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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is no single MP3-patent, it's covered by a lot of patents. The basic one covers iterating *any* mathematical function over a sound sample until you can represent it in a desired number of bits. That's it. You can find the claim (in German) at the EPO, here's the English translation:
And that is the basic problem with software patents: there is no way you can put in the law that they can't be as abstract as this one. Even if you have some innovation in abstract reasoning that is such an achievement one could think about granting its discoverer a temporary monopoly, the resulting monopoly is way too large compared what was discovered.
You are asking the wrong question. The correct one is "Will granting patents on new compression algorithms make sure that more and better compression algorithms will be developed?". 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, ...).
It's not just a problem with the review system, but with the patent system as a whole being unfit for monopolising advances in abstract reasoning. See this discussion between a programmer and the Deputy director of the UK patent office. The latter concludes with:
Patents were never intended to sort out brilliant inventions from stupid ones. The "non-obvious" condition is simply not fit for that purpose.
I don't know about the rest of slashdot, but in case of software patents, the opponents are actually great proponents of copyright. The problem is that software patents completely undermine copyright. What good does it do that you have the right to sell you self-written program if even its publication is prohibited because someone own a software patent it infringes on?
Donate free food here
It's not software patents that are bad, it's *bad* patents in general.
No, software patents themselves are absurd.
I am a programmer. All software is in fact a feild of mathematics, not a feild of technology. Every program is in fact a pure mathematical function. Every program can be broken down into a pure sequence of addition subtraction and multiplication. It may be a tremendously long combinations of additions subtractions and multiplications, but that is ALL that it is. Pure math.
You can connect a keyboard to a computer. A keyboard can be patented. You can connect a monitor to a computer. A monitor can be patented. You can connect a printer to a computer. A printer can be patented.
The only thing a computer can do is calculate math. The only thing a computer can implement is a mathematical equation.
If you are using a word processor - you type letters on a keyboard and that keyboard send numbers to the computer. Those numbers are fed into a mathematical equation - a math equation calculated by the computer. The result of that calculation is nothing but another number or sequence of numbers. Those numbers then go out to be displayed on the monitor or printed by the printer.
The only thing a computer can do is calculate math. The only thing a computer can implement is a mathematical equation.
Any physical thing a computer supposedly does is actually done by a patentable object connected to a computer. No one involved is arguing against such patents. The argument is only over patenting pure software - patenting a pure math function.
As far as I know every patent office on earth has recognized that you cannot patent math. Even the US patent office recognized it. At least they did up until a few years ago when they reversed the rules. The EU patent office still has a rule explicitly forbiding such patents.
The US is extorting other countries to force them to change their rules. For example this treaty term:
Jordan shall take all steps necessary to clarify that the exclusion from patent protection of "mathematical methods" in Article 4B of Jordan's Patent Law does not include such "methods" as business methods or computer-related inventions.
There would be no need for that treaty term unless software is in fact "mathematical methods".
Countries that do not submit to US demands potentially face punitive 100% tariff rates- economic warfare. Ukraine had been hit with such tariffs. Note that "pirate media" is a dysphemism (antonym of euphemism) for the manufacture of ordinary blank CDs without a tracking number burned into them. The Ukraine's big sin to provoke punitive trade war is that they didn't feel like making it a crime to manufacture ordinary CDs without tracking codes on them. Oooo, Eeeeevil.
[sarcasm alert:] Manufacturing blank 8-tracks and vinyl records and tape cassettes and 5.25 floppy disks and 3.5 crunchies without tracking numbers has always been criminal, so the US is perfectly justified in attacking Ukraine for not passing such a law for CDs. [end sarcasm]
The US is strong-arming countries all over the globe to pass rediculous laws and to create absurd crimes. And it's generally doing so under the flag of "free trade" agreements. Any country that balks at such terms faces the imposition of punitive trade barriers. So much for advocating free trade.
And don't think I'm anti-American. I *am* American. I'm appalled at my own country's behavior.
"copyright is bad"
BAH! Straw man argument!
Current US copyright laws are an abomination, but if you repeal the crap passed since 1975 or so then we'd have pretty good copyright law. Note that every copyright law since 1975 has literally been written by lawyers employed by the publishing industry. Copyright is a *good* thing as long as you don't pass bad laws under the bann
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.