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EU Ministers Went Off-Brief In Patent Vote
MartinB writes "Several EU ministers reportedly went against the wishes of their nations in voting for the proposed EU Software Patent legislation in May. Among those misleading the council of ministers were representatives from Holland, Poland and Germany. The Dutch parliament is going as far as asking to change its vote, which was originally in favour of making software patentable."
This could be a scandal that might rock the comparatively-new EU system for a loop. Ministers were being trusted to represent the view of the government that sent them... but it seems as if business interests have found that these individuals are a weak link that can easily be "bought off" and convinced to act on their own.
Of course, the USA didn't get things right on the first try either. We created a national government under the Articles Of Confederation that had so little power it couldn't tax and therefore quickly ran into problems getting anything done. (The writing of the US Constitution was actually a rather peaceful overthrow of the existing US government of the time rather than the creation of a government where there was none.)
In the USA, the people don't directly elect the president. We might say we do, we might think we do, but really we don't.
What Americans actually vote for is "electors" who have been selected by campaign organizations to be the people who will represent the people who are running for president. Each state holds its own election to determine which slate of electors they will send to the "Electoral College"... whomever gets a majority of the votes for president there wins. (Should three candidates get electoral votes, and nobody gets a majority, the election is kicked to a special session of the House of Representatives where each state gets exactly one vote.)
The point is that these electors were selected by the campaign of the candidate they're supposed to vote for, and are contractually and legally bound to do so... but, uh, what if they don't? That's just plain uncharted Consitutional territory. The Supreme Court would most likely have to issue a ruling that'd end up deciding the outcome, deciding if the votes would stand as originally cast, or if the "expected" result should be used instead effectively making the Electoral College meeting the formality we all want it to be.
That's exactly the situation the EU seems to have worked themselves into here. They've ended up with "unfaithful" representatives who didn't do as they were expected to, and the EU hasn't exactly pondered what to do in such a situation yet.
I'm just saying, it's not like this is a situation that could never happen in the USA...
Yes, they did [voting against their governments]. But the result is legal and binding, isn't it? If it is,...then, by Holland wanting to reverse its decision, I have a feeling that is legal too...right? It seems we [Free Software Lovers] will be caught up in a legal quagmire, defined as "A difficult or precarious situation; a predicament". I hope the odds are with us. Cb..
If they're worried about ministers not voting according to their briefs, then dump the whole system of ministers and just mail in the briefs! I mean, what's the point of appointing a human being if you're going to get pissed everytime he or she acts like a human being? Why don't you appoint a rubber stamp instead?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The big corporations see governments as potential threats who'll come after them just like they did against MS. They all learned the lesson long ago and know that using there money they can control politicians and make laws that favor themselves. They're paying good money to get the governments off there back and they certainly expect to have some kind of power in return for such a waste of money.
The corporations won the war.
However inequitable it may seem, income tax was fairer than most other taxation methods which were largely based on your assets on a particular day. Tax assesment was horrendous as it was very subjective.
I'm not a programmer. Not a real one, at least.
I like the idea of Open Source, but I don't think it should be forced on people, and I'm sure lots of people here agree with me. I also don't think software should be patentable. I do think it should be copyrightable, though.
The difference is that with a patent, you're covering an entire process. You've patented going from A to B, and nobody else can do that without paying you off. With a copyright, you've only restricted one path between A and B, and others are free to find their own.
With real inventions, it doesn't tend to work this way. I could invent a light bulb with a filament made from cork, and Bob could invent one with a filament made from pasta. In my limited experience I think both would be valid and neither would be able to sue the other. Software patents, however, seem to always deal with the results, and not the processes. Someone is given a software patent for the equivalent of every light bulb, no matter what materials it uses. This is the problem.
What right to collect royalties? Their entire problem is that so far they don't have that right!
Note that the council are nationally appointed. The MEPs are directly elected. Guess who is more likely to listen to the people. Under the council are the mechanisms of the EU and the Eurocrats. Theoretically this should also come under the MEPs, but most of the control comes from the council. Again, guess where their loyalties lie.
1. Most software patents I've seen patent ideas or concepts rather than implementations. Let me try to make that a little clear. Like, the AC3 algorithm is patented, which is fine. You can make another format which does the same. A software patent would patent the concept of "multiplexing several audiostreams into one datastream" or somesuch. There's no "innovating" around that. Try looking up how many trivial concepts of a webshop is patented. You'll exceed a dozen patents already on the front page, if not more.
2. Ideas are often trivial to come up with, and should more often than not be dismissed for being obvious. Since that is a sleeping criteria, huge amounts of trivial ideas will be granted a software patent. It is also requires no real-world connection at all. You could pick up "Science Illustrated", and patent everything they claim is "likely to appear in the next 20 years".
3. An expired software patent is still protected by copyright. Since the software itself and the patent description is essentially the same sequence of commands, you can't use it anyway. While whereas with a real patent, I could use your exact blueprints (as appearing in the patent) to build my own device.
Real patents describe a path from state A to B. Software patents describe the process of going from A to B. Getting a patent should mean that you've actually done some work and found a way from A to B, not merely assumed "some way to go from A to B will be invented". That is not innovation. That is profiting from someone else's innovation, and is directly opposed to the purpose for which patents were created.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If they're worried about ministers not voting according to their briefs, then dump the whole system of ministers and just mail in the briefs!
Or we could just ditch the whole thing. My parents voted to join a common market in the 70s (a 2 way split in this household). What we have now is a fundamentally un-democratic, sleaze-ridden gravy train for an 'elite' band of largely unknown technocrats, elected through an utterly flawed process.
The sooner we have a referendum to get out of this farce the better.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
You're exactly right-- the advocate wants to use a particular technique to build something. Now, if you view this sort of activity as nothing more than a commercial process in which the open source developer is trying to get somethng for nothing , with no greater significance, then it's perfectly reasonable to follow your line of reasoning. Problem is, in the aggregate, building things is how innovation happens. Cut it off and innovation strangles.
The "gray area" for policy makers is not whether software inventions should be considered patentable because of their similarilty/dissimilarity to physical devices. The real argument is whether software patents will advance the process of innovation (and otherwise benefit society), or slow down innovation and harm society. Opponents of software patents have made an excellent case that in this particular situation, at this time, software patents will severely restrict innovation in an important industry.
Now a great deal of their justification comes from the observation that software patents being allowed in places like the US are overly broad and carelessly considered. But more importantly, it comes from a deep understanding of the nature of invention and the state of the art in software. Whether you're considering hardware or software, inventing new things has almost always required the use of components invented by other people. Imagine if the independent inventors of last century had been denied access to the capacitor, battery or transistor-- because those things were patented and only large corporations with legal departments and plenty of capital could afford to license them. So many of the things we take for granted today would never have been invented.
Why are software patents different from these physical devices? For one thing, where many patented devices can be constructed and sold in bulk for a reasonable per-unit price, it's difficult to purchase an algorithm or an application at your neighborhood Fry's. And since corporations generally can't profit through bulk manufacture/licensing of software components, they profit through high licensing fees unmanageable to the small inventor. Or they profit by using their patent portfolios as defensive or offensive weapons against potential competitors. Open source development, arguably one of the most promising engines of 21st century software innovation and cost reduction, is in some cases an innocent victim of this, in others, a direct target.
But here's the important issue: while physical device patents may have encouraged invention and innovation throughout the last century, there is no reason to assume this will be the case for software patents. While an efficient model may develop to smooth over the economic inefficiencies of a software patent system, none has yet, and the interim costs will be high. So the near-to-medium-term result of software patents is not a net increase in innovation or a financial windfall to society, it's exactly the opposite. And for this, some argue that society should subsidize the creation of a software patent industry. I don't think it's worth it, and I think this is the aspect of the debate we should be focusing on.
Well, the problem is, software patents can cover anything. And they are trival to come up with. Come on, 'hit this button and we automatically check you out' may be a new idea, but then again, it doens't involve much new. And patents last for ~17+ years, which is an eternity in the computer world. So you patent something, and no one else can use it until it's worthless, and a long time past then.
If the easiest or best known (or possibly the obvious) way of doing something is restricted, people and companies are motivated to come up with a new way of doing it
Well, software patents can cover the entire concept. The patents are written so broadly that they come to apply to things you'd never expect them to cover.
1. Alan Turing, having given us the design for a machine that can produce the same mathematical results as any other known mechanical process, has prior art on all software. Any patent he would have taken would have expired a long time ago. To patent a specific use for his machine is like some joker patenting the use of Edison's Lightbulb for lighting a living room, and another joker patenting the use of lightbulbs for lighting your dining room.
2. Although we call them computers, the vast majority of us use them for communication rather than computation, and it is essential that all computers be able to interoperate. Allowing companies to release file formats that are encumbered by patents discourages intercommunication, and promotes lock-in, network effects, and all sorts of nasty monopolistic inefficiencies. Implementing *.gif support in the Gimp might not be innovative, but it's certainly beneficial to the market as a whole, and to the core purpose of early 21st century computing--intercommunication.
3. Fifteen years in computer software is way, way longer than fifteen years in hardware. Fifteen years ago most of us weren't even online.
4. Software patents provide no beneficial incentives to mathematicians or software developers--or put another way, can anyone point me to any significant mathematical or software discovery that would not have occured without the protection of patents? Significant enough to justify the pain of software patents that all American developers must encounter daily?
5. Software processes involve orders of magnitude more parts/components/ideas than hardware. Windows XP has millions of lines of code. What other product in your home comes anywhere near that level of complexity? Software patents mean that for every line of code we right, we theoretically have to consult a lawyer. If Software Patents take hold worldwide, I suspect we will come to have a Hernando de Soto "The Mystery of Capital" kind of situation with the more workable notion of Software Copyright--software development will become legally impossible for all but the largest corporations, so anytime a small or mid-size firm needs software written, it will have to resort to a black/gray market to get anything done. Indeed, that seems to be the only saving grace of the American situation--enforcement is so lax and arbitrary that we could still open .gif files in free Linux web browsers, even though technically every single user was supposed to pay for that priviledge.
The bottom line is that patents were created for pragmatic reasons--to support the development of science and industry--and nearly all academia seems to believe that software and mathematical patents are detrimental to that goal. I think there is sufficient moral theoretical distinction between software and physical patents--to say nothing of further insanities like business process patents, which must have been invented by some black humor-loving lawyer as a parody of the current system. But even if you believe they are morally and theoretically equivalent, the pragmatic differences are huge--and please recall that patents are a utilitarian construct only. Software patents promote the common detriment.
Please, Europeans, you guys love to talk about how much smarter you are than us Americans and this is your chance to prove it! Don't let us down, don't let yourselves down! Don't let Bush and Microsoft bully you into economic subservience! SOFTWARE PATENTS DELENDA EST!
And let me say that if a device that can make any other physical device ever becomes affordable to ordinary people, I and many of my fellows first task will be to produce as many weapons as we need to protect our right to produce whatever the hell we like.
Fortunately it seems a few European nations have noticed the current US system is only good for patent lawyers and draining resources to fight off vulture corps. Even Microsoft's recent BS patents being awarded had to have helped wake up the EC to the insanity which is destroying the American ability to innovate and compete.
Maybe a few of them also noticed that such legislation was only a first step. Next would have been a "unified" patent database "offered" by the US which would have started with a portfolio of bogus patents owned by US interests. Essentially signing over a world-wide "software tax" to US corporate interests.
Not only would the US businesses continue to be gutted by IP vultures, the EC businesses would have been caught up in the same nightmare. The US is quite welcome to continue destroying the American economy, but thank God the rest of the world has finally noticed the insanity of their patent "system" as a viable model.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Don't talk rubbish. The bad people in this are representatives of National Governements: they are the Bad Council Ministers. The good people are representatives of the people: elected members of the European Parliament, not beholden to National Government interests.
According to your arguments, then, the European Parliament should be making of beuraucratic, self-interested, and destructive policies which ruin my autonomy as a UK citizen. But that's not true!
The European Parliament wants to guarantee my software and business method freedom. The freedom to write and share my creative work. And they frame it in quite noble and clear language too, so the good intent isn't easily twisted. It means I am free to do the work I want and invent and share all my best ideas, as much or as little as I want. It's my choice, I'm free, so I'm happy.
The UK Government wants to take away my software and business method freedom, making it illegal for me to publish my own code on my own web site and making it even more illegal to sell my own code. If I come up with an improvement to an existing idea, I cannot safely share my improvements in public. I can be sued, and go to jail if I cannot pay massive fines.
So, you still think it's better to eliminate the EU part?
If the UK Government gets its way, through the Council of Bad National Government Ministers, my work becomes effectively illegal and I am less free. It's that simple.
I have no special interest in being a member of the EU. But when the European Parliament would guarantee my freedom, and UK government if it was totally independent would take away my freedom, then I must support the European Parliament on that issue. Wouldn't you?
-- Jamie
I'd be curious to know whether you would support the kind of interoperability exception contained in article 6a of the EU parliament's (amended, anti-swpat) version of the software patent directive? If so, you might want to support or donate to the FFII anyway, because they played a key role in getting the parliament to vote for that.
Fixing copyright
The EU system is still too complex, people doesn't understand how it works, and that's why that kind of weird things find a place to happen.
In a more simple and logical system people is aware of what's going on, and have more direct ways to interact.
Of course EU goverment is still in preliminary stages, we have just aprouved a (still to be referended) new (and complex) constitution, that's why we need to be specially careful. It's really easy that a 'technical' matter as software patents could be politically manipulated by interested lobbies as a 'minor' question.
One of the big problems in the EU process is the dichotomy between states fighting to keep his power, and the need of a better interstate and interregional harmonization, another is the need to equilibrate very different economies. In that big scenario software patents risk to be a undesired and silenced loss!
More than ever we need to keep talking about these things.
What's in a sig?
Patents are a drastical way of influencing the free market, and governments should have a very good reason to interfere in a free market. This is something you need to get inside your thinking: patents are far from natural because they interfere in the 'natural' process of the kapitalistic economy.
Do some reading about the history of patents and you will see that patents were introduced to make sure inventions were not kept secret and would disappear from society when the inventor died. Granting the patentor a monopoly on his invention was a way to get all facts about the invention in the public domain.
For years the 'software industry' has thrived (even in the US) without any need for patents! You 'invent' something, put it on the market and profit. And believe me, a lot of profit has been made and the s/w industry has grown at an almost unbelievable rate. All this without s/w patentability. Also, since s/w can be reverse engineered, it is impossible to keep an 'invention' to onesself.
The need to make sure that inventors can have a temporary monopoly on their inventions is not a goal, it is a means to reach the goal of advancing society. Since the incentive of profit is doing just fine in stimulating people to come up with new/better products, there should be no interfering in the free economy.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
The problem is two sided. First of all the council of ministers, directly elected people, who basically in several cases openly or indirectly betrayed their own parliaments. Then the council of ministers, who basically had drafts for this issue written by the BSA themselves, or at least just gave statements that they are not amused by the votings of the parliament and are going to overrule and/or ignore it. What this situation reminds me of is good ole rome, where the emperor was overruling the votings of the local parliament at his will. And then the EU constantly wonders itself why the people of Europe are so fed up with Brussels. All they want to live in is a decent non corrupt democracy and what we are in is a system equally bad or even worse than the one in the united states, with lobbyism being legalized corruption! sincerely A European by heart who believes in a unified Europe but is saddened by the current situation
Mr Brinkhorst (Shame on him! Curse him!) just decided he did NOT have to follow the motion approved by Dutch parliament.
We WILL vote yes, to save his own goddamn face.
He can do that too, motions on our parialment our not binding.
See (dutch) Webwereld.nl
Goddamn motherfucker. Sorry for the cursing, im MAD. I am being ruled by idiots, with NO respect for their constituents.
"/Dread"
Donate free food here
That's a move in the right direction, although I'm quite sceptical about the chances of this silly law to be withdrawn. And I was sure that if someone was going to oppose such an oligrarchic law it would be the Dutch. On the other side there is no much chance the patents law to be applicable. It will probably result in an endless amount of lawsuits between the big companies in style "it was me who invented the paper clip". Finally, I am sure that the open source community will form its movements to try to patent as much software as possible... After all if we can not change the rules, we shall act according to them. And if this weaponry can be used against the open-source movement, then probably there are enough opportunities in the law, so it can be used against the big corporations.