Slashdot Mirror
Software Patents Circumvent European Parliament
Tom writes "Despite the european parliament's vote to exclude software patents, the patent lobby is pressing forward and patentability of software is on the agenda of a workgroup whose advise the european council will likely follow.
The european council is at odds with the parliament concerning their stance on software patents. The patent lobby is facing a narrow loss in the parliament, which has voted against software patents, but now circumvents democracy by convincing the council. If they succeed, software patents could be coming to Europe before christmas." <update> The links above seem to have stopped working for me - however, ffii is carrying the news as well.
Whose advice
not
Whose advise
Le français vous intéresse?
Don't you hate it when you correct a mistake with a mistake? :)
Actually the only institution that can propose legislation is the European Commission. Both the council and the parliament can amend though.
What I'm wondering is how they think to get this past parliament. "sneaking" it into the text or not, the subject is one where the EP has co-decision right. Which means it's shouldn't become law until the EP has voted on it
The big news is however that the Council Presidency is basically trying to circumvent the Council itself. In May, they reached a political agreement on the most pro-software patents text seen in EU legislative circles until now. At the Council meeting in May, Poland first abstained, then Germany and the Commission introduced some fake compromise amendment, and after a break Poland was not consulted again about its position, because there was a qualified majority in place even without its support. They confirmed afterwards their position did not change because of the bogus compromise amendment.
Recently, Poland confirmed its position, after everyone in a meeting with HP, Novell, Microsoft and others confirmed that the text of the Council of Ministers allows pure software patents (contrary what is often claimed). And apart from Microsoft and the Polish Patent Lawyers association, everyone agreed that software patents would be bad for the Polish economy. Because the voting weights changed on 1 November (due to the joining of all the new member states to the EU), Poland's support suddenly became necessary and thus the qualified majority was officially broken.
Other notable events since the political agreement of May are the fact that in July the Dutch Parliament asked its government to change position from being in favour to abstention, and at the start of this month all parties of the German Parliament did the same.
So the Council currently has an ugly text on the table which is no longer supported by a qualified majority in any way, but by means of diplomatic pressure on Poland and others the Dutch presidency (lead in this case by Minister Brinkhorst) is trying everything it can to push it through nevertheless.
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The problem is that the majority of the EU governments has not decided "we will not have software patents".
The parliament has said so, but it has not quite the clout it should have in a democratic country.
It can still vote the proposed guideline down, which might result in no EU_wide rule about software patents at all.
But the parliament lacks the power to make laws on its own, which is probably the greatest flaw in the power structure of the EU. If it had that power, this year's decision would be final and the patent lobby would have lost for the forseeable future.
C - the footgun of programming languages
What the EU Council is trying to do is, way above and beyond the issue of software patents, an assault at democracy itself. In a democratic system based on lawfulness, a decision needs to meet the majority requirements (in this case: the requirements for a qualified majority in the EU Council) on the day of the formal decision, not more than 6 months earlier. Since the EU Council's political agreement on May 18th, - the Dutch parliament called on its government to abstain (July 1st; abstention in the Council has technically the same effect as voting against) - the voting weights changed (November 1st, see http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/docs/041101qm.pdf )
- the Polish government clarified that it cannot support the proposal in question (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=158 , November 16th)
- all four groups in the German parliament agreed on a joint motion against the Council's proposal (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=222)
Consequently, the Belgian minister of economic affairs even said last week that there was no more qualified majority in place: http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? t=233
BTW, it's not just my opinion that it would be antidemocratic if the Council took the decision in question. That was said last week by Othmar Karas MEP, who is a vice president of the largest group in the European Parliament, the conservative European People's Party (Christian Democrats) - European Democrats.
If you live in the EU, drop another quick email to your MEP and national parliamentarians. It doesn't have to be a long rant against patents - just point out the massive opposition, the threat to jobs and the duplicity of voting on software patents at an environment or fisheries meeting without even a vote.
In the UK there will likely be a general election next year. Contact your MP now it costs nothing bar a few minutes of your time. You can get contact details for your MEP here.
For the benefit of non-german-speaking Slashdotters, the first addendum to document 11979 can be found here (PDF) and the parent document here (PDF)
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....at least, I hope I did, still open for suggestions.
:( )
P vdA:
I wrote to the people who are supposed to 'represent' me, and asked them how the hell our country (the Netherlands) could be behind this push for Software Patents, when a majority of parliament is against it.
A couple of months ago saw a petition voted in to have the minister of foreign affairs retract his support for software patents. And now aparently not only are we voting yes, we're also behind pushing the Polish to give up their resistance to these patents?
Even worse, this minister is from a party which supposedly is the most vocal supporter of the european -democratic- proces, demanding more power to the european parliament, and less to the council. (Great way to show it guys, now I know why I voted for you
So a call to all dutch Slashdotters, write an email to your representatives. Not much time left to act.
CDA:
cda.publieksvoorlichting@tweedekamer.nl
voorlichting@pvda.nl
VVD:
Vragen stellen aan tweede kamerleden
D66:
http://www.d66.nl/contact
(not a complete list, I know)
Link 1 - in English
To 'Link 2', there doesn't seem to be a corresponding English-version - from my vauge german skills, but mostly deductive skills - I'd say the document is some sort of addmendment to this org. Link 2 - in English
But maybe someone could translate 'Link 2'? ... it's only 5 (five) lines.
PS. Linux ppl, use Acrobat's reader ... the native PDF readers seem to have trouble with these PDF's...
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
It would have a profound impact, because the Council's make up depends on election systems that in many important countries favors the large established parties, followed up by the process of choosing the cabinets, which means that the Council is highly unrepresentative of the general political landscape in the EU.
The Council is an artefact of the EU being a union of countries that are not subordinate to the union and where the executive power of the countries are each held by the cabinets - it isn't designed to be a democratic institution. It is designed to be a way for member governments to agree on common policy.
Leaving patent legislation up to the member states wouldn't really solve anything - it would mean companies would face the cost of dealing with different policies in 25 different countries, and it would mean open source projects would have to deal with 25 potentially different approaches.
Hang on!
Patens has not been approved! The parliament voted no, and now the patent lobby is TRYING to convince the EU to do it anyway!
IF they manage to do it THEN there is something wrong - but up until now, the democracy seems to actually work.
So if you want to badmouth EU - at least have some better arguments, instead of saying things that are not true.
Disclaimer - I am definately pro-EU, but I DO see valid aruments against it - just none that are worse than the benifits.
In co-decision, Parliament has some measure of veto over the Council - it is the strongest of the arrangements between the parties. Council has sent the draft directive to Parliament. Parliament could adopt the proposed legislation - whereupon it would have taken effect in the EU, instead it proposed amendments.
The amendments have then gone back to Council which now has a choice. It can choose to accept Parliament's amendments and produce a compromise directive. Or it can override Parliament - but only by a unanimous vote by the members of Council. This is why the Poles are being strong-armed.
If Council rejects the Parliamentary amendments and fails to vote unanimously, the legislation must then head towards conciliation and arbitration which is brain-bleedingly complicated since the Commission becomes involved.
So all is not lost, the insitutions are working, although I have to wonder about the fisheries involvement. I would have thought those ministers have their own problems at the moment.
HTH.
Mike.
I just joined the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), that was the best I could imagine, since I'm also starting as a new supporter of a political party.
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See: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
Patents are meant to be non-obvious; software patents are too often extremely obvious to any programmer. It's nothing to with a programmer deciding what should happen to their program. That's what copyright law is for. People too often get software patents for things that others have already done, been doing for a long time, or is an obvious step for anyone wanting to solve the same problem in software.
Solutions do tend to come naturally depending on the problem in programming. And frequently the same problem will be solved in the same way by a group of disparate programmers who have never met before, just because that's the logical way to solve a problem. If one of those manages to get a software patent, the others are screwed, despite coming up with the same solution completely independently.
You are confusing the European Commission with the European Council. This is not helped by the fact that we refer to both the appointed 25 and the huge bureaucracy they lead as the European Commission. The European Council is the meeting of the cabinet ministers of member states, but of course the same name refers also to the smaller bureaucracy that is there to support the cabinet meetings. I hope this helps to increase your confusion.
she totally ignored me, handing back an obnoxious stock email
Do Not Send E-Mail To Politicians(tm).
You will be ignored. Use the phone, send a snail-mail letter or show up in person. E-Mail by citizen is regarded as spam by most politicians.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Nope. Since the relevant clause in the Constitution deals with both patents and copyrights, I think it's fair to draw from both areas of caselaw.
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).
Beckman Instruments, Inc. v. Chemtronics, Inc., 428 F.2d 555 (5th Cir. 1970).
Your quote only describes what the PTO does. Not why, or even why we have a PTO in the first place!
As far as patents and public interest - most people could care less other then the fact that they want to get everything for free (thats too bad, because life doesn't work that way).
Nevertheless, getting everything for free would be ideal. While we can't have that unfortunately, we try to balance getting everything and getting it for free.
I think the caveman example is bad - for multiple reasons: 1) his patent expired 2) you cannot patent something you did not invent - and fire was not a man-made function.
1) He's a caveman. He never would've had a patent to begin with. But if you believe that patents solely should exist for the benefit of the inventor of the patented technology, then it is impossible to support their expiration.
2) If our patent system had been there, he could have patented fire. This is because he's uniquely gotten ahold of a controlled and limited form of fire made by man, and that doesn't exist in nature. The same reasoning is how you can patent substances that are particularly pure or easily gatherable, etc. where they nevertheless do exist in nature. Happens in the biotech field all the time.
It serves our interest to help them because if we don't - soon you will find that only major corporations own the farms (i personally hate KFC).
That's right -- and similarly, we only have a patent system to serve our own interests.
Here is a question: If an inventor should not have a right to collect a profit (as he see's fit) for something that he spent his time/money creating ---- why should someone who works at McDonalds serving hamburgers make a profit?
Apples and oranges, my friend.
Patents, like copyrights, are NOT awarded for labor. Whether an invention is made by a five year old in the course of fifteen minutes, or whether it's made by hundreds of scientists and engineers working together on a years-long billion dollar project, the patents they get are not materially different.
And an inventor who spends a fortune in time and money to invent something that has already been invented -- even if he didn't know about it -- gets ab
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Ahem. ***War & Peace Alert***
The patent system was created to encourage inventors to do two things:
1. Share their ideas with other people.
2. Still invent things, having told everyone else how to make their new invention.
The idea was that an invention could cost a lot to make. It would take months/years of costly research & deveopment to come up with a working invention, and the government wanted that invention to be easily available & mass-produced. So the patent system offered the inventor a limited-time govenment-endorsed monopoly on their invention, in return for them making the details of the invention public. This served both purposes above: it made the details public, so that other inventors could see the new invention and potentially be inspired themselves (thus making something even better), and it enabled the inventor to legally control the production of the invention, and to have a guaranteed revenue stream from it - either by licensing other companies to produce it, or by refusing that license & selling it themselves.
This system was implemented because it was seen that sharing ideas helped foster innovation by breeding creativity. However, simply sharing ideas could leave an inventor with nothing - after a large company swoops down & takes the idea & sells you out of the market you invented.
With software, the burden on inventors is lifted somewhat; it doesn't cost thousands/millions of dollars to invent the scrollbar-- it takes someone a moment to realize it & then a while to code it. In a large company, the people who do this wouldn't be working there unless their company could already afford to pay them, so essentially the company is getting the invention for free. In the case of a small software startup, then computers are pretty much required anyway. Writing one patentable algorithm or another doesn't have additional costs associated with it.
I'm probably not making the point in a terribly clear manner, but what I'm trying to point out is that an algorithm (i.e. a patentable software method) does not require vast outlay, and therefore a possible lack of return on that outlay is not high enough to dissuade a person from sitting at his/her computer & writing a new algorithm. As such, the patent system is not (unlike real inventions) necessary to guarantee that good inventions are made in the software world. It is *not* a hard slog to generate a return on investment for computer software, since the manufacturing/distribution costs are minimal compared to those of, say, a refrigerator (especially if you're not making/shipping CDs, but simply offering a product for download).
Also, the term for patents is geared towards hardware manufacturers needing to recoup a potentially very heavy investment, and does not take into account the very small amount of time it takes for one software invention to build upon advances made by others.
The current patent term in the US is seventeen years, I believe. And that's seventeen years from the date he patent is issued, not filed/requested. It can take potentially years for a patent to be actually issued (quite likely due to the absolutely vast number of patents being applied for at the moment), at which point it grants a legal monopoly for seventeen years.
The computer technology field (and software in particular) is innovating at a phenomenal rate. Just look at the advances in video compression for example. Just how long could all that have been held up by someone with a patent on the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm, who was unwilling to let anyone else use it, or who charged so much that new software companies can't hope to pay for it?
You mention Joe Schmoe in his garage, inventing something. Upon what was that invention based? There are *so many* software patents out there that even the big companies like Microsoft can't be aware of them all. I mean after all, they're getting sued for patent infringement as much as anyone else (if not more). When Sun Micros
Yesterday an article on nu.nl (Dutch)
Seems microsoft tries to pull of a deal.
Without public inscription
While the Dutch government unamiously dicided otherwise and to go for open source 2 years ago
The contract even violates european rules about public contracts.
http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=454376&c=52
Seems holland is ruled by corp.inc
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)