Germany to Vote Against Software Patents in the EU

YKW writes "According to Ars Technica, Germany has decided to vote against all changes to current European patent laws. In a statement given to demonstrators in Germany, Federal Department of Justice Minsterial Director Elmar Hucko read the riot act to the EC: 'Under no circumstances do we want American procedures in Europe, Hucko vowed with regard to the US patent process. A patent must be "a fair reward for a bona fide invention and not abused as a strategy to bludgeon competitors.' With the largest EU member against software patents and French IT leaders lobbying their goverment to vote against them too, Europe might be saved from software patents. At least for a while. An older Slashdot article about software patents in Europe is here."

Comments

Foreign competitors

[kevmo]

I am curious to see how this will play out with big US companies like Microsoft and Apple, specifically with foreign competitors cloning their products.

Will Microsoft be able to prevent Windows clones from being sold in the US by US patents, even though they may be legal in Europe?

Re:Foreign competitors

[Awptimus Prime]

I think I know what is going to happen:

Eventually, the EU is going to stomp all over US software firms. This will happen after a few years of unrestricted development.

If this pans out well, I'll be looking for citizenship in the EU in the next few years. What's so great about the US nowadays? We've demonstrated that our voting system has failed, that our leadership hates gays, muslims, and does nothing to protect middle america's jobs while all the fatcats get fatter by outsourcing anything and everything they can because they lost their sense of nationalism over a few dollars.

The way I see it, the US has had leadership without any real vision of tomorrow. This has resulted in a world of nations against it. The repair will require a lot more than a democrat in office, too. It will require people actually caring, and that is not going to happen anytime soon. Hell, look how well 9/11 "brought us together". All it brought together were the straight, old white people out in the boonies, and that's only because they all bought the same stickers, t-shirts, and other random 9/11 merchandise at the local gas station. For the rest of us, all we see is a nation filled with hate and sensless, highly reactionary, law making.

Geeks, get your passports ready.. EU or bust! :)

Re:Foreign competitors

[Roger Keith Barrett]

No... the problem is that over the Bush years there HAS been a vision of the future.

And that vision is that the future should be controlled by big corporations with no mediation from the government or anyone else.

Re:Foreign competitors

[the drizzle]

Amen. An amendment against gay marriage? This is the pinnacle of our president's social policy? Whatever happened to the great uniter?

Whether one is for or against the policy of Iraq, the lack of disclosure from this administration is baffling. Any argument one can use against the Clinton administration (lack of disclosure, too much rhetoric) can be multiplied 10x with this administration.

But more to the point...Europe's economy is proving powerful (and increasingly united) against US policy, and we can either oblige their requests or become victim of their policies. We can force Microsoft to start operating fairly or ignore their practices until their business will be fined into financial hell in Europe and some German company takes over the desktop share (with a Linux/FreeBSD distro).

Re:Foreign competitors

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to do what? Park an aircraft carrier just off the coast of the country that invented Exocet ?

My goodness. That'd certainly be a sight worth seeing! Brief, but worth seeing.

Re:Foreign competitors

[dbIII]

I wonder if the Bush administration will apply political pressure on the french and the germans to accept these patents?

If they do so there will be a repeat of the French reaction to the "vote with us in the UN or face the consequences" demand over Iraq - a firmly extended middle finger. Back then whoever made the demand was either an idiot (maybe it was Rumsfeld?) or it was some deliberately contrived plan to stir up the french so the US could go into Iraq without the UN running the show - because the reaction of the french being threatened like a tiny african republic is exactly what anyone with any awareness of world events would expect.

If the USA applies pressure on France it will be certain that they vote the other way.

Re:Foreign competitors

[Wastl]

As long as you continue to buy american products we don't give a flying fuck what you do. Keep pouring money into our economy, we'll turn that into weapons and fuck you whenever we want.

Actually, we are importing less from the US than we are exporting to the US. So it's quite the opposite.

Sebastian

Re:Foreign competitors

[Pelops]

Well, talking about buying american products is not something completely accurate.
Do I buy an american products when i buy IBM or Coca cola ? The answer is far from simple when you think about it.
Don't forget that for examples Coca Cola exports very little. They use local factories to produce the soft drink. Same thing for IBM, they have factories all over Europe.
So when you buy an american product, you are not just giving money to the US, but also to those european countries who host those factories.
Nothing is as simple as black and white.

Re:Foreign competitors

[AstroDrabb]

I agree 100%. I am born and raised in good ole USA, serverd in the USMC and I am not anti-USA. Though I do hope that we get our butts kicked in the IT world by the EU, China and India. Not because I want to lose my job as a programmer of see others lose thier jobs. It is because our Patent system is very broken, and our big businesses are getting far to much political power that a corporation should _never_ have.

The repair will require a lot more than a democrat in office, too.

Democrats wont' help, they are just as bad as Republicans. Republicans want big business and Dems want big special interest groups such as unions. Look at these "donations" from the Teamsters Union almost all the money is going to Democrats. Contrast that with big business and almost all the "donations" are going to Republicans. The majority of the top 10 "donars" are giving the majority of thier "donations" to Democrats. We need the USA to get closer to a true democracy with more then two political parties to pick from. It is pretty insane to think that all 300+ million Americans fall into one of two political "buckets". And we also need to make it illegal for a corporation to give bribe money. If you cannot vote, you should not be able to make bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign contributions.

Look at the top 100 "donators" for the period 1998-2004. Just the top 100 have bribed our politicians with $1,156,273,938! You can see why in our "represented" democracy, the average American is not represented. With billions USD going around in bribes, it is hard for even legit politicans to do thier jobs.

Re:Foreign competitors

[orcrist]

You want to do what? Park an aircraft carrier just off the coast of the country that invented Exocet ?

My goodness. That'd certainly be a sight worth seeing! Brief, but worth seeing.

Brief? Sorry, no. I'm not one of those knee-jerk "America will kick your ass!" type of Americans but... no. And to the moderators, no it's not insightful. Interesting? Yes.

Your link mentions that it managed to heavily damage a frigate. There's a world of difference between a frigate and an aircraft carrier. From my tour of duty on submarines I can tell you that a frigate of that sort is considered to be a one-torpedo target; one torpedo will literally crack a frigate right in half. Battleships and aircraft carriers nominally need at least 2-3. And that's assuming you even get in range: 65 km? ROFLMAO.

An aircraft carrier is never alone. It is almost always accompanied by at least 2 attack subs and several surface ships ranging 150+ km. around the carrier. No surface ship is getting within even 200 km. of that carrier let alone 65 km. And submarines wouldn't have an easy time of it either. At best it would be a suicide mission (since once they fire, they'll have 2 fast-attacks, a swarm of P-3's, and an ASW cruiser on their ass) and they'd be likely to cause more damage if they simply use their torpedos, or better yet ram it at full speed.

Or, as other posters have pointed out, use nukes. A tomahawk with a tactical nuke and its 1100 km. range would do the trick, assuming the French have them :-P

Don't get caught up with this idea that just because the U.S. is behaving like a bunch of idiots in Iraq, and that guerilla tactics work against a modern army when it's the occupying force among an increasingly hostile populace that that translates to the ocean. Since the break-up of the USSR there is no one (or not even everyone together) who can challenge the U.S. on the seas. Period. That's why the Navy has turned into nothing more than a troop and munitions delivery service: A victim of its own success.

-chris

Re:Foreign competitors

[Distinguished Hero]

Jesus, can I find one thread not containing an anti-American comment at +5 insightful?

We've demonstrated that our voting system has failed

No, you've demonstrated that Florida's electoral system has failed. Thanks to the electoral college, Florida can choose to select their representatives however the hell they want. Regardless how much you whine about it, approximately 50% of voters voted for Bush. It's not like he won with 10% of the vote and a military coup. Gore might have had the popular vote, but the electoral college is there for a reason; whether that reason is valid, of course, is up for debate.

that our leadership hates gays

Look, I'm not saying that Bush is right to attempt to amend the constitution, but not allowing gays to vote is not necessarily hatred. Some would argue that marriage is designed solely for procreation, and includes certain incentives to facilitate that. Personally, I don't see marriage as having anything to do with love (certainly love can exist outside marriage); why do people need the state to acknowledge their love for each other?

that our leadership hates ... muslims

Half the time people insinuate that Bush is in bed with the Saudis (see Fahrenheit 911) and the other half of the time they insinuate that he hates the Muslims. If your leadership really hated Muslims, why would they attempt to stabilise the middle east. I'm sure you think that the Iraqi war is all about oil, and to some it probably is; however, if the administration really hated Muslims, why would they have waged the most humane war in modern history? Furthermore, if they hated Muslims so much, why don't they just invest a whole lot of money in alternative energy sources? Imagine what would happen to the OPEC countries if the US stopped buying their oil...

and does nothing to protect middle america's jobs while all the fatcats get fatter by outsourcing anything and everything they can because they lost their sense of nationalism over a few dollars.

So, now we're accusing Bush of not being nationalist enough? Outsourcing is not a clear cut issue. I'm not saying that I support it, but there are viable arguments on both sides of the fence. If you really wanted to stop outsourcing, you should stop buying items that where produced through outsourcing.

Look, I'm tired of all the anti-American sentiment. As an European, I'd like to point out that Europe and the whole world would have been a lot more fucked up if it wasn't for the Americans. If you want to point out some dubious action undertaken by the US during the cold war, I'd like to point out (as someone who used to live very close to the Soviets) that had the US not fought the Cold war, the world would have been far worse off. Anyways, the people really responsible for the Cold War were those who were so terrified of the US being the only superpower, that they deemed it fit to give the Soviet Union the nuke, but that's for another post.

First Post!

[thewldisntenuff]

Our neighbors across the pond might actually have a good idea for once :) ...

If the WIPO can get a standard software patent system across both sides (US and Euro), preferrably like the Europeans, we might not be reading Slashdot headlines every morning that read "Apple Patents the English Language!", etc. The US Patent system is dated, and needs change, especially when such patents can be made and there is such a high backlog of patents...Time shall tell, but this may be the first step in getting software/IP patents sorted out

Hm, interesting...

[NeoChaosX]

And for the Americans who may ask "It's Europe; who give a flying fuck?", you need to know that the entire European Union is much larger than the United States, both in population and economy. And since Germany is the EU's largest member (and the article also points out efforts in France to block the software patent laws), this this could really heat up the war over software patents.

Re:Hm, interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you're a bit behind the times. These days, it's the entire world that says "It's America, fuck them!"

Re:Hm, interesting...

[timeOday]

you need to know that the entire European Union is much larger than the United States, both in population and economy.

Population, yes, economny, no:

EU GDP: 11.50 trillion Pop: 454,900,000
US GDP: 10.40 trillion Pop: 290,343,000

Sure a trillion more is a lot in absolute terms, but it's only 10%.

Anyways in this case it might be more relavant to define a "software GDP," and for now I think the US would be #1 in that dept.

If the EU does resist software patents, it should be interesting to watch: will monetizing every little idea create more value for US companies and keep them in the lead, or will the increased freedom in the EU lead to products that integrate all the best features, leading to EU dominance? And does Microsoft even care, since they can easily buy any company with patents they want? Stay tuned...

Re:Hm, interesting...

[Scarblac]

10 new countries joined the EU on May 1. I remember hearing on the news back then that this made the EU economy bigger than that of the USA. I think your numbers are pre-expansion.

Re:Hm, interesting...

[arkhan_jg]

The numbers are accurate - if you look closer, it's the EU that's 10% larger than the US. However, I agree the parents phrasing made me think at first that he was saying the US was larger.

Re:Hm, interesting...

[killjoe]

If they do then it's all just hot air. Until the rest of the world stops buying american products they will suffer under our "leadership".

People of the world. Get your shit together.

Do not buy american products.
Do not go to american movies.
Do not listen to american music.
Do not wear american clothing.

People in the US laugh at you every time they see a protestor wearing a pepsi shirt or eating a mcdonalds.

Re:Hm, interesting...

[TenPin22]

US National Debt = $7,147,545,929,573.40

Or if you like $7.1 Trillion.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

Dunno what the EU National debt is but I don't think we run a $500 Billion trade deficit and the Euro isn't a reserve currency and you can't buy oil directly with Euros (yet).

Once you see the Euro as a reserve and oil currency you can kiss the US economy goodbye.

All that American debt testifies to the USA's free ticket to creating dollars out of thin air. As long as they aren't spent in the USA they can effectively pay interest in dollars on the dollars it borrows from Asia, Russia, Europe, China and the Middle East.

Once the rest of the world wakes up and starts trying to get out of the dollar for whatever reason (oil peak, war, terror attacks), allllll that cash will flow back to the USA and cause hyperinflation.

Yes, the USA is heading for complete financial collapse taking most of the world with it leaving the EU to emerge as the dominant economic world power.

If you look at history currency systems have only ever lasted about 30 years so we are long overdue for a complete crash since the USA stopped backing the dollar with gold in the 1970s.

It's been a fun last 50 years but the party is almost over !

Oh yeah and getting back to the topic, no software patents in Europe could be an incentive for companies to base in Europe only furtherering the USA's economic decline.

Re:Hm, interesting...

[flossie]

Please explain what mystery economic process would cause this. It doesn't matter if I buy my oil in pesos or groats, it still costs the same, and the exchange rate is still 27 pesos to the groat no matter which currency I use.

The mysterious process that would cause the US economy to collapse is the change in exchange rates. While US dollars are the reserve currency in which oil is traded, all nations need to ensure that they have a fistful of dollars in reserve with which they can buy oil. This means that the US treasury can print and spend dollars and can get goods in return while being confident that most of these dollars are safely tied up in foreign national banks and will not be "cashed in" against the US reserves. In effect the US has literally been able to print money since the gold standard was abolished.

If Euros become the new reserve currency, all of a sudden there will be a whole lot of dollars used to pay off any trade balances with the US. Instead of getting goods in return for paper, the US will start to get paper in return for goods. The final effect will be massive inflation in the US and a plummeting dollar on the international exchange markets.

If you want a slightly more coherent and well thought out explanation of this, I suggest you read Will Hutton's The state we're in.

Re:Hm, interesting...

[Bananenrepublik]

Until the rest of the world stops buying american products they will suffer under our "leadership".
Don't the US have a hugedforeign trade deficit? I.e. they actually import much more than they export? So in a sense you could say that the rest of the world already did.

A good first step

[ErichTheWebGuy]

On Groklaw, this was reported last Thursday. Not only will Germany vote no, but there is some pretty heavy pressure on France to do the same. In fact, to quote Groklaw, "They call business methods patents on software corporate racketeering and say they don't want to copy US methods"

The entities putting pressure on the French govt. include the head of MandrakeSoft, who has pretty heavy pull over in France. In fact, IIRC, a lot of French govt. agencies use Mandrake Linux.

strategy

[bladesjester]

all that companies in the EU will have to do if software patents are denied in the EU will be to set up a small arm of the company in the US. since most software products are sold here as well, they can just do the litigation here in the US. all it would take is for the company violating the patent to have an office or bank account in the US or to sell the offending product in the US...

Patents work.

[digitalPortal]

The overall premise of patenting an invention is valid and protects the inventor. However, I agree the current system is highly abused. The flaw in the current system, is the ability to patent 'IDEAS' even if you cant physically create a functioning prototype. For example, right now you can patent the 'IDEA' of a hovercraft car, and 50 years from now when someone actually develops a hovercraft car...they *must* pay royalties to you. ???? this needs to be changed. You should only be able to patent physical process (algorithms, products) and not ideas. -$0.02

Re:Patents work.

[Abcd1234]

Then save up some money, or get a private backer. The patent system doesn't exist to protect every single inventor and their pet ideas. It exists to encourage inventors to disclose their ideas (thus encouraging further innovation) while retaining the ability to gain a profit from them via a limited monopoly on the idea. 'course, it's a little tough to gain profit from an idea if you can't even afford to create a friggin' prototype. So, patents won't help you... big surprise, that's not their purpose! Unless, of course, your aim is to dream up wild ideas and patent them on the off chance that you'll have an opportunity to extort some poor company. And if that's your plan... well, let's just say I'm glad you're not the head of the USPTO.

Re:Patents work.

[linuxhansl]

I agree, a patent is by itself a good concept.

For software (aswell for music and movies, btw), however, copyright law already regulates ownership. Allowing patents on software is like allowing patents on sequences of tunes or on sequences of images. It's absurd.

With copyright governing in the software world, you can be sure that whatever you write yourself from scratch is yours. With Patents allowed you may infringe on existing patents without your knowledge. That is the big difference.

I don't know our friends in the music industry would react if patents on sequences of tunes or images would suddenly be allowed.

Re:Patents work.

[J. T. MacLeod]

Patenting simple ideas and abusing legitimate businesses tends to be the realm of large businesses, not private parties, though it does happen both ways.

Nonetheless, requiring fabrication is a burden that places most patents in a class that only wealthy businesses can pursue.

Finding a private backer isn't all that easy, especially when you can't reveal your invention because you haven't patented it. Saving money can either take time or be beyond the realm of possibility. Patents were made for the small man, NOT for the mega-corporation. That's changed significantly in the years between.

My great grandfather, in his lifetime, twice invented something that could revolutionize the automotive industry. The first time, he could not find a private backer, nor would his wife let him put their house at risk to get the money to patent it himself. He took a gamble on the good will of the men in Detroit, and lost. Terribly. His invention was stolen.

The second time he came up with something far more amazing. This time, he was able to get the money to pursue patenting it. He couldn't get a patent, though, because his prototype was deemed inadequate. He fully intended to pursue marketing it to a company which could make use of it, but he didn't, because he couldn't protect it.

I've personally designed several things that could be quite impactful, but I'm unable to pursue marketing them to companies that could make use of them because I lack the very sophisticated and expensive resources necessary to begin down the path required by the present system. Though I prefer ideas be in the public domain, I know that, generally speaking, to bring an invention or improvement to a wide market so that it will be useful, it must be protected by a patent so a company will consider using it. What can I do? Nothing, presently. It's really killed my passion for invention.

Genuine innovation, and the pursuit of marketing that innovation, is indeed possible without the resources for fabrication. It's happened a lot over the years, but most people aren't able to do anything with it, because the present system is classist.

Amen

[WindowLicker916]

Hopefully this will eventually cause change in the American patent system. The current system pratically stifles competition and clogs our court systems, costing millions to tax payers. I mean, come on, why should one click shopping be considered a patentable idea?

Patent This

[Deaper]

I still want to get a patent for the human reproductive proccess so that I can essentially control who can and can not reproduce. Gosh knows somebody needs to.

Economic Advantage

[St. Arbirix]

Methinks that the EU might be a good place to look into for some fun IT work if they regard the US system like that.

Think on it: Within the EU software ideas will run wild, everyone having access to nuance inventions in their software, whilst over here in the US you won't be allowed to measure the length of a click, run an application within another, nor make an entire window transparent without getting permission from someone else (possibly paying for it).

I wonder how long it will be before free Elvis albums won't be the only product of Europe States-side corporations will try to block.

--

Up through college in the US, everything else anywhere else.

Re:I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the US can't force the EC to do anything anymore. As someone pointed out, they have a larger economy (more people, yes... but it's still a larger economy). And frankly america has "lost face" over iraq, and this damages prestige. Prestige is hard to quantify, but if you piss everyone off over one issue... other things get harder.

So the war in iraq isn't *just* sapping millions of dollars a day from the US, you are also losing prestige. Furthermore, your prestige is also going to take a *huge* blow if you pull out of iraq and let it become a hellhole/puppetdemocracy/iran2/whatever. People will say, "look that 'superpower' can't even conquer a tiny country properly - we have nothing to fear".

So there are interesting days ahead, I for one used to believe in america as an ideal - dislike most of the people yes, but the ideal was there. You were my kin, I would have considered dying defending your shores were you under mortal threat (just as the french fought by you at your birth)... but now, I am indifferent, because not only do I dislike most americans now, but I think the american ideal has changed drastically. It is not something worth defending. Your legislators have wiped their asses on the constitution so many times you cannot read the print for the shit. And your populance has stood by and let this happen.

Now the american ideal is the american cautionary tale for how not to let your democracy fail. Some will learn from it, others will not. Life will continue.

America has left a mark on history, and it is still up for grabs as to what that mark exactly is. But right now, it's looking like a stain.

Re:heh

[anshil]

Pro-Something? Heh! We're currently running the biggest peace project ever! We're uniting europe and just now slowly spreading to the east. Two weeks ago we embraced 10 new countries from the former east. It will cost us millons of billions to bring them to western standards and to get an equably spreaded weatlh - by the way a major goal of the EU - this is the only way to ensure permant peace, as unequality will always result in war&terrorism. Thats something the US does not get, 9/11 has shown you can built tons of rockets and warships it does not save you from the massive dangers of disproportionateness .

Re:I also wonder...

[arkhan_jg]

Simple. there's no patent treaty between the US and the EU.

With copyright, (the Berne convention) once it's written, it's automatically copyrighted in all Berne nations (which is most of them). Registering is still a good idea if you're expecting someone else to claim ownership on the same or very similar work. Licensing said works though, still has to be done via national bodies, which is one reason itunes hasn't come to europe yet.

With patents, you need to register in every country you want patent protection in. The patent rules are not universal, and at least between the EU countries and the US, there's no treaty recognising each others patents. However, I believe it is possible to use patents from other nations to demonstrate prior art, and if you have a patent in one country, it can speed up the prior art examination in another.

As far as software goes, there is a specific exemption in EU patent law that disallows pure software patents. This is what the big companies are lobbying to remove, under the guise of 'tidying up' the law. This is because the EPO has been granting 'computer implemented inventions' on the basis that if it needs hardware to run, or is part of a hardware system, the whole thing can be patented. Of course, these patents are of very questionable legitimacy, so the patent holders have not been sueing for infringement in europe as the end result would probably be they'd lose the patent.

If they can change the law to legitimise their current patents though, and allow more, big US patent holders will be able to shut down large swathes of the EU software development houses (the EU has a huge number of small and medium companies, rather than the few big ones in the US, thus vulnerable to long winded patent ligitation)

Note, the European Patent Office allows you to register your patent with them, and ask for it to be as valid in as many of the EPC signing nations as you want to pay for. The EPC is a patent convention, harmonising patent law between the signing nations, which includes some nations outside the EU itself. Definitely not the US tho!

And my own position; patents on maths, ideas or business methods should remain illegal. We already have a method for protecting specific implementations of inventions in software, it's called copyright. Patents should be the process of protecting specific physical inventions, i.e. a specific mousetrap spring design, not the idea of 'a device that traps mammals'. Imagine if people started patenting plot ideas in novels or TV shows!

Re:Meanwhile, in France...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I'm not french either. And although I like to have a dig at them occasionally the fact that I know it is probably americans modding this up (and who created tehe video) just ruins it. We english have been at war with the frogs and dissing them out for much longer and have a right to this humour.

Whereas you americans.... The french helped you fight us off, the french bled and died fighting for your freedom. That makes any jibe by an american toward them (ala the republicans not long ago) a spew of filth.

Disgrace. The french not supporting (i.e. verbal) your quite questionable war equates to treachery? How about remembering the guys who died for you, and died for an ideal.

fuck you, you stinking fucks. this is where anti-americanism stems from. right here, from your stinking ignorance and disrespect.

Dear Rest of the World

[Anonymous Coward]

We own the patent on train wrecks and your post is infringing on that patent.

I think it's the double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the main reason is: you set a lot of rules, then refuse to follow them yourself.

Examples: nuclear weapons pact, bioweapons pacts, chemical weapons pacts. You use your power position in the UN wrongly. You request following the Geneva treaty for people who have been imprisoned by your enemies, yet you set up concentration camps to Guantanamo and beat people to death in the Iraqi prison you control. Then you cry foul when a citizen is dramatically killed (Berg). And don't even think all of this started with 9/11. No, no.. it had been going on for a longer time. You have to go back to the beginning of the previous century to see all the details and find the reasons.

Whenever something happens to you, you cry foul, although there's a good chance you have already done something similar to some other country.

I think such double standards are the main reason of dislike towards USA. Using the power position to set rules for other, and then ruthlessly exploiting and ignoring them.

And remember, most people hate the country, and what it represents, and especially the government, but have no quarrels with the ordinary citizen.

I am posting this anonymously because it will draw a lot of flak from people who do not read this post with thought and consider this a flamebait. It's not. You can think yourself if the opinions in this post are correct or not and could this be the answer to your question.

Italy too?

[xlyz]

Italian Minister for Technological Innovation, that is not entitled to vote ( DOH! ), has strongly recommended his collegues partecipating to vote against as well

Re:When it's all said and done...

[Anonymous Coward]

Spot on.
I've said this before here. What is going to happen when the huge backlog of trivial and unworthy patents are invalidated en masse? The stupid companies that spent money on them are going to lose them all outright. That would add up to billions of asset capital wiped off in an instant.

These big corporations may feel smug and clever at grabbing patents on swinging sideways and one click whatever, but who will be laughing when they are told they are worth nothing and the money has gone. Not the shareholders that's for sure.

Shareholders should act against companies making weak IP claims because they are just flushing money down the pan for the future.

If you think that Europe is not 'cooperating' with the (ridiculous) American way of thinking about these things wait until you hear what the rest of the world thinks about it. You think the Indians and Chinese are going to repect twisted patents?
Think again.

[meta] time for an EU icon?

[CComMack]

Just a suggestion: might it not be wise to create a topic and icon for matters pertaining to EU law, in parallel to the Stars and Stripes icon often seen on YRO stories pertaining to US law? I for one am finding the many "earlier Slashdot stories" referenced in the text of every EU software patent story one reads nowadays to be a tedious method of threading.

And before I get modded down by the Europe bashers, let me disclose that I'm an American who finds it edifying to keep up with events across the pond, and have no interest in the "Is Slashdot too Americentric" debate.

Re:Wakeup Call

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Der Spiegel (article in German) does not agree with you. Maybe they also listened to Heise but it does not look like it.

Re:Wakeup Call

[kompiluj]

Kinda strange, but DO YOU READ what you cite?
Quoting:
Last Wednesday Elmar Hucko, head of a government department in the Ministry of Justice, announced at an event in Berlin that the Federal Government would vote against the controversial software patent directive of the Council of Ministers of the European Union

WIPO/TRIPS actually FORBID software patents!

[Halo1]

suppose if Germany decides not to support the European Commission on changes in the law to software patents, then nobody can sway them otherwise because they are a sovereign state and don't have to comply with what the WIPO or the EC says.

First of all, as member of the EU, Germany has to comply with EU directives that are passed. Next, WIPO does not only not require software patents, it even forbids them (just like TRIPS).

The excuse used by software patent proponents regarding TRIPs, is article 27:

Patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step andare capable of industrial application.

This text however explicitly uses terms which are defined nowhere else in the treaty (like "invention", "field of technology" and "inventive step"), so that signing members can define these terms themselves in such a way that they fit best in their existing laws.

According to article 52 of the the European Patent Convention, a computer program can never constitute an invention. And in the Parliament proposal of the directive, "field of technology" is defined in such a way that computer programs, maths, business methods etc do cannot belong to one (even if they're executed on a computer).

And on top of that, there's articles 7 TRIPs which is interpreted by the WTO as that the measures as implemented must ...

.. contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare

Most evidence points to the contrary as far as software patents are concerned.

So TRIPs does not require software patents, how does it forbid them?

Article 10 of the TRIPs treaty states:

Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971).

As opposed to what a first reading would suggest, namely that this simply means that copyright protection must be available for computer programs, this article goes further. The WTO states on its website regarding article 10.1:

The obligation to protect computer programs as literary works means e.g. that only those limitations that are applicable to literary works may be applied to computer programs.

Since patent protection is unavailable for literary works, it can't be available for computer programs either according to TRIPs. Proponents of software patents often counter this using their interpretation of "computer program as such", which turns "computer programs with a further technical effect" into "computer-implemented inventions", which in turn would supposedly not be affected by this exclusion.

This interpretation is however invalid due to article 4 of the EU Software Copyright directive from 1991. This article states that a computer program as literary work includes the following (emphasis mine):

... the permanent or temporary reproduction of a computer program by any means and in any form, in part or in whole. Insofar as loading, displaying, running, transmission or storage ...

The WIPO Copyright Treaty also contains applicable clauses (article 10):

(1) Contracting Parties may, in their national legislation, provide for limitations of or exceptions to the rights granted to authors of literary and artistic works under this Treaty in certain special cases that do not conflict with a normal expl

Re:bullshit - there is already a patent law in eur

[Halo1]

But it is currently not possible to patent trivia things!

That is incorrect. Just look at this patented webshop.

Remember that one of the most important patents - the mpeg layer 3 better known as mp3 - is from Germany, from the Frauenhofer Institute. And they were already able to protect their discovery with an european patent.

With several European Patents actually. This is the basic one:

Digital coding process for transmitting and/or storing acoustic signals, specifically music signals, comprising the following steps:

• N samples of the acoustic signal are converted into M spectral coefficients;
• said M spectral coefficients are subjected to quantisation at a first level;
• after coding by means of an entropic encoder the number of bits required to represent all the quantized spectral coefficients is checked;
• when the required number of bits does not correspond to a specified number of bits quantization and coding are repeated in subsequent steps, each at a modified quantization level, until the number of bits required for representation reaches the specified number of bits, and
• additionally to the data bits the required quantization level is transmitted and/or stored.

As you can see, this is a patent not just on mp3 compression, but on any audio compression scheme which iteratively tries to compress an audio sample until it fits in a pre-determined number of bits.

The problem with these European software patents is that they are currently in general not enforceable in a court. The reason is that the European Patent Convention forbids software patents. The European Patent Office is an independent institution however, which gets its funding from granting patents, so it creatively reinterpreted that convention. That does not change the law nor the opinion of the courts, however (except for the UK).

You're right however that we have strong copyright laws, and that simply copying other people's code is not allowed (unless they agree, like in case of GPL'd code), not even if it's just a few lines.

Three words: Making his point.

[Kjella]

"You are really brainwashed by the USA political system. (...) What civil liberties does the USA have that are missing in the EU?"

Free unfettered speech. The kind that will offend my neighbor, my government, anyway.

See, America has this great freedom in theory (First Amendment etc.) but in practice you had McCarthyism, trying to choke anti-war movement regarding Vietnam and the latest anti-terrorist/muslim/arab selfcensorship.

Ever noticed the uproar over a few coffins? Imagine showing their bloody bullet-ridden corpses lying in Iraq. Or how many think the tortured Iraqis "deserved what they got" in the US prisons?

The only place where we're more conservative than the US is when it comes to racism, which I think is your error in judgement, not ours. Think of it as class action libel/slander, which isn't legal neither here nor there.

We may not have that many great quotes, being spread over dozens of constitutions, some that say little about it at all. But I think you will find your freedom of speech is greater than in the US, whether you want to talk about drugs, abortion, religion, nudity, pornography, war or pretty much any other controversial topic.

Kjella