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More on European Software Patents
pdajames writes "An article at ZDNet UK says that the EU bureaucrats aren't even considering the numerous anti-software patenting opinions out there. According to a well-connected lobbyist group, they have determined there will be patents, and the only question is what kind."
Then, rewrite him with extensive informations, if possible comments of small companies, etc. Sorry my own links are in French ;-) but I'm sure you could find many links against software patents, with models letters to send to your MEP, etc.
Another good method is to check some (already granted, even if near illegally) EU patents, and send a mail to the potential affected companies you could know.
One thing with EU patents is that the majority of people, developers and companies, absolutely don't know about them, and when asked about, they absolutely don't know the potential risks of software patents. So pattents lobbiers carefully presents patents as a good thing of course.
The only thing to do then is to spread the information ! we only have 2 months !!
IANAL, but wouldn't this mean the patent is effective for 27-30 years instead of 20 years, as the 'invention' still has protection while it's pending? And if the IP firm working the system can come up with enough variations, alterations, and improvements they can keep the patent from being issued indefinitely. What a bonus!
The simple fact is that IT moves too damn fast for software patents to be anything other than nuisances at best and corporate genocide at worst.
I'm going to mail my MEPs about this and I hope that any other Eurolanders checking this thread out will too.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
The argument against software patents is made on three grounds:
1. the products of the software industry are so large and complex (because of the lack of physical constraints) that the scale of 'invention' is hundreds times greater than in the physical world.
2. patents are expensive (10k Euro in Europe) and rarely can small businesses or individuals afford to aquire them.
3. even when people overcome point 2, they find that the large patent portfolios of large companies render their patents useless.
Conclusion: large companies purchase patents in order to protect not their inventions, but their competitive advantage. Since innovation comes from smaller teams, patents thus work against innovation.
Software patents exaggerate what is a manageable problem with physical patents, and turn it into a serious problem for smaller designers. Basically patents allow large businesses to collaborate with burocracy to create barriers against the entrance of smaller groups.
This is bad, corrupt, and economically stupid.
End of argument.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
As I see it the problem with software patents is that it will mainly affect open source projects which are easy targets for patents (obviously you can search through the source code) and in most cases don't generate profit. Closed source projects in most cases done purely for profit will probably slip through the net if they infringe a patent because the source code if far from accessable. Surely, it is the second instance which you would want to protect your work from?!?! The other problem I see is that many of these patents seem to have such broad definitions masses of innovation will be stiffled because a patent will encompass wide areas of work!
The French patent office is supposed to be the strictest in the EU. Yet they let completely obvious patents slip through. I've met a person who once spent a few days crafting some totally ridiculous patents, just to show how very lax the French patent office already is. (One of the patents was for business information systems software, where the "innovation" is that the CEO can get the average of the prices of his company's wares). This person said that you can get basically anything patented like this:
I repeat, this is for the French patent office, supposedly the strictest of all. If you think about it, patent offices have an interest in granting patents, not rejecting them. Why? After a rejection, the applicant will come back and haunt them for explanations, apellations, etc. After a grant, any contests to the patent is done in court, which makes it Somebody Else's Problem from the POV of the patent office.
So don't say it's solely the Americans that screwed up and we'll do better. The basic economic pressures working on the patent office are exactly the same.