NoSoftwarePatents.com Industry Campaign Launches

Halo1 writes "The NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign has officially launched today. It has industry support from 1&1, Red Hat and MySQL AB. The website is already available in 12 EU languages (more to be added soon), and contains a ton of information about the dangers of software patents, including the myths that surround them. Hopefully, more large companies will join this campaign in the future."

Comments

Main Page

[zoobab]

Would be nice if this article can move to the main slashdot page, and does not stays only in the YRO section.

Re:Main Page

[Halo1]

Someone can simply submit it again when CmdrTaco is editor on duty, so it can be posted as a dupe :)

The History of Software Patents

[Mstrgeek]

This is a great site dealing with The History of Software Patents

http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html

It has some great information hope you enjoy it and find it to be a help in supporting the need for software patents

Trolls? TROLLS!

[Dark Lord Seth]

Intel's [chairman] Grove derides such patent holders for showing little interest in producing goods with their inventions in favor of demanding licensing fees from others. "We call them trolls," he said.
The Washington Post

As an occasional troll ( Think of it as a hobby ), I am insulted. >:(

Go Software Patents!

[Creepy Crawler]

Patent mathematics.
+ is .0002$ per use
- is .0002$ per use
* is .001$ per use
/ is 1.00$ per use
mod() is 10$ per use
sqrt() is .009$ per use

We acknologe that these mathematics are the only ones you can use, and all derivatibe works are subject to this cost times amount of operations done. EG: Limits are infinite +, so you are incessantly in the hole.... (enter lawyer BS)

Cheap Ass Mod Operation...

[mopslik]

+ is .0002$ per use
- is .0002$ per use
* is .001$ per use
/ is 1.00$ per use
mod() is 10$ per use

$10 for mod? Bah!

int cheapAssModOperation(int X, int Y)
{
int A, B, Z;
Z = X / Y;
A = Z * Y;
B = X - A;
return B;
}

Total cost = 1 division, 1 multiplication, 1 subtraction = $1.0012.

Re:Money

[Halo1]

This far-fetched idea of no software patents

It's only far-fetched for IP-attorneys that don't think that the economy should be taken into account when deciding about patent policy.

Large software development houses derive a large percentage of their income from royalties from intellectually-based patents.

Most software patents are not owned by software developers, but by hardware developers (they got patents in the past for their hardware, so they simply continue that tradition). Anyway, several large companies also lose a lot of money because of software patents. Examples are the companies sponsoring this campaign, but another is e.g. Cisco Systems.

You're very naive if you think all large companies favor software patents. And you're even more naive if you think that per definition means that Europe will legalise software patents.

Sanity

[Mark_MF-WN]

Maybe if Europe banned the practice of software patents, our leaders here in North America will wise up and do the same.

I'll be if we required software makers to publish the source code of any project containing patented code, that software patents would die a quick and decisive death.

Can we get a US effort like this started?

[borgheron]

All of the anti-patent stuff I'm seeing is from the EU, which is frustating since it does nothing for those of us here in the United States.

GJC

Software patents not inherently evil

[Rufus88]

It's not that software patents are, in principle, bad. It's that the idiots in the USPTO are letting trivial ones through the syste. Some software patents are completely legitimate. Take, for example, this patent on the "Marching Cubes" computer graphics algorithm. The paper describing this algorithm made it into SIGGRAPH's Seminal Graphics collection of most important papers in computer graphics. Not all software patents are trivial and obvious.

Skeptical

[ravenspear]

Hopefully, more large companies will join this campaign in the future.

Since it's precisely large companies that are most benefiting from the abuse of the patent system to obtain frivolous software patents, I doubt this will happen. It won't gain much corporate support outside of open source firms.

Re:Money

[Halo1]

Respectfully, I am not sure what organizations you are referring to.

I posted links in my original reply to you. For clarity's sake:

• AIPLA statement: see point 10.
• IPO statement: see point 10 (and 6)

It sounds strange, since the whole concept of IP is based on economic incentive.

That's the theory, yes. In practice, not all types of IP are able to meet that goal. There is no economic law that says "more and stronger exclusion rights per definition result in a healthier economy". And there's also no juridical law that says "lawyers will always defend what's in the best interest of the economy as a whole".

Actually, I was talking about investment incentive, not incentives to innovate. Competition indeed promotes innovation. But property rights promote investment.

One person's rights are another person's limitation. You always need a proper balance to get good results on the whole. You cannot look at single entities in the market and conclude from that it must be beneficial on the whole (or harmful for that matter).

Case in point: offering one company a monopoly on selling things via the internet, makes investment in all online shopping companies a lot less attractive.

You also say "almost all studies...." I assume this means you have read some studies that support the arguments for patents in software.

Indeed, there is also one economical study in the entire world (that I know of, I really don't know any others) that claims that software patents are generally beneficial, and that patent thickets are a myth. You can find it here. And here's a rebuttal.

Litigation is not the only way patents are used. There is a large market in licensing, and lots of money changes hands based on patents without ever litigating.

Yes, but that's not productive. In fact, every time such a transfer occurs, you extract money from the software business and invest it in lawyers. Something like that is only defensible if the effects on the whole are positive, e.g. if such transfers are necessary to spread knowledge throughout the industry. That is not the case with the software sector (see the studies I pointed you to).

Your argument, respectfully, sounds like this: "Civil tort litigation can cost millions. Therefore we should do away with tort claims."

My argument was simply that small companies do not have the means to enforce software patents, and that therefore arguing that they are beneficial for small companies is at least very doubtful. That's not even specific to software patents, it's a general recognised problem of the patent system.

However, in some sectors this negative effect may be offset by other, positive effects that patents have (e.g., if you need tens of millions of dollars to even start doing your product development, the cost a few patents on top of that can be disregarded).

The point remains that lots of capital goes into software based on property rights.

You keep talking about "property rights" as if software patents are the only form of property rights in the software industry. They're not by a long shot, as you probably know. I'm also not asking for abolishment of copyright or trademarks or anything else.

Remove those rights and you will weaken the industry by reducing the amount invested in it.

I fail to see how you can weaken an industry by stopping to invest in something which hampers that same indust

Re:Money

[nerdlyone]

You cited the AIPLA and IPO statements as supporting your view that "software patents do not help the economy and innovation at all." But your citations from these organizations don't really make that point. From the AIPLA statement, in the body of the document:

AIPLA believes that Congress, and not the PTO or the courts, is the proper authority to consider economic theory and competition policy-oriented principles. For the reasons discussed below, the PTO and the courts should not inject these theories and principles into their decision-making.

They are talking about uncertainty in the law, which is a blight. Uncertainty restrains economic behavior by increasing risk. The statement states that allowing the PTO and courts--rather than congress--to inject economic considerations into their decision-making would be bad, because it would not be in actual legislation, but in rules promulgation--making it ad hoc and slightly arbitrary. But their point is definitely not that patents hurt economic activity. Their point is that uncertainty in rule application would hurt economic activity. And I agree with them.

You also cited the IPO statement:

6. IPO does not support the FTC recommendation concerning considering potential harm to competition in deciding upon the scope of patentable subject matter. 10. IPO does not support expanding economic considerations in patent law decision making.

#6 seems to contradict your position, because the IPO is arguing that considering the scope of patents should not take "potential harm to competition" into account. Your position is based on the idea that patents harm competition. So they seem to directly contradicting you there.

#10 reiterates the AIPLA argument made above, which does not apply to this discussion, as I explained.

"There is no economic law that says "more and stronger exclusion rights per definition result in a healthier economy". And there's also no juridical law that says "lawyers will always defend what's in the best interest of the economy as a whole""

I am not arguing that patent protection should be extended to absurd levels; I haven't even argued the current level of protection is best (I don't think it is--patents in software should be harder to get than currently). I did argue against your point that "software patents do not help the economy and innovation at all."

Case in point: offering one company a monopoly on selling things via the internet, makes investment in all online shopping companies a lot less attractive

Your example monopoly is a bit broad, and would indeed stifle the market; however, patents are not nearly as broad. You essentially describe a patent on the entire industry, an absurd example, and the only one in which your point holds. But the fact that monopolies can be obtained at all provides great incentive to invest in those companies which have monopolies.

Yes, but that's not productive. In fact, every time such a transfer occurs, you extract money from the software business and invest it in lawyers. Something like that is only defensible if the effects on the whole are positive, e.g. if such transfers are necessary to spread knowledge throughout the industry. That is not the case with the software sector (see the studies I pointed you to).

You are focusing on the monopoly aspect, and accurately pointing out the downsides; but you're ignoring the upsides to property rights. The software may never have been written to begin with without an investor to pay the programmer.

And your idea that "every time such a transfer occurs, you extract money from the software business and invest it in lawyers," ignores the fact that the licensee gets to sell the product too--which makes money for the industry and employs programmers. Consider Apple's refusal to license their product. You don't see many Macs around today compared to IBM and its clones. That's because IBM licensed their technology out, while MAC refused to. Licen

Best anti-patent argument I've read

[dk.r*nger]

I've been searching for a really good argument against softwarepatents, and they all seen to center around some semi-marxist anti-large-corporation basis, such as "GIF and MP3 is patented and OBVIOUSLY that is bad". Really, that isn't obvious in any sense or way. Neither GIF nor MP3 is trivial, and PNG and Ogg Vorbis took years to emerge and mature. This may og may not be a good counter-argument, but nobody cared to explain why LZW and MP3 is trivial ..

Anyway, the argument, as presented:

Patents on software are just as wrong as expanding the patent system to literature.
With patents on story elements, no movie could be published without having to firstly check whether there is any general idea in the storyline that someone patented during the last 20 years. Here's an example: At first sight, Dirty Dancing and Titanic are two very distinct movies. However, if there were patents on story elements, then the makers of Dirty Dancing could have sued the studio of Titanic. Both movies have a scene in which a poor boy takes a rich girl from a party of her social peers to a dancing party of his group, and she enjoys it. Dirty Dancing came out only nine years before Titanic, so any patent would still have been in force. No one knows whether James Cameron had that Dirty Dancing scene in mind as he wrote the Titanic script. Maybe Cameron never saw Dirty Dancing but the patent (if it existed) could be used against him anyway.

Re:Best anti-patent argument I've read

[bill_of_wrongs]

You are partly right that the reasons are not always thoroghly explained. However, software patents are also wrong for other reasons than being trivial or the argument you quote. Let's look at the GIF example you mentioned: UNISYS who owned the patent on the LZW algorithm (which is used among other things to greate compressed GIFs) just sat around waiting for the GIF format to become a defacto standard on the net before they started saying they had a patent on it. From their point of view it made sense to act like that but legalized extortion is hardly a sign of a working market economy. I don't think it is fair to call someone who criticizes a system that encourages such behaviour a semi-marxist. The fact that IBM also managed to get a patent on the same algorithm later should also tell you something about how well the system works even if you for a moment assume that all software patents are non-trivial.

Re:They're unnecessary and dangerous

[Halo1]

Because the kind of hard work and knowledge and investigation and thought that goes into devising a solution to a difficult problem in matter-space is exactly the kind that goes into devising a solution to a difficult problem in information-space. One type of problem solving shouldn't be protected more than the other simply because you need bolts and motors and lubricant to implement it.

It has indeed nothing to do with implementation. It has everything to do with the economic effects:

1. Are patents necessary to get enough investments in the IT-sector?
2. Are the positive effects of granting software patents larger than their associated negative effects?

The problem is that the answer is "no" in both cases. Most economic studies conclude either that, or "we don't know". There's only one in the entire world that I know of which claims the reverse.

And there are differences between the software world and other sectors which change the effects that patents have there, see e.g. this text (under the black box) from the US National Research Council.

Why not? Should Xerox not have been granted a patent on the xerographic photocopy process, but rather only a copyright on their machine's manufacturing bluep

In the physical world, there is the process, a description of the process and an implementation of this description. In software, the description is the implementation (since software is nothing but a description of something). Whether or not what you describe is patentable, should be entirely independent from how you describe it. Yet, an awful lot of unpatentable stuff suddenly becomes patentable if you say it's done by a computer.