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From Legal Wordings to Economic Reality
Holger Blasum writes "The directive on software patents in
Europe is (currently) scheduled in the European
Parliament mid June, so the
7-8 May parliament hearing on
Software Patents: from legal wordings
to economic reality might be a good
opportunity to make your views heard in
Brussels. There is some support for accomodation, and hitchhikers or taxistop might ease getting there. If you cannot attend, find (and invite) your EU representative
here (hint: this database does not include so many email addresses, so it would not be wise to go for this in the very last minute; if the options overwhelm you try the "Legal affairs committee", and/or the persons you are likely to vote for in the 2004 elections)."
Each representative has a declaration of financial interest in his page. ANyone knows where I can find that for US senators/congressmen?
You know... if software patents get approved of in Europe, there will be an influence in the US, too.
As in "killing Free Software". Which I guess is why Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallman travel around the globe twice in 24 hours to come to this conference...
And hey, even if this were actually just about the EU, it might be worth reading!
I'm damn tempted to get my voice heard. I have three innovative ideas which I feel will make me money.
Now it costs quite a bit of money to implement even one of these ideas. That and about a year of my time. Thing is, that will mean I just don't really have the money to patent my invention!
Not only that, but most innovation is done by younger people (yadayada exceptions, yadayada). These people create new companies, employment and wealth. But patenting (and it's related cost) impedes this process and favours established, already wealthy companies.
And I'll go one further; patenting used to make sence, but for a number of reasons is making less and less sense. Not only do we see the so-called 'submarine' patents, but also a profilation of IP companies which do not even produce the IP (just buy it in...that's how MS-DOS happened, btw). Patenting in this way stiffles innovation, which is what it was supposed to engender to start with!
Then consider the fact of paralel invention. It happens a lot...two people think and/or devellop the printing press, the telephone, the airplane etc etc etc, at roughly the same time, independent of each other. There are just certain ideas who's time has come.
Couple that with the fact of population growth and you'll find that that sort of thing will happen (and is happening) more and more often.
If you have an idea, I think you should (help) develop it. If you just sit on it, you should get squat.
Hmmm...I'm gonna think this out a bit more and put it to paper...
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Patents and copyright laws could have been what actually built a software industry in the United States.
Not by a mile. The current crop of big boys grew up in a far more lenient environment. Phoenix reverse engineered the BIOS from IBM's PC, which was a major contributor to the PC explosion. Nowadays, they'd be convicted felons. Sure, there was also a lot of patented stuff, such as the stuff from PARC, and the mountains of patents that IBM holds, but we didn't have to contend with any of the foolishness that we have today, like one-click patents, BT claiming rights to all of hypertext, and a small company staffed with lawyers holding a major part of the industry hostage for years (guess which one and win a prize!). Do anything innovative today and, should it be marketable, you may find that someone has filed a patent for it based on your product.
In conclusion, America is a land of contrasts.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
That's funny. I'm an American and I don't feel the least bit "favored" by software patents. AFAIK, all of those corporations aren't really American anyway. I'm sick and tired of the US being criticized for the actions of multinationals who only remain in the US because that's where they got started, and who will readily reincoroprate on some tropical island if they think they can save on taxes.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I am afraid that you are preaching for the wrong folks. We all know that - the problem is that our politicians is stupid enough to not know that. They take their advice from the lobbyist that is paid by the american IT-firms..