NewsForge On U.S. Advice To EU On Software Patents

An anonymous reader points to Roblimo's "interesting article about how the U.S. sold out to software patents and the EU should as well." Should be of interest to Europeans, forced as they are "to suffer from willy-nilly software development by individuals who have not been screened, approved, and trained by corporate human resources professionals."

Comments

Yes.

[Serious Simon]

I'm voting for a person who has shown clear opposition to software patents.

Re:Yes.

[killbill!]

It is very sad that in the countries I've heard about (France and Germany: I am French but happen to be living in Germany atm), only two parties (the Liberals and the Greens) have a solid European platform.
Those are not mainstream as they usually hover between 5 and 10% of the vote. The larger Socialist and Conservative Parties never seriously dealt with Europe in their campaign - it was rather all about bashing the other party on a strictly national basis. No wonder voter turnout is going to be dismal once again :(


I originally intended to vote for the (German) Liberal Party. Out of habit maybe, since I usually vote for its French sister party, the French Democratic Union (UDF).
Then I saw their voting record on the software patent issue. Screw them, I'm going with the Greens this time.

A previous poster was modded down as offtopic for this, but offtopic it sure was not. Indeed, the Greens are the only party that has consistently opposed any kind of software patents on a European basis. Besides, by voting for the Greens because of software patents, you are also rewarding one of the very few parties that actually care about Europe.

Come to think of it, anyone know what happened to the voting records on the FFII website (http://www.ffii.org.uk/votes/swpat/)?
The URL now returns 404 Errors at this very crucial time!

Re:Yes.

[Teddyman]

I even voted for a person whose whole party is opposed to software patents, so even if my candidate won't get elected, my vote could help somebody else from the same party. (The D'Hondt method is used to determine vote results here.)

Re:There is only one way to deal with software pat

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenOffice.org does have a word count feature, click on File > Properties and then look under the Statistics tab.

Election swpat coverage

[Holger Blasum]

Software patents party trends, candidate statements and voting behavior for many European countries (it's a wiki, add your country if you feel it's missing ;)

Re:Elections coming up

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes - this topic will steer my vote! I will vote for Green, here is why and alternatives (for Germany):

In Germany the Greens and the Liberal Party (FDP) both announced to be officially *against* Software Patents. Also the left wing (PDS) is against.

These are the choices I did take into account - in my opinion if you want to be sure and you can live with their other ideas the Greens are the safest choice!

The others do not qualify:

Situation in the SPD (Socialist party) is about 50% pro-SW-Patents and 50% against-SW-Patents. I have the feeling they both want SW-Patents (for their large industry lobby) but likewise not the consequences of them. Since they cannot make their mind up, I need to put by vote otherwise.

For the CDU/CSU (Conservative party) the situtation is even worse, about 70% pro-SW-Patents and 30% against. Most of their MEPs are not well informed and tend to believe the party line (which seems to be mostly dictated by a MEP Wuermling - a strong supporter of Software Patents).

Wuermling also called the EU parliament 'uninformed and confused' (in which he is also a memeber) and praised the councils version of the directive loudly - in my eyes not someone you would want to see as qualified member of the EU parliament.

Re:Elections coming up

[Anonymous Coward]

In Sweden voting at post offices started May 26

Re:Obviously, Corporate America has to stop this

[Alsee]

I personally wouldn't mind software patents if they were truly fundamental breakthroughs or such (RSA cryptography comes to mind)

Chuckle. Take a look at the original RSA patent. They don't even get to the RSA encryptin until the SEVENTH claim. Claim one (the root of the patent) is on the very idea of public key cryptography.

Even once you do get down to claim 7, it's still a patent on the "invention" of doing math. Groan.

-

Re:While we are in court

[Anonymous Coward]

the Chinese, Indians, Asia, S-Americans, Africans

Here in S-America, Brazil is the only country innovating in software (or, at least, protecting future innovation). The rest of us were swiftly "protected from nilly-willy software developers" :(

Now in Chile, 6 months after the implementation of a FTA with the US, the BSA^H^H^Hgovernment is finally showing its claws, ready to reap from the permissive piracy (free training anyone?) operating here during the last 20 years or so.

Re:Jury's Out.

[JaredOfEuropa]

Europe has a lot more socialists who aren't fans of Big Business

Socialists, bah! There are plenty of MEP hopefuls who are against US-style software patents; you should be able to find one who espouses your other political convictions as well. If you're Dutch, check here for a ranking. All Dutch MEPs, except the ones from one party, voted against overly broad software patents, so take your pick. The one party that voted for software patents is the VVD party to which Bolkestein belongs. If you remember, he's the commissioner who's been trying every which way to get the new patent law approved, sometimes by blatantly undemocratic means.

The FFII has an overview of the voting track record of the MEPs of all countries, but their site appears to be down at the moment.
br. If the issue of software patents is important to you, this is the one subject on which it is quite easy to find information, both on the subject itself and on the voting track record of MEPs up for re-election. No matter if you're a green, socialist, conservative or christian-democrat, there will be a candidate to your liking who is also against software patents. Research your choices beforer you step into the voting booth this Sunday! (or today if you're Dutch).

Re:Software Patents are good

[Halo1]

You can't do that, because the US made it illegal in the international TRIPs treaty to create special conditions for certain kinds of patents. Either you allow patents on something and these patents are exactly the same as all other patents you allow, or you don't allow patents on something (and then you have to argue that this something can either not be an invention, or does not belong to a field of technology).

Re:Jury's Out.

[ista]

Those "poor corperations" are usually corporations like IBM (e.g. progress bar) or Sun (shopping cart in web shops).

The majority of those patents have been filed by non-EU-companies, and even most of their claims are just based on the line "we managed to patent this in the US, so acknowledge this patent for the EU as well".
As the european patent office gets money for issuing patents and not for giving out legal advisories, they issued those patents.

If those patents were actually set in place, most EU companies who relied on the more than 30 years old laws forbidding to patent computer programs or math algorithms are deep in trouble: they would face a new legal situation and market, where the non-EU-companies who filed those EU-patents are definitely in advantage.

See swpat.ffii.org for more information on the situation of software patents in the EU.