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Poland Blocks European Software Patent Vote, For Now

Posted by timothy on from the goalie's-end-run dept.

Anonymous Brave Guy writes "Thanks to the Polish Minister of Science and Information Technology, Wlodzimierz Marcinski, Europe has dropped the current proposal for software patents. He made a special journey to Brussels to withdraw the proposal, basically in protest at the way the patents were being pushed through by the back door. Since the European presidency is about to pass to Luxembourg, this has effectively killed the idea, at least for the immediate future." More at FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure). This means that the promised move to delay actually worked.

26 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Well by Silvertre · · Score: 5, Funny

    at least slashdot didn't forget about poland. :)

    1. Re:Well by Metteyya · · Score: 4, Informative

      It wasn't always like that. Like many countries that just started developing democracy after 45 years of communism, we had, still have and will probably still have problems with our politicians.
      The thing is, Poles were always good at throwing away government that didn't satisfy the citizens, and because of that we have one of most "mature" democratic systems amongst countries east of Iron Curtain.
      There was quite big initiative of Open-Source activists (grouped mainly around linux site 7thguard.net) to inform and press Polish politics to use all means possible to stop software patents. While our diplomats screwed some occasions up, this time they've shown (at least, one of ministers of science and informatics) they deserve the payment and power.

  2. EU pressure? by Jinjuro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe the EU saying no to software patents will have some sort of influence on the US. Especially if people in Europe could make it a point of contention.

    1. Re:EU pressure? by M3rk1n_Muffl3y · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, let's hope they have more influence on software patents than they've had on greenhouse gas emission reductions and foreign policy.

      --
      This is not the sig you are looking for...
    2. Re:EU pressure? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Oh, it will make an impact on the US. If software patents are completely banned from the EU, it will be very difficult for US companies to compete on EU soil.

      First of all, European companies can obtain software patents in the US, thereby effectively eliminating possible competition from that part of the world, while establishing a market in the EU. Once these companies make the move over, they've got their protection through the USPTO racket scheme.

      Second. US companies respecting the software patents of other US companies will not be able to develop products based on these patents (unless cross-licensing is in place), quite obviously. This will give them a huge disadvantage when trying to bring products to Europe: they won't be able to use particular techniques their local competitors in EU markets will be able to use, and all stuff they have protection for over in the US can be copied by this local competition.

      So my guess is that when US companies are starting to hurt from this both inside the US and outside of it, there's going to be some reconsideration of patent law.

    3. Re:EU pressure? by FreeUser · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You make an insightful point and I sure hope you are right, but the EU never had software patents, so surely this pressure existed before as well? If so, it doesn't seem to have had any success...

      Software patents have indeed existed for quite some time in the US. However, they have only been actively used in litigation recently (though they have had chilling effects via the threat of litigation for much longer ... recall the graphcal story earlier today).

      However, I can think of at least one instance where the lack of software patents abroad changed the political and corporate landscape in America: PGP Encryption. PGP was written at a time when the export of basic encryption software was banned in the US (it had to be printed in book form, then shipped overseas, and typed into a computer by volunteers over there). To make matters worse, the RSA algorithm was patented in the United States (but nowhere else). The software was exported in book form, made available on the net, and used widely both inside and outside the US. Had software patents existed in Europe at the time, it is likely that those making PGP available in Europe would have been sued, not so much as a means of stopping the patent violation, but as a means of enforcing America's "no encryption for them damn foreigners" policy through the back door of patent litigation...with the result that we'd all probably still be browsing with trivially crackable 40-bit encryption today.

      Instead, PGP being loose in the world, and a dozen non-American encryption companies taking advantage of the lack of patents on RSA outside of the US, and the lack of competititon from US companies hamstrung by both the software patent on RSA and the governments "don't export encryption on pain of FBI interrogation" policy, led to the collapse of said policy.

      The patent expired a few years later, but by then the point was largely moot, as a number of better algorithms had been developed in Europe and, as Europe had no software patents, were available for all to use freely.

      Software patents, and the lack of them, played an important, if not dominant, part in these events, and as a result we no longer have dumbed-down "international" versions of our browsers, and gnuPG is available to everyone all over the world.

      Now software patents are being used more and more in litigation, and the pressures the grandparent describes are beginning to be felt by American companies. The pro-patent lobby knows this, and they know they only have a limited amount of time to get software patents imposed on Europe, or these pressures will reach a sufficient point to wake up American corporations to the fact that patents, and software patents in particular, are not in their best interests.

      I suspect 5 years will be enough for this to run its course ... if Europe, Japan, China, and India can hold out against US pressure that long.

      --
      The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  3. Thank Poland! by geegs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    EU readers please Thank Poland!

    1. Re:Thank Poland! by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Make sure you thank them for last time too. :-)
      Yes, this is the second time Poland stalls this directive.

      Let's see if we have others getting this through their thick skulls so we don't always have to rely on Poland. :-) Not that they seem unreliable in this matter, but you never know, and I'd rather have a sizable group of countries against this so the companies interested in this directive will give up.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  4. Congrats to everyone make it happen... by Pecisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It was quite a surprise, and thanks God - it is done. Of coarse, they (we know who they are) will try again and again, but in fact that they lost it second time, so I think they will eventually run out of arguments if they will try it next time.

    Thanks to open source, free software and small IT business advocates and lobbies who made it happen, everyone who tried to provide insightful information to diplomats and goverments.

    Thank you :)

    --
    user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
  5. More at NoSoftwarePatents.com by Christian+Engstrom · · Score: 5, Informative
    The excellent site NoSoftwarePatent.com also has a good account of what happened.

    This may be only a temporary reprieve, but it could also, quite possibly, be a sign that the tides may be changing in the Council. Let's all hope for the best, and do what we can to make it happen.

    --
    Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
  6. Thank you Poland. by xirtam_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I for one am grateful to our Polish voting overlords.

    It's about time one of the countries in Europe had a government with a spine. I'm from the UK and ours doesn't, unless it's about introducing draconian ID card measures without listening to anyone and ignoring any consultation it required and dismissing it as irrelivant.

    Go POLAND!!!

  7. In Other News... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, Canada reports many cancellations of immigration requests from EU citizens...

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  8. as a future patent attorney by hsmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    i say: damn it!

  9. Go Poland by finkployd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That is twice now they hav saved Europe's ass. Being the first to break the German's Enigma machine and now this.

    Granted in the whole scheme of things, that first one might have been a little more important.

    So I never understood this, why does Poland seem to end up being the butt of jokes? Or is that just a US thing?

    1. Re:Go Poland by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 5, Funny
      That is twice now they hav saved Europe's ass. Being the first to break the German's Enigma machine and now this.

      Double-check your Hollywood History of the World, dude. You'll find it was a bunch of Americans.

    2. Re:Go Poland by Markvs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't forget Poland & Jan Sobieski III in 1683 at Vienna -- Europe could be Islamic today!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

      "At about 5 in the afternoon, four cavalry groups, one of them German-Austrian and the other three Polish heavy cavalry (Hussars), 20,000 men in all, charged down the hills led personally by the Polish king.
      In the confusion, they made straight for the Ottoman camps, while the Vienna garrison sallied out of its defenses and joined in the assault. In less than three hours, the battle was won, as the Turks beat a hasty retreat to the south and east. Although no one realized it at the time, the entire war was won that day, as well. The Ottomans fought on for another 16 years before giving up, losing vast territories in the process."

      --
      46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
  10. Why Poland ? by MosesJones · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Its unlikely that Poland would have done this as a pure solo effort, for fear of a backlash. There must have been others behind the scene agreeing with the position, with Poland making the defiant stance.

    Does this mean that Poland acted as the front for a number of smaller countries. Or did a politician REALLY make a stand based on principle against all commers.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  11. Great day :-) by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He made a special journey to Brussels to withdraw the proposal, basically in protest at the way the patents were being pushed through by the back door

    Cool, someone got it.

    Here's hoping this action by Poland will make MORE clueless ministers go "huh? why did he feel it so necessary to stop that" and actually start reading up on the subject.

    I fear the software giants will bring up this over and over again as long as EU says "no" though. :-/

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  12. Sweet by Lord+Kano · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now Polish people get to tell EU jokes.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  13. Only Twice? by krysith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uh, I think you forgot about the Battle of Warsaw , where Poland really saved Europe!

    "Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration." - General Tukhachevsky, Red Army, 1920.

  14. What's happening? by lxs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft loses it's appeal, software patents are blocked, and satan just called to ask if he could borrow my skates.

  15. Re:Enigma by pgolik · · Score: 4, Informative

    They did break the first version, it was later upgraded with an additional wheel, and that upgraded one was cracked by Turing at Bletchley. A few links: http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/virtualbp/poles/ poles.htm, http://www.armyradio.com/publish/Articles/The_Enig ma_Code_Breach/The_Enigma_Code_Breach.htm, http://www.enigmahistory.org/enigma.html. This and other Polish contributions to WWII were kept quiet at the end of the war to avoid annoying Stalin, and it was carried into history writing (especially in the UK) for a long time. Too many exaples to mention, the Enigma is but one...

  16. Proud pole by raflmoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even though people pull jokes and Poland's not really been any of the 'top ranked' countries in the west (or the east for that matter); I have never been prouder of being polish!

  17. US Patents hinder development by canuck57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The US has to get their patent system in order or it will collapse. The only real purpose for the patent system with software is to employ lawyers in the software business and to harass innovative companies competing with larger companies. Both are counterproductive in developing computer technologu and for that mater mankinds development.

    The EU wants to develop their software business and do not want to let the likes of Microsoft come in and stifle growth with legal harassment. Even if you do no infringe, the mere fact a small company or individual is legally challenged is enough to put them out and under. The EU is doing it right by not letting in US legal problems into their system. A good recent example is how long and how far can SCO go before someone puts the execs in jail for extortion? Or perhaps the SEC for stock manipulation.

    And since most software patents can find their root in previous works or ideas developed in public universities and not really inside the business they originated in, most are fraudulent patents. Patents were meant to protect the original developing company from infringement. Microsoft didn't invent windows, XEROX/PA did. MIT did X before Microsoft had an OS. So So by rights, any patent on Windows by Microsoft is derived work and not an original invention. These patents should be rejected.

    Unless Canada and the US revise the law, I figure in 3-5 years most of our software will come from EU, India or China. Want a software development job, go to EU, India or China. Poland has the right idea, it will develop and keep their people at home.

  18. Wlodzimierz Marcinski - He understands IT! by Handbrewer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He has been an IT manager in private business and studied Mathematics - i almost wet my pants of happiness as i read his CV.
    This is one politician i want to decide such matters as he actually has knowledge of what he is doing. Im so glad Poland is now in the EU :) - Heres to Wlodzimierz Marcinski!

    I wish we had politicians like him in Denmark when we decide IT politics :\

  19. New EU member beats the old in "democracy". by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The software patent decision was twice undemocratic, first the parliament was ignored, second it was passed through the council of ministers by trickery.

    No matter what you think of software patents, everyone should be happy that someone in EU thinks democracy is worth taking serious.

    Funny that it should be one of the new members, given the "superior" attitude most of the old members take.