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Europeans Still Battling Software Patents
rimberg writes "The FFII in the UK is issuing an alert
for
all supporters to write
to their MPs -- this weekend .
In September the European Parliament voted for strong
restrictions on software patents. But these could be set
aside at a meeting of the EU's Competitiveness
Council of Ministers on 10 November. The ministers' meeting is to be "prepared" at a meeting of senior patent
officials from across Europe even sooner: this Thursday 23 October. Unless they can be convinced otherwise before 10 November, it is
believed that UK ministers will push for the Council to adopt a November 2002 draft
text, which is even worse than the infamous McCarthy
report. The European Parliament's rules for second reading make it
very
difficult for MEPs to fix a bad text from the Council.
The FFII says it desperately need a lot of letters to go out to MPs this weekend to tell the Government how bad the November 2002 draft is.
More information at FFII-UK."
Are they trying to kill IT in the UK or what?
The smaller companies will suffer when patents are phased in and it is these smaller companies that employ workers in the UK. The larger organisations are on the whole moving many jobs to countries such as India.
Copying form letters is very bad - they don't get read. But if you're wondering about how to use LaTeX you might want to look at some stuff wot I wrote earlier today. (mp_letter.tex in that directory; the other .tex files are earlier stuff.) I don't want to hold it up as a great exemplar though... write your own words and opinions. (But follow the FFII guidelines!)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Why does it never seem to stop, this desire to place constraints on consumer choice?
People get tired of the constraints being placed on them so they create their own, only to then have a persistant effort to take their choice away from them.
With technology making it easier and easier to create, you'd think the exclusive rights would get shorter and shorter, so as to re-emburse for R&D.
Microsoft, Sun, etc. have a lot of money to spend on lobbyists.
:)
We basically have Alan Cox..
Not surprising the laws are a bit biased
The poor europeans will be crushed by the suddenly vaild American software-patentes we have been creating over the last 10 years. EU firms have had no need to create patent portfolios - and will be defenselss to American lawsuits when the EU allows software patents. There will be no 'cross licensing' because EU companyines have no patents to cross license with.
Software patents are horribly evil, and if the EU is stupid enough to follow the us Americans, they will be *very* *very* sorry.
All your EU companies are now belong to IBM, MOT, and MSFT.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
This may be the best opportunity left for you to prevent software patents in your own country
The United States Patent Office and the Japanese Patent Office have already achieved their goal of software patents in their own countries. The European Patent Office (supported by all the European national patent offices) is the third partner in the Trilateral Commission, and if it is able to legalize software patents in Europe, each partner will have a very strong position of apparent international legitimacy from which to fight any backlash in their own regions.
And then, rest of the World, watch out.
Between them, these 3 regions have a massive amount of economic power, and they will push the rest of the World to follow their lead on the software patent issue. This will be done through the world trade and intellectual property organizations (WTO and WIPO), where the countries on the receiving end of this pressure will probably concede the issue, given that they have more important issues to fight about (such as farming subsidies). Not that they'd necessarily want to fight it, since most governments' advisers on the subject (patent lawyers) are generally strongly in favour of extensions to patentability anyway.
So, the best remaining opportunity for you to remove or prevent software patenting in your own country may be to help fight it in Europe. If you are not European, you obviously don't have any direct say in our democratic processes, but you could still give secondary support. I guess the best way would be donating your time and money to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. Here are the links:
But if you don't think it's right for outsiders to interfere in other countries' political processes, tell that to the BSA (which drafted the original directive proposal), and the US Government (which didn't like the proposed amendments). And when they ignore you, come on and help the good guys.
P.S. I don't speak for the FFII, I just don't want to see software patents (generally unfair restrictions on people's right to write and distribute their own software) seriously harm computing all around the World.
P.P.S If you are an EU citizen, make sure your government knows what you want it to do at that November 10th meeting.
Please no-one use this "as is", especially if they live in Cambridge; I only want to encourage others to craft a decent letter.
Dear Anne Campbell,
A few weeks ago, I emailed you concerning software patents, with patent laws being passed in the European Parliament, and soon to be put through to UK law.
Last month, the European Parliament voted for strong restrictions upon software patents, but it is my understanding that UK ministers at the Competitiveness Council of Ministers are likely to push for the Parliament amendments to be overturned. This would be a disaster for software development within Britain.
The UK Patent Office have been lobbying for unlimited patentability, and whilst their consultation found a lot of support from patent professionals were in favour, the views of programmers were extremely hostile. Strong patent laws are not good for the industry, although they might be good for big companies: in the USA, large companies build portfolios of software patents, which creates a minefield for programmers, as every program contains steps which could be considered innovative, meaning that before long, it becomes impossible to write programs of any complexity without stepping upon some of these patents. Although these patents ultimately might not stand up in court, the fear of law and the resources of large companies means that the interests of smaller outfits and individuals are overwhelmed. This is not an efficiency, for the cost is not the natural cost of doing business, but an artificial one of compliance with the regulation.
I should add that in the USA, cross-licensing of patent portfolios is commonplace, creating government-enforced cartels, as those working for such companies don't need to worry about compliance. This is actually proof that patent laws are inefficient, since firms would rather absolve one another of their patent obligations than enforce them. An excellent case against software patents is put forward by Laura Creighton, a software venture capitalist, to be found at http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/030508_1/.
I am faxing, as well as emailing this letter because of the urgency of the issue: there is to be a series of meeting of patent officials throughout Europe on Thursday 23 October ahead of the meeting of the Competitiveness Council of Ministers.
This is a serious worry for me, and not a theoretical idealisation. Everyone that I know in the industry has told be how worried they are about what future laws we are likely to end up with. I hope that you can put the case to Stephen Timms MP, the minister for e-commerce at the DTI, and cast your vote at a future date against an excessive patent regime.
Yours sincerely,
Tim Wesson.
Wikileaks, no DNS