Slashdot Mirror
EU Moves Toward Software Patents
edooper writes "Apparently the patent discussion in Europe has taken a turn for the worse. According to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure: 'This Wednesday, the Irish Presidency managed to secure a qualified majority for a counter-proposal to the software patents directive, with only a few countries - including Belgium and Germany - showing resistance. This proposal discards all limiting amendments from the European Parliament and reinstates the laxist provisions from the Commission, adding direct patentability of data structures and process descriptions as icing on the cake. In a remarkable sign of unity in times of imminent elections, members of the European Parliament from all political groups are condemning this blatant disrespect for democracy in Europe.' Read more: swpat.ffii.org."
How can any company possibly function, let alone open source when almost everything will be patented after this? The EU does not seem to know much about the decisions it makes...
WASTE - The Secure P2P
I may be just dim-witted, but it seems like governments are having too difficult a time understanding just how counter-productive this could/would be. I mean, sure, it sounds like it would improve your economy at first glance to discourage free software, but if Europe is running on free software and America's pockets are being drained by commercial software, whose economy benefits in the long run?
- Allen Pike
Altering time, one time at a time.
Software patents are not all bad. Now I know there is a LOT of abuse in the US right now, and the patent system needs to be reformed. However, I think that without patents, there would be much less of an incentive for commercial R&D.
Example: I am a coder for a steel mill that has figured out an algorithm that reduces the amount of energy used in the reduction of steel(which takes more energy than melting the steel). Now, after the steel company spends money on R&D to implement this, I defect to a rival steel company and implement the algorithm for them. Now the first steel company not only has lost it's competitive advantage, but they are actually further behind because they spent the money on R&D that the other mill did not.
Software patents can prevent this from happening. But like I stated at the start of the post, the current system in the US is broken, patents are too vague and there is not enough emphasis on prior art. It would be a shame if this were to happen in Europe. Hopefully, the EU and the US can learn from past mistakes and create a system that rewards innovation while not stifiling competetion.
If data structures are patentable does this make it possible to prevent interoperability?
Apparently Microsoft has realized that copyright is not nearly as powerful as patents for clobbering open source. This sounds disasterous.
This doesn't look good for OSS software. If just about everything were patented, there would be no way that future developers of software could implement certain features. Imagine if Microsoft patents the toolbar. Or if Adobe patents the photo editing tool. If this whole software patenting initiative is implemented and spread in other places, I think that it might be a major obstacle in Open Source Software that be very hard to get past. This would also impede innovation (not of the Microsoft kind) and would possibly force us into using proprietary standards forever.
My European friends all seem to have this attitude that they are all better than me because I am an American. They are not arrogant but just have this slight attitude of superiority. However, I tell them this is one time that I wish they would take the high road and truly be better than me.
Europe, here is a message. Don't go down this slippery road! It is nothing but trouble. Look at how us Yanks have screwed this one up.
basically, from revolutionary france on up, IPR was reinstated within months as it became obvious that IPR was and is necessary. Sure, it's not perfect, especially often in implementation, but not having any IPR is pretty much as dumb as saying that there shouldnt be any municipal water supplies.
Actually, I'm quite happy to see that you were (correcty) modded down as a troll. There's always a danger on slashdot of your kind of claptrap being modded as insightful.
I seen many websites go on strike in the past (ex: Gnome, AMSN...). But these sites are only visited by the few linux users there are (few compared to windows users). These protests would make a bigger impact if they were done by sites that many people use, like google.
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
According to the background information:
"The Irish Presidency explains on its website that it is sponsored by Microsoft. Ireland is "the largest software-exporting country in Europe", thanks to a fiscal policy which makes it a tax haven for large US companies: it has a tax rate on patent revenues of 0%."
So it would appear that US corporations are subverting international processes for their own benefit. This is exactly the same as the Australia-US situation, where compliance with draconian US IP laws HAVE BEEN MADE A CONDITION of the US entering into a Free Trade Agreement.
I'm struggling to cope with this though: the Irish stuff up IP laws in EU - but they make Guinness...Don't make me choose!!!!!....
I was unaware that Apple even patented any of the stuff that was stolen from them. I'd like to see these patents if you wouldn't mind providing the numbers. Thanks in advance.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
Will all the old patents from the past 50 years in the US suddenly be patented?
... then just maybe. If the patent is truly deserving.
Will us European programmers suddenly need a license to implement quicksort and all of those other software patents that expired so long ago?
If so, the European software industry is fucked. Truly and royally fucked. It will kill it totally. There won't be one. Implementing software patents allowing this would be 100% counter-productive.
Now if the law is only for new applications, not for ones already existing
Why don't I believe that this will be the case. It'll just be a whole load of obvious patents for software and methods that have been done a thousand times before, albeit in a slightly different context - which somehow makes the new patent valid!
This is just another law to get a load of lawyers a load of money for submitting patents, whilst fucking over everybody else.
Fucking sickening.
A typical example of a vector quantity is three dimensional velocity,
V = vi + vj + vk
Where vi,j,k represent change in position with respect to time in the i,j and k directions. It can be represented by a matrix of three real numbers of any number of bits as a representation.
All numerical simulations will benefit from my new invention, the vector. How else could anyone resolve and balance forces, areas, the flow of heat, particles and fluids without vectors? I am the new king of numerical calculation and all owe me tribute.
NOT. I hope anyone reading this understands that a patent on a data structure is absurd. Data structures are neither inventions or unique. They are necessary constructs, dictated by the nature of the problem being solved. They are all implicit in the construct of data types themselves. To claim that a data structure is an invention worthy of patent makes about as much sense as claiming two bricks stacked together is an invention.
BTW, there shouldn't be any municipal water supplies. Drinking water companies need not be run by the city, when a for-profit company could do the job.
At what cost? We've seen what happens when electric utilities got privatized. Our good friend Dennis Kucinich can inform you what happened (in ohio at least). There's nothing wrong with people using their collective power (through gov't if necessay) to operate and control these things. If they stay on the ball, they can assure that everything will run smoothly. If they privatize, they lose that control. Cable TV is a good example. The corruptability of a gov't office soley depends on how far the voters let it go. So far, they have been asleep at the wheel on this one.
What?
Yeah, well before you start you xenophobic EU-bashing, remember that if it wasn't for the USPTO's stance of letting people patent everything and the kitchen sink then the EU legislators wouldn't have taken such a step.
In the real world, where companies and countries have to compete against one another in business, not recognising software patents in the EU whilst they are being handed out like hot cakes in the US is the quickest way to destroy software development within the EU. I don't like it - in fact, I hate it - but those are the reasons behind it.
So, before you start EU-bashing, on software patents and rights in general (perhaps you should check out the EU Human Rights Act as well) perhaps you should learn to appreciate that it's only following the rather poor precedent set by the US.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
They will not *sue* end users, they will go after developers. Patents ensure that Windows will remain the defecto OS for at least out lifetimes. In computer terms, an eternity.
Personally, I would at least hope they would allow math patents. Afterall, most software patents are just ideas stolen from the math world. Too bad "law" makers are too stupid to realize this.
How can you patent a Data Structure???, I mean seriously, Since I started programming in the 80's there was a Customer table, with a title prefix, first name, middle initial, last name, three address lines, city code, region code, country code, and postal code. Can I patent that simple idea?...get real!
This is almost about "patenting" logic or problem solving skills. Anyone but a complete moron would come up with a similar solution for describing a customer.
When will this madness end?
That's right. Run. And keep running. Until there's nowhere left to run. And then...then what?
Better to stop it now.
Software is math. Math is not patentable.
OR
Software is literature. Literature is not patentable.
To protect your ideas, a simple copyright is enough. You do not need patents in software field.
They're no worse than patents in general...
Yes they are, since they have same expiration times as other patents, yet software area moves a lot quicker.
By the time a regular patent expires, the idea(s) in it may still be perfectly usable for others to use, but by the time software patent expires, the technique has probably long since been obsolote, granting a monopoly on it for it's whole lifetime. An absolute maximum of five years from filing date might be a reasonable time for software patent, decades? Insane.
As we can trust a politician never to know anything about what the consequences of their actions are (a broad overstatement, yes, but you get the idea), we can almost certainly count on that if this directive get's implemented, there will be no reasonable bounderies for what is patentable.
So what might work, is that the patentability is so ridiculesly absolute, that even the clueless guy down on the street takes notice and realises it's stupidity.
For instance, when his favorite netshop gauges prices 150% to pay patentfees.
For this to get banned, which is really what is needed (as big business will keep on pushing until they get it), things need to get really ugly first.
Lets just hope it doesn't stay ugly.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Yep. This does it. Norway (my beloved country...) is not a full member of the EU, and I used to be quite pro membership, But not anymore. We cannot allow this foolish lack of democracy to happen! Laws and the legal-system is there to protect ALL the people and THE WHOLE society, not just those with a lot of money and to much greed for their own good!
Those of you who are EU-members: Do something! Show these people that you don't accept that your democratic rights gets flushed down the toilet!
puh...
-- If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
"Firstly, the EU directive just _harmonises existing case law_ - without the directive, what's going to happen is that different EU states are going to take different approaches and thus it will be a nightmare."
....It doesn't seem as though Linux, OpenOffice, mysql and numerous other open source products have been affected anything more than trivially."
No the European patent office started allowing software patents, this gives a legal basis for those patents.
"Secondly, the EU directive _actually reduces the degree of software patentability"
The Parliaments suggestions were valid and carefully thought through.
I've read ffii's comment's and they are valid too, the Commissions wording is full of holes.
If Pariament & People's comments didn't have validity then why seek to prevent those comments being expressed? Why not just argue your case to EU Parliament?
"Thirdly, it's been stated over and over again that there are 'multiple software business models' at work in Europe, and there's no specific reason to favour closed model approaches to open model approaches: they all work, and provide revenue and so on."
So? What has that to do with anything, the risk is that a monopoly player will be able to lock out competitors, the Parliament proposed a solution to this, the Commission didn't.
Whether that competition comes from closed or open source is irrelevant.
"Fourthly, in terms of 'software patents blocking open source',
Your comment pre-supposes that the directive represents the status quo and it certainly doesn't.
This *changes* the law, if it didn't there wouldn't be any point in having it! So whether patents *currently* affect MySql etc. or not is irrelevant.
"Fifthly, the EU always maintains more stricter examination than the US: business methods per se are _not_ patentable in the EU, and equally, flakey software patents have a harder time getting through. Stop transposing the failures of US into the EU."
Good, but the wording proposed by the Commission is fluffy. For example FFII comments on the "technology" issue are correct.
The Commissions wording does allow patents whose technology part is simply that they execute on a computer. Parliament's wording is tighter meaning that the invention has to represent improved technology.
Since any business process can be run on a computer, it allows business process patents simply by virtue of sloppy wording.
Parliament did a good job.
"Finally, the protests in Brussels are are a laugh: against multimillion dollar turnover businesses using patents and contributing to the wellbeing of the EU economy"
It's not in the interests of the European economy to allow a few patent holders to lock themselves into the their markets. Even if that patent holder is Nokia.
Being pro-competition isn't the same as being anti-business.
So mathmatics and literature are patentable if "implemented in a practical and economically useful way", eg: a book? What utter bullshit!
Donate free food here
So? There's nothing to stop a European company from patenting something in the US and using that as a basis to cross-license with a US company.
Your situation is not a valid justification for exporting the very large, and very real problems of software patents to the EU.
Do you really want it to be illegal for European companies to create products that interoperate with MS file formats? You think that is somehow going to level the playing field for EU companies?