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."

Comments

Another sad day...

[johny_qst]

In the new world order...
I will continue to hope that progress will be made in the way that societies handle 'intellectual property'. I don't think that any amount of lobbying could possibly end the month of june with the EU not having software patents. Given the political power of corporations in the US and the EU there seems to be no place for free thinking when money might be changing hands due to the outcome of the policy. There will be an EU patent process for software. Open Source Software will continue to adapt and grow while the corporations attempt to twist the judiciary and governments of the various countries of the world to get what they want... more money.

Why should software patents be that bad ?

[Krapangor]

I don't really understand this extensive opposition to software patents.
If a company does some real research in computer science then it invests millions of dollars and severals years of time into the development of new technologies. However without a strong system to prevent IP theft, any jerk company can come and steal those technologies. Even worse, the original inventor will go out of business because the thiefs don't have the development expenses, so that they can offer the products much more cheaply. And patents are there to prevent such stuff.
And copyright isn't strong enough for protection in such a case. The thiefs can get the technology by reverse engineering. But they are not copying the code, just the technology. So IP laws won't help and you cannot detect the reverse engineering unless some whistle blowers come out. Which is rather unlikely.

Many people fear that stuff like Amazon's one-click patent and other trivial patents will come out. But I don't think this is a real problem. Such trivial patents are cause by a fucked legal system. This is a well-known USian problem. But not a European one. Europe centers on the French system where the creation of new laws is dominated by legislation. Europe doesn't center around the UK/USian one where courts directly or indirectly create laws by interpreting the constitution. Remember that the patentability of business methods in the US came primarily from a court ruling. Europe simply doesn't have this problem.

So, I don't see why we shouldn't have software patents here.