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Information Patents in the US and Europe
Over_and_Done writes "First Monday has an article up discussing the differences in information process patents between the US and Europe. The author mentions that the United States reform is too focused on process reform, arguing that they should be instead focusing on what is and is not patentable (i.e. Business Method patents). He also states that Europe is choosing to instead follow a different track, and make the process a little more restrictive, resulting in a rift between the US and Europe. The article raises a lot of interesting facts that I was not aware of, including the incident where the US threatened to walk out of the WIPO
meeting because the proposed treaty did not 'mandate patents for all fields of activity.' The author, although critical of the policies on both sides of the pond states that the rift is in some ways healthy, as it encourages an open debate and requires people to look at the patent issue from many different angles."
I have a patent on writing comments on a news story for the purpose of discussion, and Slashdot doesn't have a license to use my technology.
US threatened to walk out of the WIPO meeting because the proposed treaty did not 'mandate patents for all fields of activity.' Just like the U.S. pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty since Bush "will not accept a plan that will harm our economy." Or, just like the U.S. is "upholding international law" by walking out on the U.N. when an absolute mandate for war was not immediately and unconditionally accepted.
The patent hijinks in the US in recent years seems to highlight the strong nexus between government and business in America. Intellectual Property has been willingly converted from a protective 'shield' designed to foster innovation into a 'sword' to strike down competitors. The most obvious example is the various startup companies who have no actual products, just a patent, and who proceed to work their way up the food chain suing others for patent infringement or demanding royalties.
As a non-American, it seems logical to me that you should expect your government to make a conscious decision before a legal doctrine should undergo such a transformation. Instead, you have a situation where business has made the decision and then gradually weaselled it into law through undue influence of your executive (patent office) and parliamentary government.
Reforming your patent laws might help this particular problem, but if you want a long term solution to this kind of crap then some more fundamental separation of private and public interests is in order. Campaign finance, political donations, and restrictions on the activities of lobby groups might be a good start...
Read Pynchon.
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I was with them until this point.
I stole this Sig
"I believe should be patentable are Algorithms and Scientific Ideas"
Algroithms and scientific ideas should not be patentable. Patent law in the U.S. was orginally designed to 'stimulate invention and creativity.' The law was designed as a social contract, we will give you the exclusive rights to such and such an invention in exchange for you publically announcing not only that you have invented this but detailing how it works. The idea behind this is that you benefit somewhat from legal monoply while the public beenfits from having a new idea out there, one which it was assumed by the creaters of the law would be built upon and surpassed by better inventions by the time the patent ran out. The monolply that coems with a patent was only tolerated so that new ideas would be open to the public and creativity would flourish(not just by you but by the public since they could now view the patent.) However, we increasingly see people patenting things, not to stimulate craetivity and new ideas, but rather to supress craetivity and to prohibit people from building on inventions.
Now we come to algorithms and scientific ideas. Imagine if Djkstra patented his algroithms? Imagine if all the sort algorithms had been patented? Imagine if the theory of relativity had been patented? Imagine if Rutherford had patented his ideas on the atom, or if the theory of elctromagnetism had been patented? The patenting of such things do not stimulate invention or creativity. Rather it creates a monopoly that stagnates a field of science. Such monoplies were not nor ever will be justifiable under patent law. In addition, patent law bars the patenting of processes that can be potentially thought through by a human. This is why mathemtaical algorithms (or proofs) cannot be patented. The algorithms that have been patented have been only patented since they exist on machines and even this is highly debated (in fact, depending on what district of the federal government your case is heard in decides if they take a computer algorithm to be patentable or not.) Algroithms can be thought out by the human mind hence they should not be patentable. In addition, scientific ideas are laws of nature which by patent law are not patnetable. What if Netwon patented gravity and then decided to take a royality from everyone making use of the idea? Every physicist on Earth and every physics textbook would have had to pay him.
In the end, patent law (and copyright law for taht matter) were designmed to stimulate invention and creativity, not only by you but the public as well. the government never garuntees you will make money for an idea, they simply have decided that in some cases it is in the publics best interests to grant you limited control of an idea. Once such a protection is no longer in the publics best interests (teh governemnt considers the publics bets interests far more important tahn any indivisuals, the idea of government is utilitarian at heart), any such control of an idea is a violation of teh spirit of copyright and patent law.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Dear Anonymous Coward,
Thank you for your feedback. While America tries to accomodate most people, we occasionally find a person who is not a right match for America. We regret that things did not work out, and wish you luck in your future endeavors. If you are not satisfied with America, you are encouraged to stop using our products, services, technologies, or visiting our locally hosted websites.
Thanks again,
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What I believe should be patentable are Algorithms and Scientific Ideas
Great - corporations patent every new/old/used algorithm and idea in sight and use it as a part of their portfolio to scare off competitors. How is this helping innovation? If anything it is preventing anyone to actually act on the idea to innovate.
Patent system is flawed - on top of what has already been said about it such as patents are too broad, many things should not be patentable, etc. - it is flawed in that USPTO receives money for every patent granted; it is to USPTO's advantage to grant more and more patents to get more funding. It is so ridiculous, I don't know that anything I do isn't patented already. The argument that patent database is open is not helpful - there's so many of them, you can't be expected to go through it next time you want to do something obvious.
Can I raise my hand to pull over a cab without violating a patent? I don't know - I certainly can't swing on a swing.
Ummm let's try that properly formatted this time.
Info patents in
The U.S. and Europe can
Not patent haikus
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
The US pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty because it was so lax on "developing nations", including China.
This is what is called an "excuse." The real reason is that it would have forced the US to face the unsustainability of it's current environmental regime with regard to carbon emissions and the impact switching to a better model would have on the economy. Given that the US is in a shitload of trouble now that Bush has let the budget deficit skyrocket (while handing a fat tax break to the wealthiest of Americans), it looks like a smart move. But eventually, this is going to have to be faced, as well as, the incredibly unsustainable foreign trade imbalance will be too. The EU could embargo us and put the lights out, given the current levels of productivity there and our insatiable need to consume.
BTW, China is not the world's largest polluter. Not even in terms of per capita. The US is.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Algorithms are essentially ideas, and ideas are neither patentable nor do they qualify for copyright. A particular expression of an idea can be copyrighted, and its use in a process can be patentable, but ideas are not, at least in principle. The idea that you can patent a naturally occuring pattern (i.e. a gene or genes) is ridiculous. It might be ok to give a patent on say a genetic test for a particular condition, but it seems to me that there isn't much invention beyond the basic science (idea) that links the gene and the condition.
The truth is (as explained in this very good paper) that the patent authorities in both the US and Europe have bent over backwards to extend the scope of patents. The paper lays out how patent professionals keep pushing this, sometimes in spite of any attempt of anyone outside their circle to attempt to set policy, even lawmakers. Check this out for an indication of just how out of control the EPO is. They make money from handing out these patents whether it is good for the rest of us or not, and there is little effective control on any of it.
People are putting too much faith in the patent system, and even worse is that they're assuming that patents are good for commerce, business, and free markets. IMHO, this is a bad road to go down, the problems of patents are well documented, and things will only get worse as society gets more advanced.
What if Netwon patented gravity and then decided to take a royality from everyone making use of the idea
Newton would be rich, especially if it was a US patent. Since ~30% of Americans are obese, he could just walk around and make money off of fat people. "I believe you're using something that belongs to me. Pay the royalty please. Thank you. Here, have a candy. My treat."
Exactly right. In fact the article quote Gates saying that if this type of patent were possible in the past, the industry would be at a standstill, but he doesn't continue this quote as Lessig does in this presentation where he (Gates) indicates his plan to do exactly that with our future. If you don't think he plans to use this to attempt to destroy Linux at some point, I've got a bridge to sell you.
I think removing the creator's ability to dictate use in general could solve a lot of the current problems with "intellectual property". The radio industry, oddly, is a good example in that any station can play any music without having to negotiate separately with each distributor. Instead, they pay a central collection organization based on how many times they play each song.
I believe this would be a good model for patents etc, because it would remove not only the uncertainty relating to lawsuits but also it would allow useful technologies to become widely spread. Also, holders of IP would benefit in direct proportion to the usefulness of their inventions. Not to mention, that business would save the expense of an IP legal department.
We might even see less of these trivial patents that have been granted lately. I think that might be asking too much though.
It's rather futile to expect the US to change its ways voluntarily.
If you study your link, you'll note that the largest differentials between US consumption and other nations are in two areas: automotive travel and home heating. Hell, if you got those in line, the US bar would start looking rather average.
I can think of a few reasons why this would be. First, Americans keep their houses hot. Not me personally - I like it at 60-65F - or even less- that's because i'm diabetic and always feeling hot anyway. I keep it above 60 for the benefit of others, else no one would stay in my house. But most people in the US keep it at 70 or 72. Europeans, on the other hand, seem to like it around 60. Big energy savings there, for sure.
Automobiles are woven into American culture - you could blame Eisenhower if you wanted, he was the one that blessed (or cursed) us with the Interstate highway system. While this is a fine system of roads, best in the world for such a large country (I personally like the Autobahns better - you can drive faster), it has created a culture of people who believe in their hearts it is their God-given right to drive from point A to point B, no matter how far removed. Whereas, in Europe, I note that the cars are smaller, and less prevalent. Trains and other mass transport are used far more.
Something that has been tried and failed before in the US is stuffing environmental regulation down the people's throats to the detriment of their day to day life. You wouldn't believe the bitching about low-flow toilets - i've heard dozens of people talk about keeping their old toilets so they don't have to use the shitty (no pun intended) new ones that don't flush properly.
Even the R-12 CFC reduction was done in such a way that there was no consumer impact. Sure, appliance repairmen and air conditioning/refrigeration manufacturers went through hell, but the general public never saw that. And for good reason.
What passes for an environmentalist in the US by and large is a soccer mom driving an SUV with a home room temperature that makes a decent greenhouse for her plants. Tell her she has to turn her thermostat down, can't build the summer house on the well-forested mountainside, and has to take the train, and watch how fast all pretense to environmentalism fades.
Kyoto was nixed because it would have impacted people's lives negatively and would have sealed the fate of any politician tied to them. Maybe Clinton would have been slick enough to stop himself from being taken down by it, but I can't think of anyone else who could have endured the backlash.
Say what you will about US politicians, they like getting re-elected. Moreover, I don't see the landscape changing appreciably in the short term.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Thank you for your memo. While the civilised world tries to accommodate most people, we occasionally find a country that is not up to our high standards. The USA is such a country. We regret that things did not work out, and wish your people luck in finding alternative accommodation. If you, at some point in the future, wish to rejoin the civilised world, you are encouraged to: stop polluting the environment; declaring war on other non civilised world countries for fictional reasons; suppressing the freedom of your people; believing that money is the goal; patenting obvious ideas; shooting yourselves; and generally acting like the French (who we have our eyes on anyway, but they at least make good food).
Please remove your products, services and technologies since we have our own which are actually much better than your attempts and will likely flourish without your questionable practices.
Thanks again,
The Civilised World
PS We were trying to think who of your peoples we might give asylum to; but to be honest, we couldn't think of one living person.
Yes, the EPO is not bound by the EU.
However, the EU can nevertheless issue directives (guidelines to amend national law) and regulations (binding law) relating to patents. This can be extended towards the EPO, by letting EU member states have it put in the EPC (European Patent Convention). For example, this happened with the biotech directive.
Besides that, it is still possible to invalidate patents in front of a national court and in the future in front of a European court. With this, bear in mind that litigation costs in Mainland Europe are about 1% of costs in US (For UK, take 10%).
With respect to the remark in the posting:
The truth is (as explained in this very good paper) that the patent authorities in both the US and Europe have bent over backwards to extend the scope of patents.
That is not fully true for the EPO. The software patent policy goes quite far, but the EPO has mentioned several times that it will not do anything with busines method patent applications; they will not even be searched, say bye bye to your search fee. And this is not likely to change in the near future.
The paper lays out how patent professionals keep pushing this,
That's what I get paid for. The examiner gets paid for not allowing patents that do not meet the requirments of the EPC.
IANAL (still 9 months to go)
Sorry, it is not a joke.
/. about a year or so back.
more information here
This was actually posted on
The father filed the patent to teach his son about how the US patent system works, figuring something so ridiculous and obvious would never get patented.
Two years later, he got back the news, patent approved.
Oddly enough, it does not appear to have been overturned, or would I have to look someplace else to find that out?
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It's a great and lengthy article, but am I the only one who feels that they misrepresent the Microsoft vs Stac case?
They first state it as a victory for patents, but didnt Stacker go bancrupt during the case, because of the violation by Microsoft?
And Microsoft didnt break the negotiations and develop their own product infringing on a patent. They broke the negotiations and released code stolen from Stacker as their own.
With this "poster" case punctured, can anyone come up with a case where a patent has protected a small company against a much larger?