate with GNP we are in an awful spiral of more work less life as our leaders persue the self-destructive path of increased productivity.
Short term politics ensures that short term gains in GNP are the policies enacted upon and not the long sighted welfare of the nation.
And we can blame this on capitalistic thinking and being at the mercy of the futures, currency and stock markets.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Merely reading the executive summary, it seems that the commission has already sided in favor of software patents. This is probably a combination of the influence of the pro-patent side, the somewhat neutral or negative view of open source advocates, and potentially immature responses on the part of open source and free software advocates. We could definitely learn some lessons on how not to advocate our position in the future.
At the same time the review appears to have a very negative view of the anti-patent side. Opposition is limited to a three or four word summary (at best), and the Eurolinux coalition's work is somewhat summarily dismissed as a "petition" (quotes from original document). And for chrissake's people, when writing to an important review like this, don't resort to childish tactics like "Micro$oft"; it just gives the other side opportunity to point out (possibly correctly, at times) what a childish bunch those open source freaks are.
Overall, I'd like to applaud EuroLinux for organizing the petition. In the grand scheme of things it may not have made that much of a difference, but we do need to keep trying.
-jdm
So, didn't you use "Crapobat" to obtain this to begin with? So everyone reading it is using Reader by proxy. Even if you used Ghostscript, you still used Adobe protocol. Karma whore.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
The translation of "fun" in both Chinese and Vietnamese is shit. Appropriate.
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
I had the same situation when I was younger except my brother and I stuck to the principal that only the inventor could use a particulat peice of witty banter. We found that without this protection out arguments were always bland because there was no competitive force behind them. Maybe patents are childish in the sense that even kids can figure out their purpose...
"Even the Devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes" - William Shakespeare
Unfortunately "Europe" (or this corporate republic that is actualy the so called "European Union") is _NOT_ a democracy. Two of the most important political and economical institutions, I mean the European Comission (a sort of central guvernement) and the Central Bank of Europe (the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in US) virtualy escape at any form of democratic control. (They are, theorically, responsible to the council of ministers of the european member states but not to any elected assembly) The only elected body that is the European Parliament has in fact so few powers that it barely can influence the decision process for any regulatory act in the EU. The fact is, IMHO, that industry lobyists (I mean by this the very large multinational companies and not necessarly those homed in Europe) can influence much more easily the european comission than say an industrial loby in US trying to infuence whatsoever bill ..
So, YES, software patents WILL be adopted in Europe, it's a question of months ..
I still believe that software patents are stupid, but your argument is flawed.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
Please start realizing what they are doing. This is a global government. They are doing this with the DMCA and now patents. It won't just be the EU either.
WTO + WIPO = DMCA
http://www.anti-dmca.org
Yes, I know that's just one quote, not "some quotes", I wanted to comment on another as well, but someone else was faster then me so I removed it after previewing.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Fine, have software patents, no problem, on one condition. All software patents must include the FULL SOURCE CODE. You wouldnt patent a steam engine simply by saying "well you heat up a liquid, and eventually it turns a shaft" That could apply to everything from steam turbines to the damn drinking bird. The source is the inner workings of your software, and no patent should be complete without it. After all, couldnt somone else come up with a similar function, but using a different method? THAT is innovation, and that is the kind of innovation that traditional patenting fosters. A patent on a specific type of steam engine means that either you liscence the patent, or you go out and you invent one that does the same thing in a different way, maybe even a better way. And god forbid we have beter software. Full source code or no software patents. You might as well patent a buisness plan otherwise.
i've heard adobe is a german company. how does that fit into your argument? the us government, for better or worse, is handing out patents indiscriminantly. that means without regard to the origin of the company/individual applying. more US companies may be applying, but that's a completely different situation. anyway, IANAPC (patent clerk) - and i'm not european, so this doesn't matter to me. being in the US, the IP situation couldn't be much worse than it is right now.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
"Hmm - there seems to be a lot of responses against patents. Let's drop the ones from those Open Source nuts... There's still too many. Ok, so now drop all those sent to us indirectly. Yes! Look everyone! A majority of people support patents!"
Another example is in the pie charts showing the proportion of each type of organisation in each group. SME are 16% against and 13% in favor off patents. They say "It is interesting, however, to note that the proportion of SMEs is similar in each case." This gives the impression that SMEs are evenly split. Given that the number of responses against patents dwarfed those in favor, this really means that SMEs were similarly heavily opposed to patents!
There was also the matter of the report categorizing patent opponents as "younger". This makes it easier for people to dismiss the opinions of those opposed to software patents.
"This has enabled Europe to rapidly advance from a relatively "backward" position with respect to the US in software to relative parity,"
You are dreaming here.
Europe software industry is not even close to US let alone in parity.
Check your facts before you post this nonsense.
I'd say if you get a new idea, you have one week to exploit it and then it's public domain.
Patent Laws, have the potential to move us into the high tech version of the dark ages, where science ceases to move forward for fear of persecution from the church...er I mean corporations.
besides writing my congressman, I see civil disobediance as the best way to resist this. I don't have the time or resources to loby congress because I have to make a living and barely do that well. Companies HIRE POEPLE to work on lawmakers FULL TIME. how can this reflect the vote of the people?? please hackers, keep on hacking, break those codecs and protocols wide open and save the future of humanity!!!
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
"If you don't protect yourself with available laws, who do you think is going to?"
Maybe we need to realize that the law isnt going to protect us and we need to start taking our protection into our own hands?
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
And considering I will never be in "fair market" position to sell my software like Microsoft does, how is any patentability helpful to anyone except companies who have large war chests and near-monopolies?
Until the focus of innovation is understood to be Intellectual Process and not Intellectual Property, we will remain in a legal morass under the thumbs of corporate giants.
Too bad more big corps aren't politicized AGAINST sw patents. Back in the Iron Age IBM led the charge against sw patents, rationalizing that they could make their money in hardware if they could more easily incorporate ideas from other's software. Today many businesses are in a similar situation, but they're not lobbying effectively in their own interest.
Well here in Ireland we will be having an election in the next year or so ... guess what the canvassers to my house will be asked about ... software patents, reverse engineering, government expenditure on proprietary software (including training), fair use and internet censorship/monitoring. I am sure not one will be able to convince me they have a clue but it will be fun to see them try!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I take it you are trying to imply that, since corporations are responsbile for funding the greatest amount of "innovation", their strong support of the current patent laws is justifiable based on a valid economic interest in getting a fair return on their investment, and this in turn supplies the incentive for continued funding of research.
One problem with this view is that the premise is flawed: in the US, the federal government, not corporations, are the source of the vast majority of research funding. Corporations often leverage the reuslts of this research into proprietary form, so that, in effect, government research funding oftentimes constititutes a form of "corporate welfare".
( Unless you are using the term "innovation" in the sense commonly attributed to MicroSoft, i.e stealing ideas.)
No. Your impressions are a little mistaken. Your property rights are bad.
Dancin Santa
...But some are more Equal than others.
- George Orwell, Animal Farm.
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
It was clear that the group opposed to software patents (91%) numerically dominated the
response. A large proportion of this group was explicitly from the "Open Source" movement
including the Eurolinux "petition". 54% of responses that were sent directly to the
Commission and were not from explicit "Open Source" respondents, supported software
related patents.
100% of the responses that were not explicitly against software patents, supported software patents.
Maybe we need to realize that the law isnt going to protect us and we need to start taking our protection into our own hands?
You mean killing people who try to copy your ideas? What kind of wacko are you?
Has he gotten a tan lately? He's looking healthier than before.
wow, I didnt know the United Sates was a "soemone"
dipshit.
I think the U.S. should sync up with Europe. We should drop software patents to match up with Europe.
They even tried to patent Nietzsche lately !!!
But as every Slashdotter knows:
Nietzsche is dead !
If Europe is foolish enough to go along with the United State's efforts in "harmonizing" US and European patent law by essentially submitting to the American approach they will be handing the United States an unassailable advantage in the software marketplace.
Think about it. Which country has been bending over backwards handing out as many patents on software, business models, and the like as possible, as quickly as possible, and what percentage of those patents have been going to American firms such as Microsoft, Amazon, Dolby, and Adobe? The vast, vast majority.
Should Europe recognize American software patents virtually every European software house will find itself in violation of US software patents of one sort or another virtually overnight. If France, Germany, or the UK think they have a tough time competing against the likes of Microsoft now, just wait until the European Commission gives them this big club to whack them over the head with.
Europe currently enjoys a huge competative advantage over the US in not having its software industry tied up in litigation and government sponsored monopolies the way ours is. This has enabled Europe to rapidly advance from a relatively "backward" position with respect to the US in software to relative parity, and could be leveraged to outstrip us dramatically in the future. It would be profoundly stupid of the European governments to give such an advantage away, particularly to someone as powerful, and as self-absorbed, as the United States.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
And believe me, we know how to treat you. Here you Nazi scum won't get any constitutional protection...
You see, we have learnt our lesson: not all idealogues should be tolerated.
This story was on /.'s front page, and now is gone. There are two comments from more than an hour ago, and no more. Whats going on?
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
... file my patent global on .pdf viruses?
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
Reminds me of me and my brother when we were kids. We were playing video games, and my brother found some trick (dunno exactly what is was) that made it easier to complete the game.
he told my I could not use that trick because he was the one who 'invented' it.
offcourse this resulted in a fight in which I kicked his ass (I am 2 years olders *evil grin*)
Final Report by PbT Consultants
Under contract number PRS/2000/A0-7002/E/98
THE RESULTS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
CONSULTATION EXERCISE
ON
THE PATENTABILITY OF COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED
INVENTIONS
PbT Consultants Ltd
Ramswin House
Lombard Street
Orston
Notts NG13 9NG
UK
(?+44 1949 851519
stewdav@attglobal.net
Mobile +44 7767 355223
0. Executive Summary
Introduction
On 19 October 2000, the European Commission, DG Internal Market, launched a consultation on the subject, "The Patentability of computer-implemented inventions". The aim of the consultation was to seek the views of interested parties, the public at large and Member States in order to help the European Commission formulate a policy that strikes the right balance between promoting innovation through the possibility of obtaining patents for computer implemented inventions and ensuring adequate competition in the market place.
DG Internal Market produced and made available on its web site a consultation paper that invited comments by 15 December 2000 on the preferred scope and economic impact of harmonisation in the area of computer implemented inventions. The paper contained a number of proposed "Key Elements" for a harmonised approach to the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in the European Community.
The Response
A total of 1447 responses were received, amounting to around 2500 pages of text. The largest single element in the response was a "petition" organised by the Eurolinux Alliance who had requested responses to be sent to themselves for forwarding to the Commission. Almost 1200 such responses were forwarded along with the response from the Alliance itself. Eurolinux is an alliance of over 200 commercial software publishers and European non profit associations with the goal to promote and protect the use of Open Standards, Open Competition and Open Source Software such as Linux. Responses were received from individuals and organisations in all EU and EEA member states apart from Liechtenstein , various CEEC countries, the US, Australia and South Africa.
The Scope of Harmonisation
The consultation paper asked the following questions:
- Should harmonisation take place on the basis of the elements contained in this document? Or:
- Should a more restrictive approach be adopted? Or, conversely:
- Should more liberal conditions coming closer to the practice in the United States of America prevail in the future?
Almost all of the responses fell into one of the following two distinct groups:
Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents Members Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies Concerns Threats to the open-source movement and SMEs, lack of patenting resource and expertise, fear of litigation, negative impact on standards for interoperability
Proposals Severely restrict the patentability of software Limit infringement liability for "open-source" software Reject all business method patents
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented inventions Members Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies, Concerns Protection of development investment, equality with the US, opening up of global markets
Proposals Harmonise the application of European Patent Office practice Apply patentability criteria to software that are slightly more liberal than those proposed in the Commission consultation paper Take extreme care with patenting of business methods
It was clear that the group opposed to software patents (91%) numerically dominated the response. A large proportion of this group was explicitly from the "Open Source" movement including the Eurolinux "petition". 54% of responses that were sent directly to the Commission and were not from explicit "Open Source" respondents, supported software related patents.
If account is taken of the economic muscle and number of organisations represented by responses from industry and other associations it can be argued that there is an "economic" majority in favour of patents on computer-implemented inventions.
On the other hand, those opposed to software patents would claim that due to the size and fragility of their organisations, they require support. They would also claim that it is only the "open-source" movement, e.g. Linux, that can effectively take on the "Micro$oft"s of this world.
Ultimately, the weighting of the two points of view is a political matter.
The Impact of Harmonisation
The consultation paper asked for comments on the impact of the respondents' preferred scope of harmonisation under the following headings:
Innovation in software and underlying knowledge and techniques
All but the most radical of respondents agreed that innovation was fostered by patents in other areas of technology. However, those opposed to software patents claimed that software technology was sufficiently different to justify a different approach. Both the nature of the technology itself, for example, the incremental nature of the development process and the existence of a supposedly unique business model, i.e. open-source, were cited as key differentiators of the technology.
Impact on SMEs
Opinions were divided on whether the impact of software related patents was negative or positive on SMEs. Little hard evidence was provided of business failures or patenting triumphs, apart from Stac v Microsoft where an SME successfully sued Microsoft for infringement of a software patent.
Got Rhinos?
New elections in Europe, methinks.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Thanks for the quote...
I'll try to get a lot of milage out of that one...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I don't know much about the EC... but what about some of the European countries that I think have had much better technology laws (Scandinavia comes to mind)? Is this the sort of thing that they will basically be forced into agreement with, if they disagreed? Ahh, well. The States ownz the world, and this is just the next logical step.
Never, ever underestimate the power of a boycott. Ask the folks at Smith & Wesson. The company made guns for almost 150 years. Everything was OK until the gun industry got whacked with "product liability" lawsuits because of criminals using guns. Somehow this became the manufacturers' problem. To make a long story short, S&W made an ill-fated agreement with the US government. This triggered a massive backlash, which included a boycott led by the NRA. The government agreement was useless in stopping the lawsuits, but the boycott was very effective at killing the company. In fact, S&W was sold for pennies on the dollar to some other company. The CEO who made the deal is now running a lawn mower company, and the NRA may decide to expand the boycott to include the lawn mowers also!
Donald Knuth invented some of the most important computer algorithms in the early 60's. If he had patented them then, computer science research would have grinded to a halt. Searching, sorting, databases, he did it all. Hell, he might have even had a patent on the concept of good programming. http://sunburn.stanford.edu/~knuth/
The problem is that while the "industry leaders" are organized to fight for their own interests, those of us that work for these "leaders" are not organized. Rather than spouting off as individuals, if we joined together and used our collective economic power, we can turn the tables. We are the ones that create and run the computers and software that this is all about, and if we join together, we can shut it all down.
Yeah, I know a lot of managers will flame me for talking union, but it is our only hope.
Maybe we can find a patent on syncing somewhere...
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
From the article:
From our research we conclude:
There is no evidence that European independent software developers have been unduly affected by the patent positions of large companies or indeed of other software developers. (We return to this point below when discussing the position in the USA.)
European independent software developers are making disproportionately little use of the patenting possibilities open to them compared with the use made by large companies and by US SME and even independent software developers.
There is increasing but still relatively low use by European independent software developers of patents in raising finance or in licensing i.e. in getting an invention through to being an innovation of benefit e.g. to consumers.
There is considerable evidence of concern by European independent software developers about the potential effects of patents on the development of computer program related inventions.
If you don't protect yourself with available laws, who do you think is going to?
Dancin Santa
It also takes time. Large corporations have lots of money to burn and they have people who's sole job it is to burn money by buying patents.
Individuals and small companies don't have those luxuries.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
That is a very good point, but Brussels is to lobbying in Europe, what Washington in th US. Many commercial lobbyists are already in place and the number is increasing, unfortunately we don't have so much in the way of non-commercial interests like an EFF for Europe.
I've got a syncing feeling about this.
Sorry.
Isn't it nice how the report"explains" how EuroLinux carefully advised opponents on how to write their objections, what arguments to use etc.?
"Extracts from this guidance that were frequently found in the responses or appeared to influence the responses [...]".
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
but they're wicked hard to write, and doing so would take so much time. But no one has a patent on a "left outer join" yet so I'll just describe the idea, whip up some bullshit examples of what the code might look like if I ever got around to writing it, and as soon as I get Pending status I'll send out dozens of letters demanding millions in licensing fees to companies like Oracle, IBM, and Microsloth. Then it's off to the Carribean for early retirement.
meh... not so hot.... how about:
from the new-world-order dept.
from the corporate-puppet-governments dept.
from the consumer-rights-what-consumer-rights dept.
from the act-now-learn-later dept.
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
...but read the PDF, look at the 4:th page, third paragraph after the text boxes. See the work Micro$oft there? (I'm not saying it's weird MicroSoft is mentioned, I'm saying it's funny that they spelled it Micro$oft) methinks they had to read a lot of Open Source opinions on this one.
(Let's see if anybody else here understands what I'm talking about, or calls their palm a 'pilot' out of old-timerness.)
> If Europe is foolish enough to go along with the United State's efforts in "harmonizing" US and European patent law by essentially submitting to the American approach they will be handing the United States an unassailable advantage in the software marketplace.
My only remaining hope is that the USA's recently enhanced bad habit of telling the rest of the world that it isn't going to go along with the plan, will cause some backlash in other countries, which may then punt on software patents just as a way of telling the USA where to stick it.
Alas, I'm sure the home-grown robber-baron wannabes will outweigh any such anti-imperial sentiments.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Look at the record. How much of software innovation was pre-, say, -1985? Wasn't it pitiful how no one invented assembly language, compilers, recursion, graphics routines, &c., &c., until such ideas were protected not just by copyright, but by patent? Didn't it suppress the inventiveness of thousands of programmers, until they felt free, knowing they could finally receive just compensation for their skull-sweat?
Of course it did! Just plot the number of software patents against a timeline, and look at that exponential curve! The graph shows that once things were patentable, ideas sprang up on every keyboard, and have been coming up faster and faster ever since.
<sigh> And programming used to be so much fun...
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
the official info is here
a good example of how TRIPs can be a Bad Thing is here
dense analysis in small font size is here
don't like how any of that sounds? fight it. come to kanaskis g8 2002. info here
2 1337 4 u!
Because in the digital relm, most everything done in hardware can be done in software also.
Did msft pay the inventor of the modem, when they made a software modem?
Quick follow your own advice and shoot yourself before someone else does it for you!
I think that software patents could be acceptable but only if there was a way to effective search for prior art. The current US patent office can only search a limited number of sources for prior art. These include their patent application database as well as the library of congress. In the 1800's that made sense but now thats not true and there isn't a way to fix it without going to external sources which could leak out info on what the examiner was researching.
One thing that would break the current string of bad patents would be to submit something like googles database as a "researched prior art" reference. Once its listed in one patent application, then it can be used to research prior art on others. The problem is how to get google to submit a paten on something and include a reference to 1e9 web pages.
You are misinformed on several accounts.
First of all, most nations had no intention of ratifying Kyoto until after the planned summit where nations would come to an agreement about how to interpret the treaty and enforce the details. That was supposed to happen in Hague last year but due to disagreement was postponed. But the agreement finally came through in Bonn a few weeks ago and now the governments are indeed preparing for parliamentary ratification. The timetable differs between nations but the EU has said it is aiming for full ratification before a summit next year.
As for "crippling" the economy, this can be debated. Clearly there will be a short term economic hit, but that is the price we -- as in all industrialized nations -- must pay for making a mess of the environment and our own future living conditions. The more we postpone it, the more potential human suffering and long-term economic problems we will face.
As the referring page states, this was an analysis of the replies by an independant contractor so I think it's premature to say what the EU commision's views will be (and don't forget that the council and usually the EU parliament too must also pass the commision's proposals for them to become law).
As for the points you make about how to advocate, I couldn't agree more. I reacted to the "Micro$oft" quote in the report too and it makes a really bad impression.
I couldn't agree more.
Your interpretation of the word "democracy" is very US-centric and one that I think most people would not agree with. Certainly, the original Greek-derived word merely implied that the common people are in control. And in modern usage "democracy" is taught to be either direct or representative. The western nations all belong to the second category. Whether they are also a republic, monarchy etc is usually irrelevant.