Slashdot Mirror
Second Round of EU Patent Fight, Coming Up
An anonymous reader writes "Seems that last fall's victory over EU patent regulations was just round one. The current draft rejects all clarifying amendments made by the European Parliament, allowing direct patentability of computer programs. A net-wide protest is being
organized on April 14."
From this link:
Nokia's Patent Department is collecting signatures from CTOs for this letter in support the "working document" of the EU Council "Working Party on Intellectual Property", a group of patent administrators who run the European Patent Office. The letter portrays this document as a "balanced compromise" which "takes the Parliament's concerns into account" and says that this is needed in order to assure that electric household applicances, medical technology etc do not become unpatentable. Thereby the letter drafters deceive both their signatories (CTOs who usually do not read the directive proposals) as well as their readers.
It disturbs me to see Nokia taking taking the role that they have been. Their statements seem to be quite misleading, and it is clear that they will have significant gain from software patents. With all the heat they've been getting lately, you would think that they might try to take it easy on such controversial issues. Either way, I am fully against software patents.
Wireless News www.DailyWireless
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
If you would really like to promote change, please take the time to write or call officials. This will almost certainly have a larger impact than any protest restricted to the net.
I mean, obviously these people do not get technology in the way most of us do, otherwise they would not be suggesting such ludicrous laws. As such, take the battle to them on terms they understand.
The one good thing about this is that now the US won't fall behind Europe in the software field.
_____
Thank you.
If the sites don't go down in protest, we'll slashdot them
And we know that influential lawmakers frequent Slashdot, Fark, Plastic, and Sourceforge.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
Some interesting parts from a letter you can send to people, hopefully law makers who can make a difference:
http://slashdot.org/~Sanity/journal/60471
--
Patents are well suited to fields where new innovations require years of research and large amounts of capital, however this is not the case with software. Every new innovation in software builds on a multitude of previous innovations, and even a single software engineer might solve hundreds of small problems in a single day of programming. Against this backdrop, the notion of the programmer seeking a 20 year patent on each of those small solutions is clearly ridiculous.
Worse still, imagine now that this programmer is forced to ensure that every small innovation they might want to build upon is not covered by someone else's patent. The programmer might need to conduct hundreds of patent searches in a single day of programming, and even then they would have no guarantee that they aren't violating a patent! Clearly this situation would be ridiculous, yet this is exactly the situation that programmers in the US and Japan now find themselves, and is exactly the situation that current UK government policy will impose on European Software developers!
Even large companies are not invulnerable to such parasitic practices. In the US, Microsoft is currently fighting against a small company called Eolas who have acquired a patent on an obvious technique fundamental to the operation of any web browser. This company, if successful, will be able to extort a tax on every company and individual in the United States that uses the Internet! It is worth noting that this company's only purpose is to generate revenue through extortion using this patent, they have never written a line of computer code, nor do they have any intention of doing so.
Isn't it amazing how these guys just keep re-introducing the same (or worse) legislation over and over again without regard to the voiced desire of the citizenry? How many times must we mail letters to our representatives again and again on the same issue? How many times will companies and those affiliated with the WTO continue to introduce the same legislation, maybe hidden as a rider here, maybe out in the open there, each time with the hope that citizens will tire of voicing their opposition over the same issue again and again. Un-fuck'n-believable. Except it's just one of the many ways they game the system.... --M
Nokia's position is a bit on the extreme side, which makes it all the more curious since most of the stuff they use is being written by Opera. From the article:
One almost gets the impression that Nokia may be looking to do a bit of "embracing and extending", and then relying on the slow pace of the courts to kill off competition?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
It's not big, but it's clever!
There is an imporant lesson here. That lesson is that these issues are never finally resolved. Just because objectionable legislation has been defeated once does not mean that it will not be re-introduced. The membership of legislative bodies changes over time. Lobybing continues. Contributions are made. If the financial incentive is great enough, business will never give up.
Eternal vigilance is required. Perhaps the time you are most vulnerable is when you think you have *finally* won.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Oh, it's not as bad as that. Quite a lot of R&D for software happens in Europe - a lot of Microsoft's UI research is done in Cambridge (England, not Mass.) for example, KDE has a European origin, and Linux itself is from Finland. And there is the small matter of CERN inventing HTTP, the web browser and all... So, technically, for all those people who think that the WWW *is* the Internet, it was actually invented in Europe. ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
http://petition.eurolinux.org/
on my webpage. also it looks like they'll be
organizing a demonstration on 14th of april
in brussels.
Hostes alienigieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?
Lobbying by judicial entities is evil, be they Microsoft, SCO, IBM, Novel, Mandrake or Red Hat.
The only people who should be able to lobby a parliament are the citizens who voted said parliament
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
Hey buddy, what are you in for?
I wrote a program that used an illegal data structure.
Woah. Dude. Stay away from me!
It would certainly raise a lot of awareness if Slashdot went ahead and put up an entry-page or banner.
I know this won't happen (such action would set a precedence -- all petitioners would expect the limelight) for obvious reasons but it would sure be interesting if it did.
You have to understand one difference here. Most of these pro-patent companies are trying to take something away from you, that is your freedom to write programs, functions, subroutines, algorithms, design websites, etc. without worry of legal reprisal. Redhat and Mandrake are trying to defend your freedom to do that.
Software patents are bad for the economy of the country which allows them.
Imagine this future scenario:
Say, America has software patents and Europe doesn't. Now the American companies can't use the software recipies of their competitors (you lose your patent if you don't enforce it if I remember correctly) and so their software is not as good as it could have been without the laws. The European developers can program without the cost of researching their source code or the cost of buying permission of using patented source and can use the best solutions for their software designs.
European software will, slowly but surely, become better and cheaper than American software and American companies won't be able to sell their software successfully in Europe unless they make a special "High quality European version". Because software is mostly used to streamline business processes. Business in America won't run as smoothly as business in Europe because european business' are using more, and higher quality accounting/production/etc. programs. American economy takes a hit.
Private software user in America won't buy software from US companies because it's inferiour to the software they can (illegally) get from Europe. They pirate either the software made in Europe or the "European version" which they can't legally buy or they import the "illegal in US" Open Source programs. US software sales and services are down because of software patents, American economy takes another hit.
Small companies make up more than 80% of all businesses in any given country. In the US, small software companies will die because of software patents, only a few big ones will survive. Software companies will abuse their positions to increase their profits at the cost of their consumers, American business'. American business' won't be able to buy as much software as they like or will have higher operating costs because of it. The few American companies that sell software won't bring in as much economic activity and taxes as a lot of small software companies + big companies. American economy takes another hit.
Other countries like China which present billions of dollars of potential income for the US won't buy American, they'll buy EU or build their own software. Even less economic activity for the US software industry. American economy takes another hit.
The worst thing the European politicians can do for their countries is to allow software patents in Europe. Europe will lose it's competitive advantage over the US software industry. Even worse, their position will be much weaker than that of the US. Because software patenting has been going on for a while in the US, US companies have the most, and the most important patents on software. US companies will be able to kill off most EU software companies using their patent portfolio's and that would be a bad thing for the EU citizens. I think that an EU politician that votes in favor of software patents is either incompetent or influenced by big US software companies. Their job is to act in the best interest of the EU countries and I think the pro-patent politicians are doing the opposite, vote them off before they can profit! Who's got a list?
Software patents are only good for a few big US software companies, bad for everyone else in their country. And even that's doubtful because they're reducing their own market if my scenario above holds water.
Software patents are bad for the economy of the country which allows them.
- -- Truth addict for life.
Thousands of concerned Internet users in "turning its web pages black" in protest of President Clinton's signing the unconstitutional "Communications Decency Act" in 1995. People paid attention then.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
This will fall under the label of civil disobediance perhaps, but a really good way to get attention to the anti-patent cause would be for those with technical power to shut down as much as was safely possible (not power stations, etc.) in protest.
..."
When 2/3 of the net is suddenly gone, that might gain some attention. And then a suitable argument for doing such a drastic thing would be, "imagine if TCP/IP was patented, this is the internet you'd have; or imagine if BT had won its hyperlink coup; or
Singly we have little power other than to perhaps get ourselves fired. But collectively we have the ability to put a grinding halt on e-commerce and more.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
This is a bummer that the non elected members who run the EU have rejected what looked to be a better compromise. My take is that we reject all software patents in the EU and repeal them in the US and Canada.
Software patents are stupid it's like patenting an alphabet or individual words.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
There's no point in supporting a company that eventually wants to take away freedom from open source developers.
My next phone will not be a Nokia phone..
I'm using a Debian Linux box with the Mozilla browser to write this. I built it myself, and with the help of Slashdot, the web site that introduced me to free software, open source software, and widened my eyes over the years to the complicated logistics and truly revolutionary nature of collaborative development. I recommend that Slashdot and its editors take the lead once more and join in the demonstration against software patents in Europe. Slashdot itself is in the crosshairs of this legislation, and high profile action may be necessary.
Let's fight these bastards.
Steve Scherer
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
for sake of completeness of information, could
someone please post a link to the official position
of the Council of the European Union on this
issue?
This would allow people to see in detail which
parts of the European Parliament's amendments
to the Commission proposal's were rejected and
on what grounds.
If you care about the future viability of FOSS for business use, you might want to read this: h++p://www.penguinpros.com/Viewpoints/TollRoadAhea d.html
Software corporations spend BILLIONS of dollars and employ thousands and thousands of programmers to create patentable IP. If you guys had your way, all of this money would be thrown away and the world of software would be thrown back into the stone ages. Face it, guys, the time for patenting software is NOW
You are missing the entire point of this discussion! Do you think that all this software is written solely to the patentable aspect of it?
Sorry, good software is written to do the job at hand, and if you do it good enough while working for a commercial corp like M$, then the reward will be sales beyond your wildest dreams and a handy raise for you.
But to prevent, by patents, some person from writing, in a clean room environment, never having seen your commercial code, a program that runs as well, or better than yours, is downright immoral. The instruction set for the cpu is essentialy public domain, and must remain so in order to entice coders to code for that particular cpu.
Having the ability to say that a certain sequence of these instructions is patentable, when the instructions themselves are freely available, absolutely boggles the mind.
We have proved prior art for almost any patent that exists only to enrich the corporate coffers of some group of leechs (and that is the right word) who exist not to write more patentable code, which they will never do because they don't know how, but exist only to extort others with their legal dept because they bought this quoted patent.
With that kind of restrictions, no more code can ever be written except in darkened rooms and distributed by clandestin means.
If M$ wants to dominate the world, then let them write better code instead of virus and worm magnets. Free, or commercial, the code should stand on its own merits.
Now go warsh yur mouth out with a bar of Grandma's Lie soap, and no, thats not miss-spelled...
Cheers, Gene
The European parliaments are almost as bought and paid for as members of the U.S. congress and senate. So while it's more likely that this fight can be won in Europe than the U.S., it's not that much more likely.
But the defeat of software patents is such a worthwhile goal that it's worth fighting for no matter the odds.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
We're fighting the wrong thing. It's not software patents that are bad, it's *bad* patents in general.
Think of this: if I developed an algorithm to encode images, without a patent I would have to keep the implementation secret to be able to make any money. With software patents, I can patent the algorithm, and release source code for the world to use.
While the submarine-enforcement of the MP3 patent is bad, the actual patent is perfectly valid. Why shouldn't Fraunhofer IIS get royalties for the technology they paid for and developed.
If you can patent an improved screw head ("Torx(R) Plus"), why not an algorithm? If you developed a new compression technology or a new encryption technology, why is that any less of an invention than an improved screw head?
What we really need to fight are bad patents. Amazon's "one click" patent is one. Patents are *bad* when they are to broad or don't cover a real invention. But bad patents are a problem with the review system.
This is so fitting with the Slashdot mentality that "software should be free" and that "copyright is bad". Copyright and patent law serves a valuable and important purpose: allowing inventors and (in this case) programmers to decide how their work is distributed. Copyright law has become problematic - we need to go back to the original 14-year copyrights. Patent law has become problematic - we need to stop "inventors" from patenting trivial concepts. But these are problems with the system, not with the concepts of copyright and patent law.
I end with this:
If you invented a new concept in software, such as a better compression algorithm or a better voice recognition algorithm or a more efficent protocol to transmit data, why is your invention any less of an invention than if you had invented a better screw head?
If you inveted a new compression system, which is better for the community: a patent which forces disclosure of the algorithm and eventually expires, or a trade secret which requires that the algorithm be kept secret and closed and may never expire?
So software patents are back on the agenda, and influential politicians are pushing for them. It makes me think there MUST be something good to them, and it's just my severe tiredness that makes me fail to see it.
The strongest argument pro-patent people have used that I can recall right now is that they provide (financial) rewards for innovation. So, supoosedly, the idea is that we want innovation, so we want patents. I think this kind of thinking is kind of narrow; there are other ways to innovate. If we so badly want innovation, we can pool some funds and pay for R&D, right? We can pay researchers to cooperate, rather than compete, and invent new things rather than other ways to do the same thing (which would have to be found because the competition patented their ways).
So, there are alternatives to patents, and I think it's worth investigating them. Patents are always unfair in a sense, in that the first one who is assigned the patent blocks out all the rest, even though they may have worked just as hard to come up with the invention. In current systems, obtaining patents is costly, which favors already wealthy corporations over smaller ones, which can lead to consolidation of the market in the hands of the big guys and harm the consumer - which I think is a Bad Thing.
Practical limitations make it very hard to encertian that a technology is not (or rather, cannot be seen as) infringing on some patent, which puts even those who try to play nice at risk of being sued - which is harmful no matter if they win, lose or settle the suit.
Software patents in particular seem to have had the effect of stifling rather than boosting innovation.
All in all, I am tempted to conclude htat patents in general and software patents in particular do more harm than good. Obviously, some politicians and some corporations hope to gain from them, though.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
But to prevent, by patents, some person from writing, in a clean room environment, never having seen your commercial code, a program that runs as well, or better than yours, is downright immoral.
So is it also "downright immoral" to prevent, by patents, some person from designing, in a clean room environment, never having seen your commercial mousetrap, a mousetrap that traps as well as, or better than, yours?
Not trolling, just honestly wondering . . .
Back in the 1850's the plantation masters said that they had no incentive to grow cotton without slaves on the plantation. Now people say that they have no incentive to create pharmacuticals unless they can lock out 10 million africans dying of AIDS from getting generics. You tell me which is morally better. I wander, how many people are going to die this time?
Back then they would say things like "don't you believe in free markets, we paid for those slaves dammit. We went thru the troubble of importing them. Look at the prosperous plantation system - it's proof that we're right and that slavery is good for America. If you don't like salvery you're free not to own slaves"
Today they say "don't you believe in free markets, we paid to create those patents dammit. We went thru the troubble of inventing them. Look at the prosperous technology industry - it's proof that we're right and that patents are good for America. If you don't like patents you're free to create your own inventions and not patent them"
Of course, back then, it totally ignored the fact that slavery was based off of controll over peoples free will rather than natural limits in supply and demand. How ironic, patent information has no natural limits in supply and demand either, only artifical controll over the way people use them.....
I don't know, I disagree. I know one local Canadian Alliance MP who was willing to buck the party line simply because of:
a) The views he held
b) His constituents responses
(Specifically, he stated he would vote for Bill C-250 which added "sexual orientation" to the protected classes of hate crime legistlation...)
There's some truth in that, but your argument assumes that all parties have equal access to the patent system. Companies backed by millions of dollars and whos sole business is to aquire and exploit patents will always game the system to unfair advantage over more innovative individuals and small companies regardless of whether the patent has real merit or not.
Thats where patent law falls down in its idealism.
Solutions: (?) All patent applications must be:
1) Free
2) Trivial to file
3) Must be commercialy exploited by the holder or they will lose it to the public domain.
4) Non transferable/saleable as assets
I believe the master of relativity once worked in the patent office himself and was sceptical of Mans arrogant claim to 'own' knowledge.
``I've noticed this too... Isn't it about time for direct democracy?''
I don't think that's a good idea either. I for one wouldn't trust the majority to have the knowledge or even dedication to take the right decissions in many of the specialized issues that come up in politics. It's very easy to influence public opinion, as has been shown at various occasions in history, and hardly always for the better.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Does anyone else get the impression that bad patents in the US are causing other countries to amend their patent laws to allow their companies to participate in what they see as a "land grab" for patentable technology. Patents are useful, but unfortunately bad patents in the US are spoiling the game for everyone . . . and I'm afraid that the the EU is just trying to sink lower than the US because their afraid that if they don't, then they're going to miss out on the "land grab" for software, business processes and other non-tangible idea patents.
This "clean room" is the key issue I think. If the guy saw your mousetrap, and then expanded upon the same basic idea, or even just plain copied it, then yes, thats a violation.
But if he set out to make a better mousetrap without ever seeing yours, then there can be no taint of copying involved even if the basic design is similar since he's looked at mousetraps in the stores for 40 years already. Kind of like calling a copy machine a Xerox or vice versa. But he, knowing there were production shortcuts in most such devices, decided to put ball bearings in the pan and bail pivots? I don't think thats a violation because he clearly did think it out and attempt to make that "better mousetrap".
To software:
Because the actual code to add 2 numbers together is, at the machine level:
LDA register 1, number 1's location in memory
LDA register 2, number 2's location in memory
ADD register 1,2 (assuming the result goes back into register 1 here, often the case)
STA register 1, result location in memory
To allow the patenting of that sequence is totally assinine because its already been used historically speaking, since back in the 50's when all that was actually done with relays and/or 12AU7's and the output went to punched tape, which in turn went to the printer. The basic algorythm hasn't changed in 50+ years, and if some patent office dweeb thought that was patentable, there are at least 50 billion lines of code demonstrating prior art written since then.
Under those conditions, the only one making a paycheck will be the attorney who finally convinces said dweeb to withdraw the patent. But in lots of cases the time elapsed to clear the thing measures in years, instead of the two weeks that make the difference between a good time to market and sales success, and 2 weeks later somebody else has his foot in that same markets door.
I'm reminded of a situation in my field, broadcasting, where the FCC and other agencies got together and mandated a new public notification method whereby the pair of tones that used to tell you an alert or test was being broadcast, and which is now those rather raucous digital streams you hear. That noise contains the whole message!
Some jerk overheard a conversation about it in a restaurant, copied it all down on a napkin, and went running to the patent office with it, and got it! There was enough prior art in that to sink the staten island ferry if it was all put on paper and loaded into the hold. We, as broadcasters, ignored the legal firms letters while screaming bloody murder to the various agencies and our senators and reps. Our attitude was, and rightly so IMO, that we were damned if we were gonna pay anybody any patent royalties on equipment and methods that were mandated to us by the feds. If anybody paid, it should be the feds for not investigating it fully and makeing sure it was un-emcumbered. Just the equipment and training to make the new system work cost each and every one of us in excess of $5,000, and is an ongoing nominal expense for paper and other supplies. The hoorah has now gone away just like the company that was trying to sue us, but I've no idea if in their infinite wisdom, the patent was actually withdrawn by the USTPO.
First, we kill all the lawyers. (William Shakespear)
Then maybe we'ed have some common sense in this world, something thats damned uncommon now it seems.
Cheers, Gene
Yeah, right.
The vast majority of innovation in the computer business takes place in small companies. Small software companies out-invent and out-innovate big companies every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
In fact, most fields are like this; patents only really pay their way where significant up-front investment is required to bring an invention to market, such as in the pharmaceutical business, where the science is not understood well enough to be predictable, and the regulatory framework for new products is punishingly expensive. Some other heavily industrialised fields with big start-up costs can also benefit.
By contrast, software has a cost of invention dominated by staff salaries rather than plant or infrastructure, and has an incremental cost of manufacture of zero, which unprecented in economic history. These features, plus a historically lax regulatory framework for software, means it's pretty much the opposite of everything that makes the economic argument for patents justifiable.
Your big hero software companies see patents as a weapon to use in negotiations with the other corporate bruisers, and as a means to impede entry to markets they want to defend, not as a means to bring new things to consumers.
If you don't think that's true, please find evidence of a single significant software invention that would not have happened without patents to make it economically viable.
Rubbish. Having to deal with patents for software is where you'd be throwing your money away, and I'd much rather spend it on development than on due diligence and legal insurance.
Pretty much the entire history of the software business is patent-free, and yet we got from the so-called "stone ages" to here pretty quickly, didn't we? This is the QED that patents are not required to promote progress in the software business, because massive progress happened without them, and no-one with any economic education can make a plausible case that we'd have got to where we are quicker, better or cheaper with them. Serious studies by actual economists (not accountants or executives) show that the pace of innovation has reduced, and costs to bring products to market have risen, since people have been able to get patents on software.
Only if you're a patent attorney, a narrow-minded corporate executive, or otherwise sadly misinformed. For everyone else, they're an obvious and unnecessary burden on progress, which is precisely the opposite of what they're supposed to be.
For the record, I've been inventing software related things for decades, make my living at it, and hold software-related patents. And I'd love to see them all torn up.
All empirical studies carried out until now answer that question with either a "We don't know" or "NO!" (Bessen&Hunt, FTC study, European Commission Directorate General on Research study, ...).
Actually, a more recent (and more rigourous) empirical study concluded just the opposite:
The myth of the software patent thicket
Enjoy.
The numbers correspond to amendments. In general you can say, the more green boxes a MEP has, the better.