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Linus, Monty, Rasmus: No Software Patents
Jan Wildeboer writes "The three most famous European authors
of open-source software have issued an appeal against software patents on NoSoftwarePatents.com. Linus Torvalds (Linux), Michael "Monty" Widenius (MySQL) and Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) urge the EU Council, which will convene later in the week, not to adopt a draft directive on software patents that they consider "deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate".
They also call on the Internet community to express solidarity by placing NoSoftwarePatents.com links and banners on many Web sites."
The time has come to stop this lunacy called 'software patents' in its tracks in Europe, but I'm afraid that lobby groups in Europe have been busy 'talking to' politicians here as well...
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Virtually all involved parties now claim that they are against software patents, even those who are in favour of them!
It is certainly premature to declare victory, but I think the anti-swpat movement currently has the upper hand, and all because of geeks exercising direct democracy.
Linux wouldn't exist as it does today.
:-) :-) I forgive them!)
/. has had concerns raised.
Is this the first time Linus has used his 'fame' like this?
I say great work for all three of them, I have used all thier products numerously, and together, they should win awards (although the combined 'banging head against wall' linux, mysql and php have given me in the past
Patents are patently a bad idea, they illegitimise our very thoughts. I am all for protecting and incubating progress for small companies, but patents have only done the following:
Small company gets rediculous patent, Kodak buys them, and forces a settlement for publicity.
The european constitution should write that software is free from patents. Patents are supposed to bring about change, yet we see it stiffling progress at every turn!
I myself worry about patents in my own programs, and ask
OK I'll shut up.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
What we need to do is fighting patents
the smart way instead of the hard way.
I think that if we continue the fight the hard
way (lobing) we will have to fight it every year
as long as we have a corrupt governments, which
i have reason to think is as long as we use money
as a payment system.
I think the smart way to handle the patent problem
is to make a patent license which work with patent law
as the GPL work with copyright law.
here is an example:
There is 3 players
1) The public patent foundation (PPF).
A not for money foundation which
hold a collection of patents under PPL.
2) a small inventor.
3) a big corporation.
Here is how I think the public patent licence (PPL) should work.
For a inventions under PPL the following is required.
a) All other patents the invention violate must be under PPL.
b) Blueprints/Source code/technical details for the invention must be published trough the PPF.
The is also a similar Lesser PPL (LPPL).
For a inventions under LPPL the following is required.
a) All other patents by the invention violate and made by the inventor must be under PPL.
b) Blueprints/Source code/technical details for the invention must be published trough the PPF.
c) The inventor must be a member of PPF.
As a member of PPF you pay a fee which help maintain the
PPF patent portfolio.
So, PPL invention is free for all while
LPPL invention have some secondary patents.
Scenery.
1) The small inventor.
a) A inventor get a patent, for an invention and start to produce and sell the
product.
b) A big corporation start to make and sell a cheep copy.
c) The small inventor call the corporation and say stop that I got a patent.
d) The big corporation say your invention violates 10 of our inventions.
Please, grand back your patent or we sue you.
e) The small inventor sells drops in the competition with the cheep copy,
and he can't afford to maintain hes patent.
f) He donate the patent to the PPF and get a nice tax discount.
g) The PPF goes to the big corporation and say your violate
one of our patents, either stop making the cheap copy or get a PPL or LPPL.
That may be the case; but how many small companies do you know of that can actually afford to pay for, and subsequently HAVE patents on their software?
It's very easy to come up with good ideas and algorithms. Many people think of the same thing at the same time. Depends on the problem you have to solve. Moreover, many of these ideas are freely available (as open publications) in open source programs.
If you have somebody who sells icecubes to the eskimoes, let them go down. We don't have to protect their business.
...is a proposition spelling how to transition from the current world to one where software patents are outlawed...
Because the problem is, companies have *already * invested in software patents in Europe. So take a large company that has applied for maybe 50 software patents over each year, worldwide, in the past 3 years.
Some companies do so because they believe that their software methods should be patented. And while it is true that some awarded software patents are outrageously stupid, some are really nontrivial.
Other companies have mostly seen a "tactical advantage" in doing this, because (1) at a certain level (read: non-technical execs, financial analysts, shareholders) the number of patents granted per headcount per year is thought to reveal the quality of a Research & Development organization, and (2) when you have a portfolio of patents of your own, people are less likely to attack you for infringement, out of fear that you will attack them in return.
You can agree or not with these reasons, but the reality is that they have pushed many companies to invest millions in software patenting. So, as long as activists out there don't propose a way for these companies to "land smoothly" in no-software-patent land, actions like these are very unrealistic.
It doesn't help that the group is using bogus figures, such as claiming an average cost of EUR 30,000 for patenting something. Application fees have been made very small (in the hundreds of EUR depending on the country). Patent attorney fees, from my own experience, are more likely to range in the EUR 2,500 range for single-country application, and twice or three times that for worldwide application. That is not EUR 30,000 at any rate, unless you count in the inventor's own time writing down his/her invention.
These articles on ZDNet UK: http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020505,39174245,00. htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651, 39174217,00.htm
say that after Poland has withdrawn it's support for software patents there isn't qualified majority for it any more.
Absolutely true!
I have been following the OS wars for several years and have seen common business practices become patented. This is like patenting driving on the right (or left) hand side of the road. It is a custom that has been built into law, and is therefore not patent-able.
SHould the broken patent system get an overhaul, I feel that software and business process patents should be discarded. They are only there to give more to the "haves and the have mores" to quote a well-known figurehead.
Heh, patents4innovation is as retarded as Lord Sainsbury.
"The maximum term for patent protection is 20 years. By contrast copyright lasts much longer, for 50 years after the death of the author. Curiously, the OSS lobby has not voiced any concern about the much longer term for copyright even though copyright is the protection mechanism favoured by the OSS lobby. If 50+ years is not too long, why is 20 years maximum too long?"
This is such a bloody irritating strawman it is untrue. If my web browser infringes upon your copyright, I can remove your copyrighted work, and somebody who has never seen your code can replace it. If I infringe upon your web browser patent then I'm screwed. FOR TWENTY YEARS.
How can people say this sort of crap in public and not get called on it?
You forgot one thing: Enlargement. In the mean time the "old", amending parliament has changed in substance. There are new member states, mostly from the CEEU. These states are US subjects: see their foreign policy (e.g. Iraq) and compare them to the "old Europe" approach.
"New Europe" will do whatever the USPTO says. This certanly stands for Hungary - so they might flip the scale this time around at the EP revision. Ofcourse, Poland has saved our day (and it IS surprising).
Ken Arnold's blog on java.net has a great (IMHO) idea for reforming the patent system that make it self-correcting and gives incentives for the patent lawyerst to enforce it.1 1/selfenforcing_p_1.html
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/arnold/archive/2004/
I wouldn't be so quick to say that. IBM may make lots on software patents, but they are in a better position to make money without them, than most of their competition.
And they strengthen that position every day. So I would expect that one day, when they feel the time is right, IBM will strike out against software patents.
most of the arguments boil down to no patents period
Take your straw man and go home. Pure FUD.
Stating that patentability should not be EXTENDED to software is in no way an argument against patents on actual inventions.
cannot even define precisely what a "software patent" is
engage in thoughtful debate so that reasonable legislation will result
The definition of valid patents (and by implication defining by exclusion non-patentable software) has already been created, the thoughtful debate has occured, and reasonable legislation has resulted.
I merely need point you to the Patent Directive as amended and PASSED by the European Parliment. The one currently being obstructed by the European Council.
give up the NO PATENT position and try to reach the compromise that is inevitable and that best serves everyone's interests
I will gladly "give up the NO PATENT position" and happily compromise on patents on physical inventions and invention processes teaching how to harness the physical forces of nature in physical processes.
Of course that happens to to exclude any and all so-called "computer implemented inventions" because the ONLY thing a computer can implement is calculations. All software is nothing but a series of mental steps. In principal any software can be carried out purely mentally, and in fact many so-called "software patents" can in fact be carried out in pure thought in a matter of minutes or even seconds. You cannot "invent" or patent a sequence of thoughts, and you cannot "invent" or patent calculations. Software is nothing but a series of mental steps, nothing but a calculation, math.
The compromise is simple. You can only patent inventions.
The European Parliment's Patent Directive is perfectly good law. It upholds the patentability of inventions. It prohibits any absurd attempt to patent calculations or series of mental steps.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Finally, if they do invalidate software patents, what happens with the ones that have been issued?
Same thing that happens with any other invalidly issued patent, nothing. Hell, that's what they do with most patents, absolutely nothing. Most issued patents simply sit in a filing cabinet gathering dust.
The only effect is if they attempt to enforce their patent and take someone to court - the court would toss out the case.
Do they sue the gov't for issuing them in the first place?
No, you don't get to sue the government for issuing you a worthless patent. You paid for the review and paperwork. They reviewed it and did the paperwork. You got what you paid for, whether they issued it or not.
Hell, half of all patents that anyone ever brings to court get tossed out as invalid. The percentage of worthless issued patents is probably even higher for the ones they don't bother bringing to court.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This is false at a wholesale level.
If the claims mention some patentable subject matter, and the invention as a whole is patentable subject matter (you are correct in that) then the application passes the statutory subject matter requirement of 35 USC 101 (In re Sarkar). There are other requirements of 35 USC 101, plus 35 USC 102, 103, and 112 which must be satisfied. If you have the best compression algorithm in the world, but you claim it without producing a tangible result although "stored on a computer readable medium", you will be rejected under 35 USC 101.
Now you get patents on a mathematical equation stored on any computer readable media.
This is entirely false. While case law may have permitted this a few years ago, a claim with such a preamble is an immediate rejection under 35 USC 101 these days.
The math is new and non-obvious, the floppy disk is a patentable physical object, and "as a whole" they satisfy all three criteria for a patent. Groan.
Again, this is entirely false. If the invention, as a whole, is software per se, then it should not be considered nonstatutory under 35 USC 101. If you have an example of such a patent being issued in years past under the case law of years past, good luck enforcing today with today's case law. Many at Slashdot don't have the slightest inkling how the concept of case law works in practice. I'm not saying you have this problem, but if you do understand how case law works, I suspect you share my frustration and understand why I'd put a caveat on comments about it.
The fine line, and I insist it is a FINE line, is that systems or methods which actually interact tangibly with computer hardware are considered patentable. This enables the computer flight control system of the F-117A stealth fighter to be a patentable invention - and why not? It clearly is a novel and unobvious use of computers, the plane couldn't fly without the computers, and the invention has undoubtedly spun off into other advances in technology. The flip side is that you can claim "a stored program which causes a processor to execute a method wherein..." but in doing so, you ARE in fact limiting the scope of the claims to a computer-implemented invention rather than a disembodied, abstract invention.
And my standard summary: There are volumes of factually incorrect information about the US patent system on Slashdot. Maybe the community (moderators, posters, lurkers) should focus more effort on personal information gathering and opinion forming rather than reading what a few pedagogues have written and reiterating their talking points. Just a suggestion. (I'm not suggesting that you, to whom I reply, suffers this need - but this is my standard summary topic.)