India Quietly Introduces Software Patents

bain_online writes " The Business-Standard of India reports: The Cabinet is expected to clear the promulgation of an Ordinance for the introduction of a product patents regime, which will also cover embedded software and hardware, next Wednesday. There are other news sites reporting the same. Unfortunately, the majority of the Indian people are not the least bit concerned, resulting in very low coverage for this important development."

Comments

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, amazing, patent laws in most countries are completely ignored by the general populace.

Re:Really?

[nkh]

It seems that the only country left who don't want patents is China (and Don't forget Poland!) Jobs were outsourced to India but Indians' jobs are even outsourced to China. Will these laws render this outsourcing process faster now?

Re:Really?

[spac3manspiff]

Unfortunately, the majority of the Indian people are not the least bit concerned, resulting in very low coverage for this important development."
Yeah, they seem to be focusing on some stupid tidal wave.
Okay i dont know about you but i think 10 thousand people dieing is more important than this important development

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially in third-world countries. We're outsourcing jobs there and not to Canada or Britain for a reason, which often seems to be forgotten. India and the US are not equivalent. Consider just for a second the political turmoil and goings-on in the USA, a first-world nation, before you comprehend that India is barely even a democracy. It's often on the brink of dictatorship, like its neighbor Pakistan.

The upshot of this is that the populace are unconcerned with patent laws not because of first-worldesque apathy, but rather because the majority of the population has more important things to worry about, starting with basic survival. The fact that their political opinions ultimately don't matter is just icing on that cake, to use a horribly inappropriate pun.

Re:Really?

[Pratiz]

This is an ordinance not a law. By Indian Constitution an ordinance must get an approval from the parliament before it can become a law. An ordinance has a lifespan of six months. It has to get an approval from the next parliamentary session (Feb - Mar 2005)

AFAIK there are serious differences even among the ruling coalition about the patent issues, but the media coverage has been mainly on the pharma and biotech patents.

Re:Really?

[1tsm3]

Hey shit head,

Just because some crazy politician says he can be a dictator doesn't mean India is on the brink of dictatorship. RTFA, and you would see that the politician requests to be made a dictator! Isn't that good enough an indication that he is not one? It's just like Bush or Kerry making some false claims during the election run.

The other link you provided is about a book by some Paul Dickler and its dated 1995! I don't care WTF some sicko says. Come to India and look for youself. I agree it has caste system, but it's hardly enforced among the educated people. Come ask any sane person in India, and he will agree it's a democracy.

Re:Really?

[superpulpsicle]

I hate it when people assume China is so corrupted that patents can't even be created.

http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2004/cpi2004.en. ht ml

You better check this list. As of 2004 China is no where close to Haiti and Bangledesh, which is bottom of the global corruption list every year.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your definition of 'sane' necessarily is classist, because none of the lower classes will agree that India is a democracy. (They also will not care about patents, since they are starving and dying and are basically equivalent to slaves in 1800s America)

Elections don't equal democracy. All of the most brutal dictatorships throughout modern history have held elections. Hitler was elected. Pervez Musharaff was elected. The Taliban was elected.

Can you name one other true democracy besides India which has so much squalor, disease and poverty? Of course you can't. True democracy, as in a constitutional republic where individual rights are preserved, does not exist in India. "Democracy" as in "the People's Democratic Republic of..." might.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

huh... u've to see the general population there, man... there's something like 50% literacy

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Haiti, that economic powerhouse of the Carribean. Haiti, on every company's radar. Haiti, that vast emerging market...

Didn't George Harrison write a song about Bangledesh?

Another one bites the dust

[KlomDark]

Another confirmation that all government activity is only for the rich. Sure, it's naive to think otherwise, but it would be nice if they told the truth about it rather than filling us with utopian bullshit about how it's for the "greater good of all".

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Patent system, had it worked correctly, would have saved a number of budding software companies from Microsoft.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[KlomDark]

That's very true. But it also confirms my point - protecting the rich from the poor, rather than the other way around, as it should be.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[erroneus]

I REALLY REALLY want to disagree with you. I can't completely disagree, however, because we'd need a public awakening to test for truth.

I believe the governments serve those that are the most vocal. The "rich" leverage their resources to become louder than the rest of the populace. I see that demonstrated on a regular basis. Additionally, however, I see that any attempt to equalize the voice of the populace against that of big business is suppressed which kind of adds evidence to the notion that government responds mostly to that which is more vocal.

Like it or not, most of this crap happens because the masses don't care and/or don't understand what's going on. Big business sees what's in it for them and persue it through whatever means necessary... some legal, some not and some really grey.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[SerpentMage]

That is such a pile of BS! Patents do not protect little guys from the big guys. That is a figment of our imagination. Maybe 100 years ago that was the case, but it is definitely not the case today.

To file a patent you need a lawyer, which costs money, then you need more money to defend your patent. A patent in North America costs about 20K USD, and in Europe 40K Euro's. The only "little" people who can do this are lawyers themselves. Notice how many times Slashdot covers the story of a small company with a broad patent? And notice how those small companies are lawyer driven. That is the reality folks!

Patents need to undergo a radical change because the premise of a patent is that a single person comes up with a single unique thought that is not obvious. Well, that is impossible in this day and age!

Re:Another one bites the dust

[MeanSolutions]

When Government and Big Business goes hand in hand, that is what you should expect though. It is not desired by the vast majority of people, rather the opposite, however, not doing anything about it will ensure it stays in place, and just permeates deeper with every passing year.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

The laws and regulations are public.

Therefore it's not only for the rich but for the wise and literate person with a lot of spare time! :)

As we've seen ( particularly in some cases in the US ) even most *legislators* do not know all the laws they are passing or helping to pass.
So, the democratic system in all of the countries using it is broken to some extent (like all systems for that matter.. ) and those who lobby (for or against some particular clauses) have a big influence.

I have always wondered why some advanced civilized countries have not begun to introduce their lengthy laws and regulations in some computer language ( i.e. as Java code ) to add at least some automation (and testability) to the whole legislative process - if the laws were written in Java they could always be automatically translated to a human language and you could test your data against the laws to see the effect of these on yourself.

Hey.. wait a minute forget what I said.. I have to patent it first!

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Waffle Iron]

The US Patent system, had it worked correctly, would have saved a number of budding software companies from Microsoft.

Yes, if software patents had been widespread from the start, there would be no Microsoft as we know it. In fact, we would just be entering a golden age of computing right now:

The Visicalc spreadsheet patents would have just expired a few years ago, allowing Lotus-123 to get started.

The Xerox GUI patents would have recently expired, so Apple could have introduced the Mac at the turn of the millennium.

The id first-person-shooter patents would be expiring in a few short years from now. The whole gaming industry would be abuzz with anticipation of 3D games from more than one vendor!

We would have only about 8 more years of paying royalties to CERN for browsing the web. In a few years, software vendors would be starting to plan features for a long-awaited successor to the Mosaic browser.

Linux would just now be able to host the kinds of server tasks that were common in the mid 80s, and more capabilities would become legal each year!

Driven by the demands created by the burgeoning patent-protected software market, Intel would be introducing the Pentium I just about now.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[superstick58]

"Patents need to undergo a radical change because the premise of a patent is that a single person comes up with a single unique thought that is not obvious. Well, that is impossible in this day and age!"

That sounds dangerously familiar to the famous quote of Charles Duell of the US Patent Office back in 1899 (i think). "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Now obviously there are more and more patents therefore less and less unique ideas, but the fact is things will always continue to be invented, and the world will not run out of new ideas. Also, $20K seems like a rather steep estimate of what it costs to get a patent. In reality, getting a patent is more an issue of time than money (typically 2 years). What costs more is the migration of your invention into the marketplace(manufacturing, advertising, etc.) One of the benefits of patents is their relative affordability.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[khrtt]

Patents do not protect little guys from the big guys.

I know a guy who actually patented something (a brake pad thickness meter) and sold the patent to Ford for a $100 or so. Would've never been possible without a patent system.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[khrtt]

Sorry for typo, make that $100K. That patent was for a very concrete and useful device that would've never gotten manufactured otherwise. I mean, I'm not sure they ended up actually using the device in any of the production cars, but at least the invention has been published.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Laser Lou]

To file a patent you need a lawyer, which costs money, then you need more money to defend your patent. A patent in North America costs about 20K USD, and in Europe 40K Euro's. The only "little" people who can do this are lawyers themselves.

That's quite wrong! Where did you get those figures from? I had a teacher who filed patents for himself every few years, and made money from them. You can file one yourself; a lawyer or even a patent agent is not required. In the US it costs $75 for a small entity to file for an utility patent with three claims, $250 for the pantent search, $100 for the examination fee, and $700 to issue the patent. See the fee schedule.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[SerpentMage]

You are right in theory. Try defending your "hand written" patent in a court of law! Been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. You need a lawyer, if you have anything worth patenting for larger sums of money.

But I am glad you point this out. The original intent was to allow the little person to profit from patents. However, the legions of lawyers will make mince meat of you if you try to defend your patent. So what do big companies do? Simple, "I will pay you X and you give me the patent". If you try to say no they will bury you in the courts.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Air-conditioned cowh]

Sound like Ford decided to be nice to him that day. They didn't have to be.

If Ford had just stolen his idea then what could he have done? How much would it have cost him to take any action?

Re:Another one bites the dust

[SerpentMage]

Sorry, but I did not make myself clear. I am not saying that everything has been patented. I am saying that the patent was to protect "copiers". The problem is that we are six billion people.

When you have six billion people, multiple people will be thinking the same thing. However, the patent system is based on the fact that only one person will be thinking of the idea. So now comes the question, why should somebody who came up with the same idea not also get a patent? This is my problem with the patent system.

I replied about the money issue to another poster. But my point is that to get a patent that can stand up in court you need those monies. About forty years ago you could write a patent by hand. Now you need a lawyer. If you don't then you will pay for it when defending the patent.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Artifakt]

It's more like saying "Nothing gets invented by a lone inventor anymore - It's all collective work.". Now just to piss off the Libertarians ;-), I'll argue that position.
With costs to file and defend running what they are, a lone inventor takes a huge risk in marketing for himself (or herself). The most effective way to bring that risk into line with general business start up risks is to have (at the very least) a design engineer and a marketer also involved. Both of these will be having imput into the invention phase itself ("It needs to fit into this case design. Oh, and can't you make it air cooled? We can get quiet fans cheaper than quiet pumps.").
If Edison himself had just now invented the light bulb, the only way investors would risk capitalizing it these days it would be if a design engineer had aestetically critiqued the final shape, a safety engineer had figured out a better alternative than those open sockets, and a process engineer had figured out how to make them with the maximum ratio of unskilled to skilled labor. All that fits what you describe as migration to the marketplace, of course. However, these days it also has to happen while the invention is still in process and not just after it is "finished". Normally, a company files for a group of basic patents, and some design patents, and maybe even trademarks all at the same time.
Now realistically, impossible is too strong a word. If someone invents a process for "getting three men to the moon and back on the power contained in 2 AA batteries", they could probably patent it all by themselves and still end up making money hand over fist (maybe). These days, however, it's usually a five man effort to incline a cooking grill.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

You are correct as far as near-clones of existing software. What you forget was the original intent of patents.

With a guaranteed monopoly for creating something new and no chance of copying old ideas before they become too unprofitable, the bright minds of these decades would have been brainstorming and coming up with new ideas to patent them for themselves. Imagine what could have been done if Linus Torvalds had spent his energy on developing a new paradigm for operating systems instead of just cloning the existing Unices. Imagine if Richard Stallman had spent his time on more software like Emacs - whose fundamental idea of an intertwined editor and scripting language had not been seen before - instead of working on the Hurd, which replicates not only existing OSes but also Linux. Imagine if Bill Gates had used his genius to code more and clone/buy less.

We're only really getting XML, journaled/databased file systems, truly portable technology, etc. today. By forcing the bright minds to innovate instead of just creating clones of existing ideas, we'd've had these for years now. As an example in gaming, there would be more Katamari Damacies and less Random Celebrity's Pro Sportsgame or Race Around New Scenery 2004s.

And you also forget that patents can be licensed. Bungie could've doubtless licensed id's FPS patent for enough money to satisfy id, but made enough on Halo to pay back the license and still make as much money as they actually did - remember that there wouldn't've been as many FPSes on the market.

Mind you, I'm not supporting software patents today. With the market evolved the laissez-faire way it did, open-source and free patents are almost necessary to be fair to the consumer. But if software patents had been in effect since the early 1980s, the market would've had a lot less simple repetition and much more true innovation or actual improvements on existing products.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Pantero Blanco]

A lot of automotive companies paid a good bit of money for patents like that...Then proceded to sit on them for decades, defeating the whole purpose of inventing something.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Waffle Iron]

Maybe the software industry would have creaked along with heavy patents, but I think that the average software product would have needed far more resources put into licensing negotiations, license accounting and pointless evasive coding techniques than into actual productive development. The bottom line is that people would have paid more for fewer features.

I disagree that forcing everyone to be different from any previous products is inherently good. If everybody has to invent a new blue-sky user experience for every single product, user training costs would go through the roof, and compatibility between products would be minimal or nonexistent.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[MacDork]

That is such a pile of BS! Patents do not protect little guys from the big guys. That is a figment of our imagination. Maybe 100 years ago that was the case, but it is definitely not the case today.

No. Not now. Not 100 years ago. Not ever.

• They [The Wright Brothers] had hoped that their patent would be respected from the start. When that did not occur, they placed their hopes in defending their patent in court. With the patent defended, they assumed that when other manufacturers at last began turning out aircraft in reasonable quantity, paying a royalty on each one, they could devote themselves to other research, not necessarily in aviation.

What? You thought the German's payed the Wright brothers a royalty for every airplane manufactured in WWI?

Re:Another one bites the dust

[johannesg]

Imagine what could have been done if Linus Torvalds had spent his energy on developing a new paradigm for operating systems instead of just cloning the existing Unices.

He would have been unable to copy _any_ idea that had been created before. Multitasking? Nah, is patented. Commandline? Same. GUI? Same. Memory protection? Virtual devices? Filing system? All patented. Good luck coming up with alternatives to some of these. And don't tell me a poor finnish student could have afforded licensing fees for hundreds of diverse technologies.

Imagine if Bill Gates had used his genius to code more and clone/buy less.

For Bill Gates very little changes. He just needs to spend some money on patents _and_ software.

But if software patents had been in effect since the early 1980s, the market would've had a lot less simple repetition and much more true innovation or actual improvements on existing products.

I strongly disagree. The first guy to realize that he owned a vital piece of the action (just imagine a patent on "interactive IO") would (or at least, *could*) have leveraged it to own the computer world. Simple software would bear pricetags comparable to cars (to pay off all the patent holders).

For any class of application, only one version would exist, unchanging no matter how bad it is for the first twenty years. Computers would never even have entered the home, since noone could afford them and there would no interesting software anyway.

And the same would be true for the tools we use to work with computers. There would be no Java or Perl or C++ (who could afford to develop a language when the compiler-patent is still valid?). In all likelyhood we would be program in assembler, _maybe_ using a terminal, but possibly still using punchcards. Which is no big deal - computers would only be available in specialized environments such as research institutions. I'll leave the knock-on effect to other technologies (cars, planes, telecommunication, etc.) to your imagination, but it will be huge.

In other words, we would be at the same technological level of development that we were in the sixties. Some people would no doubt consider that a good thing, but frankly I like our current level of development. At least now I can engage in stimulating discussion about various subjects with people from other continents (ok, that was a euphemism ;-) ).

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

you know da vinci ?

Re:Another one bites the dust

[SgtChaireBourne]

If Ford had just stolen his idea then what could he have done? How much would it have cost him to take any action?

Apparently defending a patent costs somewhere over $4 million on average. You can hear a discussion of problems like that at the program page from the Software patent conference Nov 9-10, 2004 in Brussels.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[snorklewacker]

If Edison himself had just now invented the light bulb, the only way investors would risk capitalizing it these days it would be if a design engineer had aestetically critiqued the final shape, a safety engineer had figured out a better alternative than those open sockets, and a process engineer had figured out how to make them with the maximum ratio of unskilled to skilled labor.

Pish posh, it just wouldn't be productized. And let's not forget, Edison was a big proponent of direct current (DC), had patents and financial interests in DC power generation and all the expensive hardware that went with it, suppressed findings about the safety problems of DC, and went so far to smear his nemesis Westinghouse by putting on ghastly demonstrations of the dangers of AC using Thomas Edison's Fantabulous Newfangled Invention: the Electric Chair.

Edison still lost. The real irony is that so many states actually liked the electric chair, and bought them.

Lone inventors are all over the place,m but they just work for larger companies, and the invention gets owned by the company, and absolutely nothing happens to it. The inventor gets a check for a few grand if he's lucky.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[mits1]

The attempt to build and fly the first plane was more of a race with several competing teams. The idea of the plane itself was not conceived by the Wright brothers but they were the first to build one which could fly reasonably well. Engines existed, there were people who knew a little bit about aerodynamics, the brothers put together the idea into practice. I wonder if they thought that they be given royalty for every plane that was built.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[nerdlyone]

Another confirmation that all government activity is only for the rich. Sure, it's naive to think otherwise, but it would be nice if they told the truth about it rather than filling us with utopian bullshit about how it's for the "greater good of all".

I sometimes come here to check up on the goings on at slashdot. Nowhere else do I find such a hotbed of activism and ignorance. It would be entertaining if it weren't so frustrating.

To wit, "...all government activity is only for the rich" is a slight overstatement. And whether you understand or not, property rights are not the embodiment of evil. Not even intellectual property rights. Patent laws in software will help the Indian economy, create more incentive for investment, and ultimately help raise the standard of living in the world's largest democracy.

The fact that this post got a "4: Insightful" means the slashdot ranking system is broken broken broken...

There goes

[MemoryDragon]

the outsourcing industry of India...

Re:There goes

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't make much of a difference to outsourcing as iirc the patents you have to worry about are the ones in the country you're distributing the product, not the patents in the country you're producing it in.

Re:There goes

[Anonymous Coward]

The current indian administration is a conservative coalition, with some leftist allies. Its the same group of people who signed the GATT, which led to India's own Basmati rice, and Bhujia being patented by u.s. firms. You can't win all the time.

Selling the US rope they need to hang themselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Indian IT industry is selling American high tech the rope they need to hang themselves.

Prior art

[Quiberon]

Make sure the whole of 'ibiblio', all of 'debian', and the Knoppix DVDs are filed with the Indian patent office as prior art to any patents that may get filed. Please !

Re:Prior art

[Dorsai65]

I think the key phrase in the article is embedded software; that would seem to exclude desktop OSes.

Re:Prior art

[Chandon Seldon]

Yea, because when someone patents qsort for their embedded system it's a *really* big leap to go after other software implementing the same algorithm.

Probably got other things on their mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Most folks are more worried about the after effects of the tsunami, and aftershocks than patents right now.

Re:Probably got other things on their mind

[savagedome]

Please mod parent up. Please.

How many people remember Michael Jordan's comeback announced on 9/11?

I am happy that nobody is giving a crap about patents right now with the kind of destruction that happened. It would have been sad if patents were given more importance admist all that is happening right now.

Re:Probably got other things on their mind

[johnny_sas]

Regardless of what recently happened, this wasn't planned in the last few days. Obviously it's been coming for some time, and it's obvious either they (government) bullshitted people into believing this was good, or the people just don't know enough to care about it.

Re:Probably got other things on their mind

[lowieken]

Of course the earthquake problem should be given priority, but I don't agree at all with your conclusion that because of that urgent problem, one shouldn't care about software patents.

The sane thing to do for the Indian government in an emergency situation like this would be to pause non-critical legislative activity for a few weeks, so that proposed laws can get the attention they deserve.

Re:Probably got other things on their mind

[HiThere]

It is true for EVERY country that almost nobody knows enough about computers to worry about the effect of a law that technically changes who is allowed to do what on them.

Fact it, nobody protested the DMCA's restriction of fair-use, and that affected many more people in an obvious and direct way. The effects of this law are uncertain and will be seen far in the future, and almost everybody will only be affected in a very indirect manner. Even after-the-fact almost nobody will know that this law affected their lives. Not even if it happens to drive them to bankruptcy. What they'll know is that "company xyz drove me to bankruptcy!", and they won't realize how the laws were manipulated so that this could happen.

Re:Probably got other things on their mind

[TheoMurpse]

"How many people remember Michael Jordan's comeback announced on 9/11?"

Apparently you do. Asshole.

Since the vast majority of programming there goes

[human bean]

on with open source software tooling, and everyone borrowing things from each other, one would think that the technical folks there would have a clue.

I suspect this is proposed as a way for the larger corporations who attempt to control the Hindi programmer "market" to shut out the smaller split-offs and startups.

Funny. I guess they didn't suffer enough through the British raj and so now they do it to themselves.

Apparently they didn't get the message.

[Anonymous Coward]

The tsunami was a warning to India about this. It seems that they didn't get the message.

Well that and

[LiNKz]

They're busy dealing with this.

Re:Well that and

[LiNKz]

Specifically, they're dealing with this. The first link was more generalized.

Not very important.

[Mindjiver]

The question about software patents is really not something people are concerned with as at least 3500 of their countrymen are dead in the tsunamis.

Re:Not very important.

[tomjen]

Wich is why they push it through now.

(are you sure that tsunami was an accident?)

Octoelephants

[Anonymous Coward]

The eight armed elephant is very very pissed about this, and the little blue people are also.

It was only a matter of time.

and this is a country that because of USA's intellectual property laws, was not allowed to know the makeup of the pesticide that killed so many in Bhopal, the knowlege of which could have saved so many lives. eh wait a second, but what do i care? as an american, i get all MY knowledge of india from the simpsons and those hairy krishnas at the airport...

First wave of software patents

[Gopal.V]

Patent office of India has a section in Patent Law (rev 1998), which states

1.3.8 Computer Programs
1. Computer program is not patentable invention as computer program is
a set of instructions for controlling a sequence of operations of a dataprocessing
system. It closely resembles a mathematical method .It
may be expressed in various forms eg. A series of verbal statements, a
flow chart, an algorithm, or other coded form and may be presented in
a format suitable for direct entry into a particular computer, or may
require transcription into a different format (or computer “language”). It
may merely be written on paper or recorded on some machine-readable medium such as magnetic tape or disc or optically scanned
record, or it may be permanently recorded in a control store forming
part of a computer. Thus it is evident that a program may be presented
in terms of either software or firmware.

With such a clear law stating about firmware, how can patents be applicable to embedded systems ?. The normal programmer need not fear yet. But this is just the first wave.

An invention consists of hardware along with software or computer
program in order to perform the function of the hardware ,such
invention may be considered Patentable

Maybe this is the clause they are exploiting ?.

I'm mailing my ministers immediately !!... If you are an Indian, do the same immediately.

Re:First wave of software patents

[Gopal.V]

I'm considering mailing the president himself. He's an OSS supporter who has quite a good idea of what this means for FOSS in this world.

Even if you are not Indian, consider doing that - for the sake of another country with a 3% population of techies.

Re:First wave of software patents

[Irashtar]

also consider that with something like this in place, some (many?) companies will move there, and the fact that this is one of the largest countrys in the world, population-wise

Re:First wave of software patents

[Halo1]

With such a clear law stating about firmware, how can patents be applicable to embedded systems ?

Keep in mind that this is about a rewrite of the patent law.

I'm mailing my ministers immediately !!... If you are an Indian, do the same immediately.

You might find some interesting background information here.

Re:First wave of software patents

[singpolyma]

They can change the law if they want, they're the government. Governments sometimes listen to their people, but no matter what the law says, they can always change it.

Re:First wave of software patents

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of people aren't interested in Software patents?

Do you think it makes a difference? Do you really think they will be honoured? Do you think most people in India evan have a computer?

Re:First wave of software patents

[Anonymous Coward]

First wave of software patents??

Now that's cold, man.

Re:First wave of software patents

[Anonymous Coward]

India isn't twisting this clause, they're replacing it with a new one in their Patents (Amendment) Ordinance 2004:

Amendment of section 3.

3. In section 3 of the principal Act,-

... (b) for clause (k), the following clauses shall be substituted, namely:-

"(k) a computer programme per se other than its technical application to industry or a combination with hardware;

(ka) a mathematical method or a business method or algorithms;".

I guess what they're saying here is that computer programs still aren't patentable, but "technical applications of software" or hardware/software combinations (e.g. embedded things) are patentable now.

Re:Since the vast majority of programming there go

[guyfromindia]

Warning: Offtopic:

Hindi programmer "market"

FYI -- 'Hindi' is not the only language spoken in India. A majority of people in the northern areas speak Hindi. This is not so in the south. Also, India does not have a 'national' language. So, Hindi is NOT synonymous with India. Thx.

Tries to avoid -1 Flamebait:..

[ActionJesus]

Please excuse my westerenised complete ignorance of other countries, but what exactly is the state of computer access in India? I mean, if only 10% of the population has access to a computer, are they really going to care?

I realise that Indias a large place, and is growing quickly technologically, but how many people does this actually affect?

Re:Tries to avoid -1 Flamebait:..

[SpaceLifeForm]

In the long run it will affect them all. Many just don't realize that at this time.

India sez...

[Anonymous Coward]

All your routers belongs to us.

Lack of interest?!?!

[FreeLinux]

Imagine, the Indian people aren't interested in the patent issue. Could it have anything to do with the fact that 3000 or more people were killed by a tsunami?

If I were in India, I wouldn't be to concerned with patents right now either.

Re:Lack of interest?!?!

[LiquidCoooled]

Wholeheartedly agree.

its a terrible loss for everyone, and my heart goes out to them.

Please everybody - if your in a country offering aid, give what you can.

Re:Lack of interest?!?!

[Chandon Seldon]

Because obviously two things can't both matter at the same time.

I'm not saying that tens of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster isn't very tragic, but it doesn't make the software patent issue any less important.

In fact - because of the tendancy to focus on easily-understood problems - issues like software patents become even more relevent when there's some event to distract from them.

The people died from the tsunami already. Whatever processes are going to rescue surviors and rebuild are already in motion. The issue's getting extensive coverage in all news media. I'd say that here, on slashdot, in this topic, the Patent issue is *far* more important and relevent.

Re:Lack of interest?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ofcourse.

After all, things like this have happened before.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi ?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107

Re:Lack of interest?!?!

[Erik Hollensbe]

You think they might be a little distracted?

Seriously, where the fuck are your priorities?

Re:Lack of interest?!?!

[Chandon Seldon]

Seriously, where the fuck are your priorities?

Right where they should be.

Given that software patents would be a relevent issue if the tsunami had not occured - something that I believe is true - the tsunami changes nothing for those not directly effected by it.

Re:Lack of interest?!?!

[Erik Hollensbe]

Well, obviously your isolationist view is making a lot of difference.

Seriously, no one gives a shit about your ideas unless you have a backbone that makes them worth listening to. Otherwise, like you and I are right now, you're just bellowing in a sound-proof box on a crappy weblog. If you need an example, look at how political parties treat each other in the U.S. - no matter how good they are with a single policy, it's diverted away even by those who stand to gain nothing, but believe in the ideal that the party as a whole is a good thing. As a result, no one takes them seriously but themselves.

Perhaps you can elaborate on how it can "work"

[expro]

It does work, exactly in the way the legislators ultimately mean for it to work, destroying competition. Please elaborate how you think it could be revised to increase rather than destroy competition.

Huh huh huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

You said wave.

Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[tap]

Hopefully a huge land grab for IP will turn India's software industry into a litigation industry.

India won't be able to start a software industry of it's own, when American companies "own" all the ideas software is based on. They'll just keep being a source of cheap labor to make American CEO's richer.

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[RealBorg]

Sooner or later the rich will learn that all the money they own cannot safe them from the rage of the starving population, one way or the other.

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[Handbrewer]

Sure we can - we the rich have weapons. Do you expect the poor and hungry to what? Beat us with a stick?

The poor countries will always be our slaves, unless we seriously change our ways. No one in this world need to starve - its just politics.

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[Anonymous Coward]

circa 1912.

Western expeditioners traveling through Arabia meet a band of Bedouins.

Start shooting them. Bedouins have only stones to respind with. Kill about 30 in all.

Then they run out of ammo.

Moral: it's better to use your resources to make friends of strangers than to kill them.

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Two words for you: French Revolution.

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[HiThere]

The french monarchy didn't have robots armed with shotguns. (They probably aren't very effective yet, but the one in the field is an early beta undergoing development tests.)

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Three words then: World Trade Center

Re:Great news for Americans and Europeans!

[HiThere]

There were a lot of people hurt there, but how many were rich and important.

I'm skipping over the evidence which indicates that SOMEONE with a lot of money was behind it, because Oligarchies have gang rumbles just like lesser gangs do. (And our reaction was quite interesting if it was intended to "punish" those who financed the event. It sure wasn't a one man operation, though I suppose it could be a one-fall guy operation.)

Re:Since the vast majority of programming there go

[drspliff]

I agree, most software developers have 'a clue' about software patents. But most 'normal' people and MPs or government officials really don't (do you remember some of those whacky government schemes to introduce 'dont spam me' whitelists?).

The last thing India needs right now is for software patents to be introduced, this for one will mean that large american/european corporations will be investing in patents in India, whereas most small Indian software firms will be locked out due to the legal costs involved.

I was expecting to see a major growth in software innovation from India over the next 5 years, but now I'm having second thoughts about who will really be controlling the industry

--
My £0.2p :)

No:India sez...

[Anonymous Coward]

All your rooters belong to us.

W00t! Thank you, India!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is terrific! I can think of no other move which ought to put a bigger damper on the Software Industry in India!

First, Business Week posts about how business is picking up for people who take on the failed Offshored Software projects, and now this!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is the best Christmas present I could have asked for.

But why in the world a third-world country would sign up for this, I have no idea. Actually, I do. Supposedly India is one of the most corrupt places in the world, according to a recent poll (was that in the Economist IIRC?).

So someone bought off the politicians. For once, I'm glad to see it happen.

It was the same in Europe...

[Rauchbier]

The patent lobby tried to introduce software patents in Europe silently as well. Thanks to the FFII there was enough noise to wake up politicians. Now we have additional support from sites like No Software Patents, but it took a lot of time to get this support.

Hopefully there is a chance to postpone the decision so the indian people and politicians can catch up on software patents.

WIPO relevance?

[PornMaster]

Did they do this to gain international protection in any manner? If Indians are slaving away at coding, perhaps this is to gain from internal development things outside their own country.

Very Important

[MyLongNickName]

Yes, when hundreds of millions of people are living in abject poverty, this important development gets ignored.

Methinks some people need to gain a bit of perspective. In the hierarchy of human needs, I do not remember reading about software patent issues.

Re:Very Important

[bhampton]

Well since software development is one of the avenues available for relieving that poverty and since software patents are guaranteed to limit the access of those in poverty to that avenue, it is an important development. This fight between the classes is fought on many different fronts - better to win the non-violent ones - oh hell, just bring on the revolution and let's see what crawls out...

Re:Very Important

[singpolyma]

Totally, although politics may be a big deal in the west, in the east and in Africa barely anyone cares because they figure, "What has the government done for me?" or "How does this affect me?" they don't care because it really doesn't affect them where they're at.

Re:Very Important

[natrius]

In the hierarchy of human needs, I do not remember reading about software patent issues.

You don't? It was right under self-actualization. Maslow wouldn't overlook something that important.

Re:Very Important

[Flyboy Connor]

In the hierarchy of human needs, I do not remember reading about software patent issues.

What you forget is that industrialisation is a way out of poverty. The software market requires little monetary support, and lots of human labour. Human labour is available plenty in India, but money is scarce. Therefore, the software industry is ideal for India to help itself become richer. By introducing software patents, they set themselves up to let most of the gains from the software industry flow to the US. Not a smart move.

Re:Very Important

[MyLongNickName]

What you forget is that people worry about filling their stomachs before looking fifty years down the road.

Re:Very Important

[Flyboy Connor]

What you forget is that people worry about filling their stomachs before looking fifty years down the road.

Nope. Those are totally different issues. And you seem to forget that developments in the Indian software industry have an impact on poverty now and tomorrow, not in fifty years.

Re:Very Important

[MyLongNickName]

Obviously, reading the story, you are incorrect. When people's bellies are not full, they don't care about the long term. Witness Hitler. Witness Stalin.

Why should they care ?!!?

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Having just spent an entire month travelling through India, I am not at all surprised at the low media coverage. The vast majority of the population is extremely poor... the (on average) dozen beggers that approached me daily, don't even ask you for money, they ask you for food my friends! *That's* how you know they are really poor and what's really on their minds.

The vast majority of people don't even know how to turn on a computer, and many haven't even seen one in their lives, so it is not surprising that the media would think their people would not care so much about patents; they have far bigger logistical and core problems than caring about software patents.

Re:Why should they care ?!!?

[gabbarbhai]

Well. They don't care right now, but being an optimistic as I am, I think they will in the (relatively near) future. So its all the more important to 'future proof' the system.

Re:Why should they care ?!!?

[The Cydonian]

Yes, abject poverty exists in India, but all the same, that's not the only reason for the low media coverage; here in Singapore, we're about to have software patents ourselves starting Jan 2005, but you don't see that being covered in the media either.

Let's face it:- media apathy towards IPR issues isn't a rich-poor divide. It exists everywhere.

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

what other bad news the Indian government has had buried today...

A little more than 3k

[Safety Cap]

More like 23k or more.

The Intellectual Property Law of China

[westlake]

It seems that the only country left who don't want patents is China

For an introduction to the intellectual property law of China: Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, etc. Why does it always come as a surprise on Slashdot when an international trader brings it's laws into synch with it's major trading partners?

Re:The Intellectual Property Law of China

[ynohoo]

when the law in question is a patent "land-grab" by the major players in an effort to squeeze out all small and medium size competition, the issue deserves more than "surprise". Just because they got away with it in the US, does not mean the rest of the world is just going to bend over and take it, unless their governance is already as corrupt as the US Senate.

Re:The Intellectual Property Law of China

[russotto]

Because the "into synch" stuff is a game, a scam, a flim-flam, a cheat. The way it works is some player works hard on one country or another to get a law favorable to them. Then they use the "into synch" reasoning to get other countries go along. Then they get a small change in another country, and propagate THAT one using the same reasoning. Repeat ad nauseum, until every country gets the worst of all possible systems despite each individual country doing _almost_ nothing except getting "in synch" with all the others.

Re:Selling the US rope they need to hang themselve

[Rude Turnip]

I think they're about to hang themselves by introducing software patents. It should be an interesting case study over the next couple years to see if the introduction of software patents has any impact on the growth of the Indian IT industry.

Mt. Dew for Thought...

[Thunderstruck]

India enacts software patent law... nobody seems to care.

The United States enact ... nobody seems to care.

Poland blocks IP law ... nobody seems to care.

The common thread here is really a lack of concern by the masses about what the law is in this area. Is this really an issue of law being made only for the big corporations, or is it a question of lack of education & information among the rest?

Perhaps the real solution to the problems of IP law, as almost universally recognized on /. even by AC's is that we direct our energy away from our respective governments and toward our friends and neighbors.

That officials enacting IP law will seldom see the /.er as anything more than a wanna-be pirate. Legislators look at those who have the knowledge to tinker but are not corporate engineers being paid to testify with suspiciion. They must surely be self-serving software pirates worthy only of scorn.. at least until the timer needs to be set on the VCR. Geeks are not a voting block.

The solution then, is to explain to Grandpa why software patents are bad. Grandpa is no dummy. If we can survive working tech-support over the telephone, we can explain IP to Grandpa in person when we visit for Christmas.

It will be easier than it sounds. People love to have rights, even if they don't fully understand them. Show a man his rights are being violated and the righteous indignation begins to swell. All Grandpa needs to really understand is that, when IP laws are toughened, when copyrights are extended, that takes away something from HIM... then he will speak up. When granpa speaks, the government listens.

Re:Mt. Dew for Thought...

[adeydas]

so true... but unfortunately grandpa's in india doesn't seem to care too much about these issues too much.

Re:Mt. Dew for Thought...

[ral315]

We forgot Poland!

Re:Mt. Dew for Thought...

[Cow007]

I think that a lot of the patents on software out there now are invalid. That calls into question the whole idea of patents in general. The idea behind a patent is that it is not to be awarded to an obvious perviously available or generic concept, product, or process. For instance, M$ has been patenting things as silly as the double click and automatic software updates as well as claiming ownership over networking protocols that have become ubiquitous. If a company desires to hold valuable intellectual property than it should now allow its IP to be used without limitations. Basically, what I mean is that if for example that if UNIX were not to be released to other licensing agreements and development forks it would not have become a generic, thus invalidating any patents and trademarks involved.

Great news, everybody!

[Anonymous Coward]

One competitor less.

Greetings from Europe!

Ordinary computer with special software

[Quiberon]

Can you patent an ordinary computer with special software ?

Or can you patent a Bessemer converter that happens to be software controlled ?

Re:Ordinary computer with special software

[Flyboy Connor]

Can you patent an ordinary computer with special software ? Or can you patent a Bessemer converter that happens to be software controlled ?

AFAIK, anywhere in the (technological) world you can patent specialised hardware in combination with software. The battle is about the patenting of software for a universal machine, what you call an "ordinary computer". In the US, this is possible -- and not only complete programs, but also teensy weensy algorithms, or even simple ideas which can be implemented in an algorithm. I believe Australia also allows this, and Japan does, but Europe doesn't, at least not officially (unofficially, at least 30,000 software patents have been granted in Europe, but according to the letter of the law these patents are invalid).

This may not be that bad...

[eamacnaghten]

It all depends on what is to be patented. It is arguable that some software are legitimate inventions and should be patentable. Like the RSA algorithm (patent now expired). That is a legitimate invention and it is only fair that those who invented it should be awarded in the form of a 20 year exclusive ownership in return for making the algorithm publicly known.

However, things like the recent Microsoft "IsNot" patent should not be patentable. That is an attempt at a land grab. Also the patenting file formats in order to try and collect "tax" revenue from the internet should not be permitted.

I have not read the appropriate legislation being proposed, but I think it is wrong to criticize it before I do. So long as vague "landgrabbing" patents of concepts that are, in reality public knowledge, file formats (where no real invention exists) or broard patents over concepts already known by the public (the Microsoft virtual windows patent - remember?) and similar are not permitted then this may be a good(tm) thing.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[latroM]

Like the RSA algorithm (patent now expired).

Mathematics is by definition not patentable. Math is not invented, it is discovered.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[AstroDrabb]

I don't understand your logic about software patents. You state:

Like the RSA algorithm (patent now expired). That is a legitimate invention . . .

Then you continue:

However, things like the recent Microsoft "IsNot" patent should not be patentable. That is an attempt at a land grab. Also the patenting file formats in order to try and collect "tax" revenue from the Internet should not be permitted.

The MS IsNot operator patent and other software patents are _all_ bad. They are all just instructions to a computer. So you either have to allow the patenting of _all_ instructions to a computer or _no_ instructions to a computer. You cannot allow some and not the others.

You probably think the RSA algorithm is OK to patent because it is a little complex to you. Well it is not complex to everyone. We cannot allow "complex" software instructions to be patented while not allowing "non-complex" software instructions to be patented. Exactly who gets to pick which set of software instructions are "complex" vs. "non-complex"? As it is now, it is a non-technical patent examiner. To him, _all_ software instructions are complex.

IMO, no software should be patentable. All software are just computer instructions. Can I patent the instructions to cook chicken soup? How about the instructions to brush your teeth? If I were allowed to patent those, I would be a very rich man! I say allow HARDWARE to be patented, but not software. Neither allow a hardware/software combination. Just the hardware please.

[Insert argument about how big companies spend a lot of time and money on writing software instructions here].

Well, I could spend a lot of time and money on writing instructions to brush your teeth, tie your shoes or install your own home security system. Why should I not be allowed to patent those instructions while a software company is allowed to patent their instructions?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[eamacnaghten]

Comparing the RSA algorith to the IsNot operator is like comparing a motor car engine with a spoon. You can claim that both of those are the same because they are made out of metal or other material.

There are some that say all patents are bad. I am not one of them. It has been proven that patents (outside the software world) has, to a lesser or greater degree, encouraged inovation and publicizing of them and has made the world a better place.

However, the patent system is open to abuse, where over-generalized patents are granted and are used to stifle fair competition. Software patents are especially open to this, and I personally think that if the choice existed only between approving ALL software patents, or disallowing ALL of them, I would fall on the side of banning them on the basis that the unfair stifling of fair competition would outweigh the encouragement of inovation factor.

However, if there was a way to grant genuine software patents while rejecting the "land-grabbing" ones then that would be good. I am a mathematician and DO understand the RSA algorithm and how it encrypts data. To say it was "discovered" and not "invented" is silly, it is like saying the internal combustion engine was "discovered". Also it is not a set of computer instructions, it is a design of mathematical principals and procedures that enable public key cryptogrophy, in the same way the internal combustion engine invention is a design of metals and manufacturing procedures to produce a means of locomotion. However the IsNot patent (to say it is an algorithm is an insult to mathematics) is simply a comparison that, in reality, has been used one way or another by programmers since the invention of objects (or even pointers). It is the IT equivalent of a spoon.

Patents, on the whole, are good things IMHO. However, abuse of them is evil. It is important we stop and prevent the abuse, but do we really want to throw out the baby with the bathwater?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[SCHecklerX]

Indeed. I posted about this on a similar topic a couple of days ago. Business method patents, and software patents are both ridiculous. Patents should be for physical inventions, and physical inventions only. You can patent your circuitboard, but not the method used to communicate with it.

Furthermore, you should have to come up with a prototype within a reasonable amount of time. Patenting ideas is stupid. I shouldn't be able to patent a time machine, for example. If you can't come up with a working prototype within a given amount of time, you lose that patent, while those who can come up with a prototype should have the right to patent.

I've had lots of neat ideas. I didn't bother patenting them, however, because I didn't have the means nor the skill to make them a reality.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[HiThere]

It couldn't be a "good thing". With proper care and appropriate implementation it could be "not all that bad".

The problem is that software has a marginal reproduction cost of $0.00/KB. (It's not zero, but the first no-zero digit is probably in the thousanth's or ten-thousanth's position. Possibly further out.) For this kind of a creation the appropriate protection SHOULD be copyright. Unfortunately, the copyright laws have also be upgefucked by "special interests" who have caused them to be extended to cover rediculous periods of time, and to cover rediculously small degrees of similarity. (If you doubt this, try to compose original music. There are only 8 notes in a scale, people only hear a few octaves [exact amount varies], and the extreme ends have different emotional effects than the central range. Playing more than three notes at once begins to *feel* like complex music. Etc. Certain emotional sequences demand certain restricted tonal embodiment. Major thirds are more similar to other major thirds than they are to minor thirds, but the exact feeling depends on the prior and subsequent notes. Etc. And of all the feasible compositions, only a small subset are perceivable as enjoyable.)

Now look at the copyrights on the music of Joan Baez. These are FOLK TUNES! She's made truly minor changes to traditional melodies, and copyrighted them! And she got away with it, so YOU better be sure that the folk song you sing isn't HER tune. Those notes are now HER PROPERTY. Forever, or as near as. (Mickey mouse is still in copyright, and Disney is long dead.) Well, I have less trouble with animations being copyrighted for extended periods of time...but I think the best solution is to make a rule that if a work is off the market for two years, then the copyright has lapsed and can be renewed, but anyone who has published during the interim is not liable to penalties, and if the holder of the copyright does not publish within three years after a work is off the market, then it is permanently out of copyright. I agree that this is potentially hard on authors, who would then need to maintain an arrangement with a vanity press whenever they couldn't find a major publisher to carry their works, OTOH, such an arrangement isn't expensive. Perhaps once it was, but these days if the publisher has an electronic copy of the work, and only publishes on-demand, it's nearly free.

Also, the library of congress should be required to keep a good copy of everything that has ever been copyright. This means that they'd need to also keep an electronic copy so that they could reprint a new original whenever anything happened to deface an original beyond the level of "good" (I presume that means that every word is readable--but I'm sure librarians [I explicitly DON'T mean booksellers] have a definition that more perfectly fits their needs). I'll grant that this would make their storage needs larger, but it should still be required. Also filing for a copyright should require being accompanied by a copy of the work in a digital form suitable for storage and for playback without the use of restricted (e.g., patented) or secret formats. (If such formats are required, the work should be judged not eligible for copyright.)

Re:This may not be that bad...

[GlassHeart]

You probably think the RSA algorithm is OK to patent because it is a little complex to you. Well it is not complex to everyone.

It only needs to be non-obvious to somebody with "ordinary skill in the art". To require only absolutely unique inventions for a patent is the same as abolishing the system.

Exactly who gets to pick which set of software instructions are "complex" vs. "non-complex"? As it is now, it is a non-technical patent examiner. To him, _all_ software instructions are complex.

So use people (with "ordinary skill in the art") who can more accurately judge what deserves patent protection. There's still no need to throw everything out.

Can I patent the instructions to cook chicken soup? How about the instructions to brush your teeth? If I were allowed to patent those, I would be a very rich man!

The first one probably has prior art, so it's not "novel". The second one is probably "obvious". Even mechanical devices have to be "novel" and "non-obvious" to be patentable.

Are you actually familiar with these issues?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[Wolfbone]

"However, things like the recent Microsoft "IsNot" patent should not be patentable. That is an attempt at a land grab. Also the patenting file formats in order to try and collect "tax" revenue from the internet should not be permitted."

Patent examiners do not and cannot look at patent applications and say; "Oooh! Naughty! - this guy seems to be engaging in an attempt to impose a bit of extra taxation on internet users - we'd better deny this application." They are not the morality police and if you understood the patent system at all you would know that they cannot objectively discriminate between "clever" and "trivial" inventions either. Since it would be unethical and unworkable to leave it to the subjective deliberations of individual patent examiners, they quite rightly do not attempt to discriminate in this way at all.

In other words, once you have allowed patents in a field, you have automatically allowed all the 'bad ones' too. In traditional fields of technology, based on physical objects and material processes, this does not necessarily lead to an unacceptable diminution of the rights of individuals, a perverse attenuation of innovation in those fields and other costly side effects. In the abstract field of technology of computer science or computational mathematics, I would say that it can and does.

The question has never been and can never be about the 'quality' of patents or patent examination - it is about which whole fields of human endeavour should be made subject to patents - and that boils down to deciding in which fields they are necessary in order to generally promote innovation in those fields. The trouble with patents on software ideas and algorithms is that the field is inherently vast, touching all other fields of human endeavour. It is naturally rapidly and incrementally progressive and - like art, music and literature - it is the natural domain of individual creators or authors, independent of the financial resources of business organisations, just as much as it is also the domain of those engaged in essential economic activity.

As for the RSA algorithm: Presumably you learnt Pythagoras's theorem in school? If so, would you consider an algorithm to determine the length of one of the sides of a right triangle, given the other two, a legitimate and patent-worthy invention? What of Euclid's algorithm or Taylor expansion or the Fourier transform and it's variants, or wavelets and filter banks or the Viterbi algorithm and various Monte Carlo methods etc. etc...? I can assure you that in their mathematical contexts, the RSA^H^H^H Cocks's lemma and the Pythagoras theorem are of equal 'inventive' height. You will find one in elementary number theory textbooks and the other in elementary geometry textbooks. The cleverness is in the mathematics, not in the programmatic realisation of the algorithm.

Once the mathematical theory is known, I would suggest that any professional programmer who is then unable to produce a program that enacts the implied algorithm without introducing new ideas in computer software or hardware technology should find something else to do for a living. The case of R,S and A is always brought up because they were both the rediscoverers of the lemma and the patentees of the algorithm, and that seems to confuse people into conflating the mathematical advance with the algorithmic 'invention' derived from it. So when you say that the RSA algorithm is inventive and should be patentable, what you are really saying is that the RSA lemma is inventive and consequently that the algorithm should be patentable. That is a very different statement.

Some PTOs, 'IP companies' and the holders of large patent portfolios may agree with you. I do not and I would hope that anyone half numerate would be capable of seeing the implications and that they are not good for either mathematics or software. Indeed in Europe, the proponents of software patentability explicitly state that they wish to avoid such an egregious

Re:This may not be that bad...

[AstroDrabb]

There are some that say all patents are bad. I am not one of them. It has been proven that patents (outside the software world) has, to a lesser or greater degree, encouraged inovation and publicizing of them and has made the world a better place.

I agree, patents are good for physical objects. Patents are not good for software.

However, if there was a way to grant genuine software patents while rejecting the "land-grabbing" ones . . .

And who gets to say what a "genuine software patent" is? You? Me? MS? Big business with their financial goals?

Also it is not a set of computer instructions, it is a design of mathematical principals . . .

It is just a set of instructions that a computer can interpret. It is nothing more in Computer Science. In mathematics it may be more to you, however in CS and especially to a computer, it is nothing but a stream of instructions. Stick to math and I will stick to CS.

However the IsNot patent (to say it is an algorithm is an insult to mathematics) . . .

So to be an algorithm means it must be complex? I never read that definition of an algorithm. I guess a function to add two numbers is not an algorithm?

. . . is simply a comparison that, in reality, has been used one way or another by programmers since the invention of objects (or even pointers).

Just as RSA is just a bunch of methods that has been around for a long time. RSA wasn't some monster leap-n-bounds discovery. It was an incremental improvement on the current state of science. Just as all discoveries/inventions are. Why should the "owners" of RSA be allowed to lock their instructions away when their ideas were based on previous knowledge of cryptography? Why should we allow software advances to slow due to greed and patents? Software technology has gone nowhere over the last decade. Just incremental improvements. Compare that to the major gains in hardware speed, storage, etc.. This is where patents work. For physical inventions. Not "thought inventions". An idea should not be allowed to be locked away and granted a "limited" monopoly. However, a _physical_ implementation of an idea should be elligable for a patent if it is non-trivial.

Patents, on the whole, are good things IMHO. However, abuse of them is evil. It is important we stop and prevent the abuse, but do we really want to throw out the baby with the bathwater?

Nope. Don't "throw out the baby with the bathwater". Just allow patents on physical inventions for a limited period (say 10 years or less), as others have pointed out, and the majority of the abuse will go away.

Do we (USA) allow patents on a recipe (a set of cooking instructions)? Nope. How is that any different then software (a set of computer instructions). Why should the multi-billion dollar food industry be forced to give out their ingredients and instructions while the software industry is allowed to lock away their ingredients (API, protocol, etc) and instructions (source code)?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[AstroDrabb]

So use people (with "ordinary skill in the art") who can more accurately judge what deserves patent protection. There's still no need to throw everything out.

Yeah, that will work until these people with "ordinary skill in the art" get bribes and kickbacks or get pressure from a superior to grant a patent to $BIG_CORP.

The first one probably has prior art, so it's not "novel". The second one is probably "obvious". Even mechanical devices have to be "novel" and "non-obvious" to be patentable.

Are you actually familiar with these issues?

You are quoting how the patent office _should_ be, not how it currently is. Are you familiar with these _current_ issues? Or do you just assume the system is functioning as it should? Are you familiar with the Amazon one-click patent? As a computer programmer with "ordinary skill in the art", I an say that the Amazon one-click is not "novel" and is ceraintly "obvious", yet is was awarded a patent. I am sure the geek /. crowd could barbard you with tons of obvious patents and/or patents with prior art.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[Wolfbone]

"I am a mathematician and DO understand the RSA algorithm and how it encrypts data. To say it was "discovered" and not "invented" is silly..."

No it is not. The philosophical viewpoint of mathematics as discovery is ancient, well known and well respected (cf. Plato, Godel, Penrose et al). I should hardly need to point that out to a mathematician!!! Unless of course you are some weird, pre-Godelian Formalist dinosaur ;-)

Re:This may not be that bad...

[GlassHeart]

Yeah, that will work until these people with "ordinary skill in the art" get bribes and kickbacks or get pressure from a superior to grant a patent to $BIG_CORP.

Honesty among civil servants is not a new requirement. For laws to work, people have to obey the law, or be made to. I don't see what you're arguing against.

Additionally, it can be made similar to a jury system. Software engineers can be licensed, and as a corresponding duty to that license be asked randomly to serve on a patent "jury". There are many ideas to explore before we throw the whole thing away.

You are quoting how the patent office _should_ be, not how it currently is. Are you familiar with these _current_ issues? Or do you just assume the system is functioning as it should?

I'm saying that the system can be made to function as it should, and should not be thrown away wholesale. It is your position - which seems to be that we can't get the system to work, so let's not protect any software algorithm invention however worthwhile - that I am objecting to.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[Flyboy Connor]

Like the RSA algorithm (patent now expired). That is a legitimate invention and it is only fair that those who invented it should be awarded in the form of a 20 year exclusive ownership in return for making the algorithm publicly known.

Every patenting law has, until now, excluded the patenting of mathematical constructs. There are many reasons for this, not least of which the fact that mathematics can be considered a force of nature. The problem is that there is no real difference between a mathematical formula and an algorithm (see Knuth's letter to the patent office). So, any algorithm should be excluded from patenting.

There are some people who try to distinguish between "mathematical algorithms" and "non-mathematical algorithms". As I see it, this is a ridiculous distinction to make. But even if you would make it, the RSA algorithm quite clearly falls in the category of mathematical algorithms, since it is based purely on the number properties. So, the RSA patent should never have been granted.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[tepples]

Software engineers can be licensed

Watch out. A poorly implemented software engineer licensing scheme could destroy the free software movement.

and as a corresponding duty to that license be asked

Be asked to uphold the DMCA, the CBDTPA, and whatever else Mr. Stallman predicted in "The Right To Read"?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[runderwo]

Software engineers can be licensed,

I hope for the sake of your plan that you meant "certified" here. Requiring engineers to acquire a license to practice engineering is an extremely bad idea for numerous reasons.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[GlassHeart]

A poorly implemented software engineer licensing scheme could destroy the free software movement.

It can even destroy software engineering itself. Do you have a non-obvious point beyond the general observation that we need a good system of laws?

Be asked to uphold the DMCA, the CBDTPA, [...]

Without licensing, you are already required to obey laws. What's your point?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[tepples]

Do you have a non-obvious point beyond the general observation that we need a good system of laws?

The fear is that enforcing licensure may require that people who aren't licensed and bonded software engineers may be forbidden from having access to a compiler or even from having access to a machine's root password.

Without licensing, you are already required to obey laws. What's your point?

If the government controls the distribution of compilers and debuggers, then the government can justify much harsher restrictions on what software may do. Have you read "The Right to Read"?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[GlassHeart]

The fear is that enforcing licensure may require that people who aren't licensed and bonded software engineers may be forbidden from having access to a compiler or even from having access to a machine's root password.

Indeed. I'm not a licensed civil engineer, so I haven't been able to buy a drafting table due to government restrictions. Not being a board-certified doctor, nobody would even sell me white pants except that shady dealer in the alley...

Yes, we need thoughtfully-written laws that are enforceable and fair. What I don't understand is why the non-zero possibility of abuse - which is common to any human system - is repeatedly used as an excuse to just throw something out, baby and bathwater alike?

Re:This may not be that bad...

[tepples]

Not being a board-certified doctor, nobody would even sell me white pants except that shady dealer in the alley...

Think more like prescription drugs on the controlled substance schedules. Should worse come to worst, that's how compilers and especially debuggers will be.

What I don't understand is why the non-zero possibility of abuse - which is common to any human system - is repeatedly used as an excuse to just throw something out, baby and bathwater alike?

Non-zero probability? Try "likely" probability. The U.S. Congress has already shown willingness to throw the baby (fair use) out with the bathwater (widespread copyright infringement), as evidenced in laws such as the DMCA and in the fact that proposals such as the CBDTPA even get out of committee. I'll consider certifications for programmers as long as the government doesn't make it unlawful to program without a license.

Re:This may not be that bad...

[GlassHeart]

Think more like prescription drugs on the controlled substance schedules. Should worse come to worst, that's how compilers and especially debuggers will be.

So let's not let worse come to worst. However, neither should we let the worst case scenario frighten us into not ever doing anything.

The founding fathers of the US were wary of a central government that could not be reined in. But instead of just fighting the British as 13 separate entities, they looked for ways to limit the powers of the federal government and still got most of the job done. It's obviously not perfect, but it was workable.

We need a workable patent system, and we might need a workable license system. We don't need to throw away patents and licenses altogether, just because the worst could happen.

The U.S. Congress has already shown willingness to throw the baby (fair use) out with the bathwater [...]. I'll consider certifications for programmers as long as the government doesn't make it unlawful to program without a license.

Your position is quite confusing. Seems to me either you are (collectively) powerful enough to ensure that the government makes good laws (in which case I suggest that course of action), or you're powerless and your "consideration" is hardly required. You appear to be assuming both positions.

This isn't about software patents....

[Leadhyena]

TFA is talking about modifications to process patents, not software patents. While it may affect embedded software (and there's still a question about whether or not that will be legal, according to a previous poster), it won't affect normal software until the law gets changed further. BTW, this probably has more to do with the manufacture of medicine than with computers.

Re:This isn't about software patents....

[Halo1]

TFA is talking about modifications to process patents, not software patents. While it may affect embedded software (and there's still a question about whether or not that will be legal, according to a previous poster), it won't affect normal software until the law gets changed further.

They try to mask it in exactly the same way in Europe. "Software as such will remain unpatentable, only computer-implemented inventions will become patentable!". Now what is a "computer-implemented invention"? A computer running software fulfills that definition.

It sounds to me that it's similar in India: "only" computers running software will be patentable, but who cares? What are you going to do otherwise with your software? Print it out and use it as wallpaper?

R&D should worry - move away from patents

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not clear that you only have to worry about the country you sell in. A patent is a total monopoly on the USE of a technique. Research on a technique almost certainly uses the technique and whatever benefit you get from it can probably be recovered by the patent owner.

Recovery against development is normally more difficult due to the fact that patent recovery is for damage done to the owner of the patent and/or licensing fees. This normally only happens when there is a sale of some kind. If, however, you do research in a country that has software patents then sell a product in a country that doesn't, there are clear benefits from your use of the patent related to the research (the sales in the second country). Patent fee recovery will then happen in the development country.

This means all research and development should be moved to countries where there are no patents. You can still have the same benefit from the patent system by patenting elsewhere, but your liability will likely be reduced.

If the law continues as it is, future technology companies will be split between lawyers in the U.S. for patent fee recovery and developers in Europe and China for technology development. Countries such as India will provide cheap programmers (not designers). Countries such as China which attempt to control IP laws will probably end up with most corporate headquarters. Most US technology companies will probably either be bankrupt within 10 years or will be strictly made up of lawyers and holding companies with no actual products.

While India gets it backwards...

[ventonegro]

Brazil is getting more and more involved with Open Source software. The Ministry of Communications has just offered to sponsor the development of an open source software they need. This can put us seriously ahead.

Re:While India gets it backwards...

[jbn-o]

I see a bit of conflict there--the open source movement primarily speaks to business (its why they crafted the message and philosophy centering on practical endeavor like building programs cheaper, making them run faster, and have fewer bugs). Multinational corporations want software patents. So, the conflict is between what you're suggesting (open source makes software patent adoption less likely) and who the open source movement is built to talk to. Hence, I have a hard time believing that a focus on that movement will reduce the likelihood of Brazil adopting software patents.

Re:Since the vast majority of programming there go

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, butt breath.

Hindu idoit.

What does this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

for the software I sent over to India to be written for $.05 an hour?????

Re:Since the vast majority of programming there go

[node 3]

Since the vast majority of programming there goes on with open source software tooling, and everyone borrowing things from each other, one would think that the technical folks there would have a clue.

I bet they do. It's just that they aren't the ones who make the laws.

And what about licencing?

[Teun]

Virtually all your examples were overcome by companies licensing said patents, something likely possible in any patent system.

But this is not to say that software patents are very destructive to development.

A short term cure would be to forbid the exchange of (software) portfolios as this greatly prefers large corporations.

Re:And what about licencing?

[Waffle Iron]

Virtually all your examples were overcome by companies licensing said patents, something likely possible in any patent system.

Assuming the patent holder deigns to license the patents rather than using them simply to protect their market position while they sit on their laurels.

Re:And what about licencing?

[Alsee]

Virtually all your examples were overcome by companies licensing said patents

LOL! Software logic was not patentable until the 80's, and the entire decade only a trickle of such patents were applied for or issued. The first such patent upheld was in Diamond v Deihr in 1981*. It is physically impossible that the listed examples were "overcome" by licencing patents which did not exist.

The software and computer industry exploded in a complete absense of software patents. The only reason such progress is continuing today is that software patents are virtually never enforced. When a signifigant flurry of patent attacks begins the effect will be disasterous, and it will be the US that suffers.

* Actually in Diamond v Deihr never actually upheld the patent as valid. The 4 minority oppinion Supreme Court judges made it emminently clear that software was not patentable. As for the 5 member majority, what they actually ruled was that that particular case could not be struck on "claimed subject matter" (section 101 of patent specifically stated that the patent may still be invalid on novelty and non-obviousness grounds (sections 102 and 103 of patent law). And what was the standing Supreme Court ruling on noveltry and non-obviousness in relaton to software patents? The standing ruling (Parker v Flook) was "Whether the [mathematical] algorithm was in fact known or unknown at the time of the claimed invention, as one of the 'basic tools of scientific and technological work,' it is treated as though it were a familiar part of the prior art". Well, every possible program is nothing but a mathematical algorithm, and therefore all programs must be considered a familiar part of prior art. So 4 judged opposed such patents outright, and it is quite possible or even likely that some or all of the other 5 intended such patents to be struck on the grounds that all software should by definition be considered as invalid under prior art. The problem being that for some reason the Supreme Court has oddly never revisited this issue and has allowed the lower courts to run rampant. The Supreme Court could quite conceivably accept a Software Patent case at any moment and tear down the entire house of cards that lower courts have built up since the mid 80's.

-

SOFTWARE PATENTS IS TEH SUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Word.

It's not Software that worries me.

[Kream]

The current dispensation in India has come to power with the support of leftist parties, who, along with commentators, non-governmental organisations and members of civil society organisations oppose the promulgation of this ordinance or the enactment of the Patents Amendment Act for a major reason.

Medicines.

With the establishment of this ordinance, which will expire after a time and have to be reintroduced as a bill in Parliament, medicines in India, including lifesaving ones, will cost up to four times to a hundred times more than they do now.

The current government is forced to enact this law under it's obligations under the WTO's TRIPS. However, the draft Bill not only fails to use the flexibility available within the TRIPS Agreement but also goes beyond TRIPS. In other words, the draft Bill proposes patent protection more than what is required under TRIPS.

Civil society organisations believe that draft Bill provisions would give monopoly rights to pharmaceutical companies at the cost of accessibility and availability of drugs under the product patent regime. It's worth noting here that the Right to Health is a Fundamental Right under the Indian Constitution.

Here's a link which details the situation. Here's a fact sheet on the issue of Generic Drugs as well as a document called the Myths and Realities of the Pharmaceutical Industry that the European Generic Medicines Association has prepared. The movement against the amendment in the law is being spearheaded by the Affordable Medicines and Treatment Campaign. Here's a letter to the Prime Minister of India that you can send if you wish to help out as well as one letter to the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission.

What bothers me is that when asked to bend before Intellectual Property Rights, we have begun to crawl. Aniruddha "Karim" Shankar

Re:It's not Software that worries me.

[gabbarbhai]

Right to Health is a Fundamental Right under the Indian Constitution.

er. I don't think so. It does come under "Directive Principles of State Policy", but then so does uniform civil code..

Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) ,a fundamental right, might be applicable here, in case things come to that. But that's kind of tricky to invoke.

Re:It's not Software that worries me.

[Kream]

The right to health has been read into the right to life.

The Fundamental Right to Life, as stated in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, guarantees to the individual her/his life and personal liberty which cannot be taken away except by a procedure established by law.

The Supreme Court has widely interpreted this fundamental right and has included in Article 21 the right to live with dignity and "all the necessities of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing...." In Consumer Education and Research Centre and others Vs. Union of India (AIR 1995 SC 922). This was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1997, which said, in State of Punjab and Others v. Mohinder Singh (AIR 1997 SC 1225) that "It is now a settled law that right to health is integral to right to life. Government has a constitutional obligation to provide health facilities."

And what has brazil contributed to the world?

[js3]

absolutely nothing

Re:And what has brazil contributed to the world?

[ventonegro]

What you've just written has nothing to do with what I've written. Grow up.

Re:And what has brazil contributed to the world?

[js3]

yep. absolutely nothing.

Re:And what has brazil contributed to the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fsck Brazil.

No.. This was surely driven by outsourcing clients

[SteeldrivingJon]

This was probably driven by demand from companies who want to outsource to India.

Consider: Company outsources development to India. Their Indian developers learn some patented method in the code. The developers then leave, go to another company, and develop code that infringes on the patent.

Without software patents, the patent holder would have no legal remedy they could seek.

It might even be conceivable that a US company with a desire to step on someone else's patent could outsource the patent violation to India, and make the violating code the property of an Indian subsidiary.

If India wants companies to do the world's development, then the world's businesses are going to demand strong IP protection.

baaaaaaa

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets face it, most people just aren't very bright.

I am sure that most people have a very high potential to be bright...but the vast majority of people don't actualize it.

This makes them (and hence us) vulnerable to being controlled by the selfish powers that be (government and big business).

The end result is the same as it ever was: most of the people work hard most of the time without getting most of the rewards.

Personally, I think this is unfortunate.

Re:baaaaaaa

[HiThere]

Try thinking of it differently, thus:
People have a varyable amount of attention and intention to apply to things, and they must choose how to allocate whatever amount they have.

If you spend you time thinking about computer laws, you can't spend that time thinking about how to get your next meal, unless you do this by operations within the system of computer laws. Very few people do this.

If you are a computer professional, computer law changes may easily affect your ability to earn exchange tokens (hereafter called credits). So it's important to attend to such changes.

If you are an accountant, changes in computer law will rarely affect you, unless your company designs or sells computer systems. Instead, you will attend to changes in accounting law.

If you are a teacher, changes....

If your are ...

So lawyers and computer specialists will most attend to changes in computer law. Secondarily will be those operating businesses that will be directly affected by such laws, but they will tend to rely on the advice of their lawyers.

To presume that someone is unintelligent because they don't attend to changes in computer laws is equivalent to presuming that YOU are unintelligent because you don't attend to changes in food processing laws. (Actually, you have a stronger reason to attend to changes in food processing laws. That one could easily kill you. But I trust you understand the point.)

Personally, I consider the main flaw with the legal system to be that it is too complicated. Then I start to write a program to do a simple task... and I consider that the main flaw in this program is that it's too complicated (got to be fair!). Simplicity relies on a complex underpinning that is "taken for granted". But note that is such an underpinning is NOT stable and constant, then it can't be "taken for granted". And at that point, everything suddenly becomes many orders of interaction more complex.

I propose making software patents just like other patents, but simultaneously making it illegal for corporations to own or acquire monoplistic leases on them. (It would be quite legal for a corporation to acquire the right to use and sublicense the use of the patent. It would just be prohibited from preventing the inventor of record [which couldn't be a corporation] from also leasing it to other entities.)

Do YOU know how that would turn out? I sure don't. I'm much more comfortable with just forbidding software patents. But if software patents should be granted, well, lets balence things by forbidding corporations from monopolizing *any* patents. (This won't happen, and I think we all know it. What nobody knows is how it would work out [though some may have theories].)

The world is complicated. If you think it isn't, prove your wisdom by winning in the stock market. (Some people can, so if you can't, that must mean you "aren't very bright ", right?)

Re:Since the vast majority of programming there go

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see somebody who knows how a 'butt' smells like! I sure dont!

India produces nothing on its own ...

[konmaskisin]

they just work on subcontracted out crap from rich countries - they are not an innovator or the "waking economic powerhouse" we keep hearing about (nor is China).

The Indian government recognizes this and embraces it - the elite in India are much better served by perpetuating the "neo-colonial" status of the country than by creating a modern open and competitive economy.

On behalf of a very small economic elite, the government has acted to serve the interests of rich countries and the extreme minority of rich Indians. They do this instead of serving the general interests of their own country.

Re:India produces nothing on its own ...

[Quixote]

Holy uninformed opinions, Batman!

India is one of the world's largest producers of generic drugs. Whereas American companies want to charge starving Africans $10000/yr for AIDS drugs, an Indian company has promised to provide the equivalent generics for $300/year.

Indian companies have also started applying for FDA approval and/or patent protection for new molecules (as drugs are known).

Stop drinking the Koolaid and start doing some reading (and not just the GTA manual ;-) ).

Re:India produces nothing on its own ...

[spruce]

Okay, not flaming, just a point - generics of drugs that who researched/invented in the first place?

Re:India produces nothing on its own ...

[northcat]

Being an Indian, as much as I would hate to admit it, the parent post is right.

It would be a pain to find out where the code went

[SteeldrivingJon]

If an outsourced development service provider in India were to swipe some patented software tech, and start reusing it in code for various other clients, who come from all over the world, it could be very difficult to find violations. Especially if the software it ends up in is for vertical markets or internal corporate software, as opposed to widely distributed and widely promoted retail apps.

If software isn't patentable in India, then you might have a hard time trying to subpoena records from the outsourcing company, which would make it difficult to find out that your patent was violated and if so, where your patent was used.

You'd need that information in order to sue in the other countries where software patents are enforced and the violating software is in use.

It's one thing to figure out that your patent's been swiped when you're STAC and the swiper is Microsoft, and their product is ubiquitous. It's another thing to spot a violation when the patent is being violated by software used by a company in Liechtenstein.

(Note, I'm not saying I agree with software patents. I'm just describing the likely thought process.)

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be new here...

A good thing

[mysterious_mark]

What will US companies who outsource to India do when they start getting sued left and right for violating patents? Seems like India is determined to make all the same mistakes we have and they will kill their own tech industry. This and the imminient collapse of the dollar will only help us US programmers. M

That's because they don't respect them

[crovira]

Patents and copyright are very low on the totem pole of the things they care about. (Always have been.)

Bhopal

[konmaskisin]

If you are familiar with the Bhopal case and the Indian government's *embarrassing* complacence and prostration before corporate interests (the *government* doesn't really care that 60K people died of poison gas - so long as investment keeps flowing). The fact they are allowing software patents looks pretty insignificant.

This is the country that gets upset when someone in Texas patents basmati or use of the neem tree - exclusively because of the potential for unrest amongst the agricultural "peasantry". No o ne cares about software so they cave in to pressure from northern corporate interests in 25 seconds. On basmati they had to fight.

The government of India has been basically dysfunctional for decades and makes all policy decisions based on the potential for rioting in the streets.

Is Joe Sixpack concerned?

[varun]

When you really think about it, is the general American public that concerned? I mean, being part of the /. community one hears about it all the time, but mainstream press doesn't really cover IP and patent issues.

I don't think most people in most countries are really concerned with issues like that. It has nothing to do with a tsunami or earthquake. One didn't see a public outcry when the DMCA or INDUCE were brought to Congress. Sure, there were lobbyists and technocrats who were strongly against it, but it didn't make the evening news.

I am sure the case is the same in India, where the intellectual elite voice their protest and there is a slight chance that the government might take heed. But for the most part, the world over, these sorts of issues evoke respones from very small sections of society.

How naive

[Baki]

What is really sad is that patent lobbyists use times like these to push through their ways quietly, while public attention is looking elsewhere. It is very naive to not give a crap about it, even now.

Re:How naive

[rsidd]

The product patent part of the ordinance was necessitated by India's WTO obligations: this needed to be done by Jan 1, 2005. It has nothing to do with sneaking something through past a disaster. The Indian press has been covering it for days before. As for the embedded-software bit: as far as I know that wasn't necessitated by the WTO obligations, but it was probably bundled here for convenience, not because they wanted to sneak it past anyone.

Re:How naive

[jabuzz]

How naive yourself. How come Europe does not need to have software patents then? It is in the WTO as well you know.

Re:How naive

[rsidd]

How about reading peoples' posts before replying? I know people don't RTFA around here, but that post would have been on your screen as you typed your reply, and it's only a few lines long.

I see arm twisting...

[fromme]

Commerce ministry sources said the government still had a week's time to comply with the deadline but a failure to do so could result in punitive action on textiles.

So, if India doesn't comply with the WTO on software patents, their textiles are to going to cost more abroad? Hmmm!

I wonder if the WTO would do the same with China?

Indeed, but think it through a little further

[mark-t]

So this puts an additional burden on Indian developers to avoid stepping on other people's patents, resulting in increased costs, which are passed on to the American organizations that are outsourcing in the first place.

As the costs of outsourcing rise, its attractiveness will diminish, leading to an eventual about-face in the industry as organizations once again hire local programmers.

Re:Indeed, but think it through a little further

[HiThere]

No. The programmers will come from Nepal, or Bangladesh, or Pakistan, or someplace that doesn't have software patents. But India will have a lock on the Help Desk, as you will be protected by patents if you share information with them, so there won't develop any local use for the information.

Re:Indeed, but think it through a little further

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll move to neighbouring countries, or elsewhere in the world. US will still be much more expensive and patent-encumbered choice.
And to sell a software product in US you still have to obey US patents (as well as Indian programmers).

Re:Indeed, but think it through a little further

[lnlypaladin]

What heralds me shaking my head at this one is the fact that we're talking about India, a country in which software piracy (as well as music and video piracy) is rampant. I think some of the figures I've read state that something like 60% of newly purchased computers in India are shipped with pirated copies of Windows, something like 90% of Adobe software in India is allegedly pirated, and the list goes on. We could get into a debate about copyright enforcement in India, but the truth is that their economy would probably collapse if they were suddenly required to pay for all the pirated software in their country. So getting back to the subject of patents, perhaps it's unfair of me, but my first reaction is to wonder if India's peoples will honor patents any more than they honor copyright. http://www.express-computer.com/20020909/indtrend1 .shtml/ This site hosts an article which contains some of the figures I've mentioned. It's a couple years old, however, and I'm not sure what current figures are.

Oh jeez.

[fyrewulff]

Oh wow! Better hurry up and make a reply where I damn India to hell for protecting the small guy.

Patents do -not- cost 40,000 to file. Unless you're going through another company, in which case have fun, that's illegal for them to charge YOU to file a patent on top of the patent fee. I know many people that have made inventions recently, and it only cost them a couple hundred dollars to file - if there were no patents to protect them, a "big business" could come along, take their idea (remember, no patents!), and literally out-advertise and out-spend them, and then they 'own' the product in the public's eye. and Joe Original Idea looks like the copycat.

And the software not being patentable on it's own according to Indian law, but as part of an invention makes sense. For instance, if you invented the car, of course you couldn't patent the wheels or a gear, but you can patent the thing as a whole. Which sadly, a lot of people like to sweep under the rug when they shout their anti-"regime", anti-patent rhetoric from the rooftops.

PS. When have patents really stopped anyone before? Even though GIF had a patent, that didn't stop other people from making other image formats, sometimes even superior.

Re:Oh jeez.

[MemoryDragon]

The problem is, it used to be like that 100 years ago, but nowadays there are around 20 patents on a simple new razor blade model. Face it the whole patent system is screwed and basically just a huge fraud on the backs of smaller developers and inventors only serving the big ones which can afford to fight for years in courts over trivia...

Principles Vs Homeland

[teetam]

As a principle, I oppose software patents. However, for some time now, western countries have been bullying India under the guise of Intellectual Property Rights. May be it is time for India to get patents of its own and level the playing field.

For doubters, consider the field of encryption and the amount of tight control US government has over it.

Re:Principles Vs Homeland

[HiThere]

Only if their laws don't recognize any patents issued before the effective date of the law. And do recognize valid prior art.

If they were to do those two things, then matters could quickly become quite humorous.

This would, of course, mean that basmati rice would have trouble with Indian patents, but I believe that this isn't what has been happening, so they don't seem to properly evaluate prior art.

On the bright side of life...

[Anonymous Coward]

By 2010 corporations will have patented every possible thing that humans have done so by 2045 when they all expire we can get on with progress.

Re:On the bright side of life...

[robogymnast]

By 2010 corporations will have patented every possible thing that humans have done so by 2045 when they all expire we can get on with progress.

I would hope that asteroid deflection/destruction is not patented, you know, just in case ;)

its and it's

[westlake]

it and it's

the meaning is always clear in context and the rule violates ordinary usage of the 's to indicate possession. leaving the grammarian little hope that the rule will be remembered outside the classroom.

Thank you. What do you all call yourselves...

[human bean]

when you speak in english? Is the preferred term Indians?

Soon to be heard in Wipro Offices on speakerphones

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Welcome to Bangladeshi Software Outsourcers. May we take your order for Open Source Windows XP?

SW patents offer no "protection" for "small" devs.

[jbn-o]

he US Patent system, had it worked correctly, would have saved a number of budding software companies from Microsoft.

You are repeating a myth that is easily debunked by examining how cross-licensing works from the perspective of the "budding software compan[y]". Quoting RMS from his talk on the danger with software patents (or listen to the speech):

This phenomenon of cross-licensing refutes a common myth, the myth of the starving genius. The myth that patents "protect" the "small inventor". Those terms are propaganda terms. You shouldn't use them. The scenario is like this: Suppose there is a brilliant designer of whatever. Suppose he has spent years starving in the attic designing a new wonderful kind of whatever and now wants to manufacture it and isn't it a shame the big companies are going to go into competition with him, take away all the business and he'll "starve". I will have to point out that people in high tech fields are not generally working on their own and that ideas don't come in a vacuum, they are based on ideas of others and these people have pretty good chances of getting a job if they need to these days. So this scenario, the idea that a brilliant idea came from this brilliant person working alone is unrealistic and the idea that he is in danger of starving is unrealistic. But it is conceivable that somebody could have an idea and this idea along with 100 or 200 other ideas can be the basis of making some kind of product and that big companies might want to compete with him. So let's see what happens if he tries to use a patent to stop them. He says "Oh No, IBM. You cannot compete with me. I've got this patent." IBM says "let's see. Let's look at your product. Hmmm. I've got this patent and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one, which parts of your product infringe. If you think you can fight against all of them in court, I will just go back and find some more. So, why don't you cross license with me?" And then this brilliant small inventor says "Well, OK, I'll cross license". So he can go back and make these wonderful whatever it is, but so can IBM. IBM gets access to his patent and gets the right to compete with him, which means that this patent didn't "protect" him at all.

Also, note how the difference in the number of patents obtained: IBM has the most patents (so many that they can insulate themselves from the damage the patent system causes). Most "inventors" are not multinational corporations like IBM, HP, Apple, Microsoft, etc. and if they have any patents at all they only have patents that cover the wonderful something they're working on.

Therefore, when IBM gets a license by pressuring a small developer into cross-licensing, IBM gets virtually 100% of the small "inventor"'s patents but gives a license for a very small percentage of its patents. When multinationals cross-license they don't have this imbalance, so they cannot be bullied into cross-licensing all that they have. The imbalance and ill effect for the small "inventor" point out how what you are saying is a myth. Your post is highly overrated.

Microsoft in China

[westlake]

Microsoft was the first foreign corporation admitted into the China Software Industry Association (2002). Microsoft Joins in China Software Industry Association World traders play by world rules.

The reason why this is ignored is because..

[xot]

..even though India has a huge software industry(IT is one of the few industries thriving right now), most of the software is produced for oversees companies which is the software exports industry.Software patents do not mostly apply to this genre of IT.
The local software industry is too small to care for patents which will be applicable locally.Thats the reason why no one really cares about patents.

FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Just finished sendin the mail to the President of India, regarding the Ordinance to amend Patent Act.

To make your voice heard:
President email ID: presidentofindia@rb.nic.in
or
you can use the form at http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/writetopres ident.jsp

Media coverage

[DarkDust]

Unfortunately, the majority of the Indian people are not the least bit concerned, resulting in very low coverage for this important development.

Well, that's not different here in Europe (at least in Germany, where I'm from). There has been no media coverage about software patents discussions/issues at all. Not even about the foul things the Netherlands are currently doing in the European Council to force software patents on the EU although the European Parliament and the national parliaments voted against them. Only "specialized" media like news sites that only report about IT news covered this.

I guess this is because most journalists don't have a clue how important this issue is and what this would mean to our economy.

Legal recourse in India for Outsourcers?

[TheCanuck]

Just an open question to anybody who may know... Will the introduction of software patent laws in India benefit foreign companies that outsource Intelletual Property to India for support/modification/updating work? Is it possible these Indian software patent laws are being created to appease US companies worried about IP theft? With software patent laws in India will foreign outsourcers have legal recourse for IP theft? Just curious.

Re:Legal recourse in India for Outsourcers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo! There in lies the catch.

What the US know-it-alls fail to factor in, is that since India now has software patent laws, any cases will have to be taken up in Indian courts themselves.

Most lawsuits in India generally take about 10-20 years to resolve. I am NOT kidding. It is surprising how many future hearing dates can be requested to just delay the case. Indian courts are notorious for this. The only possible exemptions are the consumer courts.

Indian government in one fell swoop, managed to appease WTO *without* compromising anything realistic.

After all, what is a law worth that cannot realistically be enforced ?

Re:And what about licensing?

[Teun]

A (large) company these days does not need to license major parts of the licenceable code they use, mainly because they have agreements with (the) other large companies.
It's only the little ones that (need to) fight for their part of the cake.
It is this inequality between large and small developers in the present system that I find especially unfair.
This is not to say that some of these litigating companies have nothing to trade with, rather excist purely on the basis of their legal department.

You are right in stating there were no software patents 20 years ago but for the ease of the argument (this is /.!) I concidered possible copyright infringements etc. as of similar value.

We are cheap Indian lawyers company ..

[Anonymous Coward]

We provide good service for little money.
We are well prepaired to do outsourced lawying ...

If you want a sfotware patent we can get you one cheap ...

If you want to avoid one we can find you a way ...

Come to India? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Come ask any sane person in India, and he will agree it's a democracy.

Would anybody care to ask me? I want to reply. NOW!

(after silent 5 minutes)

I would reply anyway. Well, I guess any sane person from India would have read "We, the people" and "We, the nation" by Nani Palkhivala. India is democracy - but only on the face - I do not think 90% of the population even know their basic rights provided by the constitution of the country, and I do not think they are in a position to exercise all of them. Forget patents, even the elections - the basic weapon for a democracy have been reduced to farce by the politicians.

Indian Parliament may pass some laws for copyrights/patents/IPR, but they are bound to meet the fate of all the other laws which were supposed to serve the foundation of the democracy!

Re:Come to India? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

erm..something like Americans, you mean?

One thing most people ignore about patents is

[Anonymous Coward]

the fact that many inventions probably wouldn't exist without the patent system. Why?

Because patents provide financial incentive of being able to have a TEMPORARY monopoly in exchange for FULL & ENABLING public dislosure of the invention in the patent application.

TEMPORARY being roughly 15 years or so IF the patent is granted. FULL & ENABLING meaning the description has to allow the average person skilled in the area to be able to build the described invention WITHOUT UNDUE EXPERIMENTATION.

How many inventions wouldn't have been pursued without this lucrative incentive?

Imagine the live-saving drugs or medical devices that wouldn't have been pursued due to initial costs because the incentive wasn't there for fear of larger companies crushing a startup with copycat products right after launch.

Even in software, there are benefits to patents because of the incentive to provide FULL & ENABLING descriptions to the public via the patent application. Otherwise, many useful software inventions would probably be protected by means of trade secrets--which means less sharing of ideas in order to maintain trade secret status. There would be more paranoia about sharing even APIs because of fear it might mean loss of trade secret status.

The simple fact is that patents are a double-edged sword with both compelling benefits as well as major drawbacks. When people try to portray patents as being only bad or only good, they're merely illustrating their ignorance or bias.

The US patent office generates more money in fees than it uses. But instead of hiring more examiners, the money is drained into other areas of the government. The major flaw in the system is not giving examiners enough time to do adequate examinations of applications. This results in patents that would obviously be held invalid if it ever got challenged in court--a waste of time & money for everyone except the lawyers. It consequently gives people specific examples of patents they can use to 'prove' that the patent system shouldn't exist.

Sad really, when ignorant people fail to see both sides. Well, at least this isn't like religion where opposing sides justify bloodbaths in real life in exchange for their fantasized afterlives.

Cut down on the offshoring?

[IBitOBear]

Well, they wanted a chunk of our economy, and we wanted to make sure we didn't ship all of our money over there in terms of off-shoring. Now "everybody wins".

The economic colonialism of the US will "take back India for the West" and while tomorrow is India, we may get the rest of the world sometime shortly there after... if not for Poland... 8-)

The facts are simple, countries can sell off their economic future for small cash bribes today, and they seem willing to do so. They _believe_, because they were told, that these software patents are how the US got our IT industry. That belief needs must be cold comfort in the years ahead.

You can't really blame the US or its most important corporate citizens. They understand at a visceral level that the "software patent" is a huge mistake, but their two choices are to admit that the money spent so far needs to be tossed out and the software patent regime overturned OR they have to get the rest of the world to make the same mistake to re-level the playing field. The patents represent tangible power so they are unwilling to un-make the mistake, and instead have, by anonymous consent, decided that the best bet is make sure the rest of the world is equally plagued.

I am put in mind of the monkey trap. You build a box that a monkey can barely put its hand into, then put a nut in the box, the monkey reaches in and grabs the nut and then cannot get its nut-filled fist back out of the hole. The monkey could be free if it just let go of the nut, but it is biologically incapable of doing that. Its instincts are not wired up to sacrifice the nut to save its life. Its a short-comming in the whole essence of monkey-hood.

In our scenario, the companies are the monkeys, the law and its trappings are the box, software patents are the nut. Unfortunately the "IP Holding Company" is the guy with the gun who is coming to shoot the monkey dead if the monkey doesn't just starve to death first.

We have these other countries just begging for us to tell them how to put nuts in their boxes, and for no apparent reason too boot.

If you let the stupid people here get away with it...

All your software future are belong to U.S.

Re:Cut down on the offshoring?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to think twice about taking over Poland though, it is a part of EU - an economic bloc with significantly higher GPD than US. Send your thanks to king George.

Yeah sure.

[jotaeleemeese]

The full 1 billion of Indian people (including people in the IT fields) are all idiots that can't carry on with life and become emotional shrecks because 3000 died in a natural disaster.

If the Indian IT industry has allowed this to happen (or perhaps they are happy to oblige?) the lamest of excuses is to be unable to do anything because the disaster has go to their heads.

I am sure some folks have been directly affected by this, but I am pretty sure most folks were not and would be capable to following up this in spite of the tragedy.

Drivel.

[jotaeleemeese]

A country that big can not, should not, come to a halt due to a natural disaster that although tragic, is not affecting a huge amount of people (India has in excess of a billion inhabitants, I am pretty sure there are enough of them that have the intellectual fortitude to do their work and oposse, hopefully, or support software patents in accordance to their convictions and interesets, in spite of the ongoing tragedy).

IT *IS* SAD that you imagine...

[IBitOBear]

It is *SAD* that you imagine that somehow people can only think about and care about one thing at a time. Your statement seems to imply that it is bad in this next destracting "time" of emergency and human suffering, for anybody to pay attention to the future of anything.

That's stupid.

One can, and a reasonable person should, give creedence to what is important, but never to the exclusion of what *else* is important.

Quite frankly, no matter how much coverage is given to the flooding and such, there is not one useful action that will be brought about by lament. It's not like there is just one eye and one heart functioning on the entire planet. That each shiny bright tradegy can derail people from seeing to the business of the future is _galling_.

Oooohhh can't protect our civil liberties, some people died. Can't watch out for the economic interests of the world, some more people died.

The rampant drive of some persons to _memorialize_ the misfortune of strangers at the expense of reasonable attention to every other aspect of life is disheartening.

Suffer On Polly, but don't expect the world to stop so that you have time to mourn strangers and slave your bleeding heart. The people on the secene are working to fix what can be fixed and salvage what can be salvaged. The people disposed to act are acting, and relief is on the way.

But the rest of the world isn't supposed to stop and stare while the nefarious and bull-headed make off with the future.

Don't be a lookie-lou.
Stop slowing down for every road-side accident.
Act, or don't act, but stop telling everybody else to stop.

This isn't a contest for "biggest heart on the prarie".

It's _SAD_ that nobody remembers things like Michael Jordan's comback. 2500 dead people, while tragic, *SHOULDN'T* have undermined the entire functioning of our society. That it *DID* is what is behind all those "the terrorists won" comments you have been failing to process.

So there was a wave in the ocean, and people died, why _precisely_ is that supposed to mean that we shoudln't pay attention to the United States' ongoing war to economically ruin other countries software industries?

Part of having some perspective is knowing when _not_ to be destracted just because you can empathize.

Its like all the memorials that pop up whenever anything hits the news. A cop is shot in Newcastle WA, hundereds of people show up to lay flowers on the sceen. Maybe fifteen of these people knew the guy. WTF? All those people "traumatized" over the death of Princess Di. WTF again? It's not that hard to understand.

Bad things happen all the time. People die all the time. How many people have been "clensed" in Africa in the last month? How many have died of AIDS there in the last year? Why don't you know? But the splashy (forgive the pun) images on TV have you all a-twitter and you watch the death-toll like a sporting event, with each count on the big board being another chance to wring your hands and suffer along with the rest of the audience.

It's sick.

I am deathly ill over your "happiness" that the world "isn't" paying attntion to patents now that it has a shiny death-match to watch on TV. It's short sighted and dispicable of you.

The crossection of the world that wants to bleed over every single pinprick is literally killing the rest of us.

Re:Fees...hm...

[symbolic]

In order to level the playing field, maybe the USPTO should adopt a new fee arrangement. Very small fees for the little guys, and very large ones for the big guys. It sounds like the concept behind progressive taxation, but the motives are quite different. Perhaps the fee could start out the same for each, regardless of size, but increase substantially with respect to the number of applications submitted within a given year. This means that companies would have to pick and choose wisely, and it may put an end to the steaming piles of crap that are currently masquerading as "innovation". $700 isn't even chump change to many large companies. $70,000 on the other hand, might make them think twice.

MOD PARENT DOWN! And GRANDPARENT

[IBitOBear]

How the hell is that "informative"?
How is the grandparent "interesting"?

It's a bunch of road-accident staring, hand wringing, ignore the future because tragedy is on TV BULL CRAP.

(IMHO of course 8-)

And meta-moderators? Kill the "informative" people, they don't deserve a vote... 8-)

INSIGHTFUL HOW EXACTLY? (MOD IT ALL DOWN)

[IBitOBear]

Why in the name of all that's holly, is it "insightful" that this guy mentions the latest shiny-object world-heart-bleeding destraction as an (implicitly) good reason to ignore the future?

What is being done there is admirable, what is being done elsewhere to directly help those there is worthwhile.

What is being EXPLOITED there by our self-important media and then LANGUISHED over by all the hand-wringers and tragedy-borrowers is DISPICABLE.

Look! Misery on TV! Get the popcorn and screw the future!.

Makes me want to puke.

Death and distruction is not a spectator sport and those who treat it like one are consigned to a very special level of LIMBO. Not even hell for you folks. Limbo. All you get is a CNN News Ticker that repeats every moment of pain you borrowed from people all over the world while the main picture is a continuous loop of the speaches of every politition you ever voted for, and a window to exit limbo can be opened if you can spot the truth behind the invective while feeling a genuine emotion. You'll never escape.

This is your doom you slugs...

(The author above *may* have just been making the point that the world populace is too easily destracted whenever the opertunity to "safely feel horror" comes along. Maybe. So maybe all the "hear hear" replies below deserve the diatribe. But crossing the one issue with the other here in this forum is blame enough to deserve a mod-point butt-kicking.)

(IMHO of course 8-)

Parent is a liar

[the angry liberal]

To file a patent you need a lawyer, which costs money, then you need more money to defend your patent. A patent in North America costs about 20K USD,

This number is wrong. It typically costs about $400 for a lawyer to review things, the application is under a hundred dollars. You should be able to get the whole process done for under a grand if it isn't something complicated.

Why do you kids mark this crap as insightful? Even if it did cost $20k for a patent, then um, that is still not a lot of money. Not on the scale that separates rich from poor. Poor people can still afford $20k if they really want to. I am speaking for US citizens only due to the minimum wage.

There are cases every day where a little guy defends himself from a big guy in regards to patents, but I guess since you get all your news from /. you didn't know that.

What is this with you clones? At least be unique in your misinformation.

Oh, and yes, it does cost money to defend a patent. Why are you assuming you'll have to defend it right out of the gate? If the patent was worth having, then defending it should be no problem. It should be generating you enough revenue to do so or it shouldn't be patented.

I'm not saying the system is flawless, but you make it sound so terrible. Out of the people I know, three hold patents. None are rich, and they were easily obtained. Since they have the patents, nobody challenges them. Hmm. Funny that.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, QUIT BEING STUPID THO.. It isn't as bad as you want it to be.

There is no single worldwide patent

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's stopping a company in India from watching what patents are filed in the US and having a repackaged proposal filed with the Indian patent office but with the date "adjusted" back a few weeks? Like there's no corruption out there...

In any event it's going to become more expensive for anyone to file a software patent if it has to be filed in every one of the countries that allow for software patents. Originally it was only the US, now it's Australia and India, and maybe others I don't know about. That'll really help the little guy.

What happens when some European, African or South American startup produces a piece of ground-breaking software that infringes several US or otherwise software patents and suddenly the US doesn't have the best toys to play with anymore?

Code should be copyrighted (and it is, obviously) but software patents are akin to allowing plot patents for novels. Of course then you look at the successful Matrix plagiarism case and maybe that's already here, it's just not as formal. But it's only in America. I used to go listen to a lot of authors speak and they'd often talk about how this idea for a story was based on something they'd read or heard somewhere else. Nowadays if they did that they're liable to be sued.

Inflammatory headline

[OhHellWithIt]

The fine article uses the verb "amend" in relation to Indian patent law. This implies there was a patent law to begin with -- which, given India's British colonial past, one would expect to find.

Re:Since the vast majority of programming there go

[northcat]

Hindi doesn't mean Indian or Hindu. It's a language. Sorry, just being a nitpicker.

Bioequivalence

[noFilter]

How did the generics get so cheap? The Indian company has revealed that they never completed the lab tests. Africans now have to choose whether to continue being the guinea pigs for the drugs or to stop taking anything at all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/m oney/2004/12/06/ccpers06.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/mo ney/2004/12/06/ixfrontcity.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A379 70-2004Nov9.html

Re:There goes--correction

[nerdlyone]

It won't make much of a difference to outsourcing as iirc the patents you have to worry about are the ones in the country you're distributing the product, not the patents in the country you're producing it in.

Patents include rights to making, using, and selling the patented invention. The country in which the invention is made certainly matters in foreign patenting! If I have an invention and file for (and obtain) a patent in India, I will have rights to prevent others from making, using, or selling the invention within India.

Re:No.. This was surely driven by outsourcing clie

[nerdlyone]

It might even be conceivable that a US company with a desire to step on someone else's patent could outsource the patent violation to India, and make the violating code the property of an Indian subsidiary.

The US patent would be "prior art" and prevent the Indian patent from issuing. It would also be unethical (not to mention illegal) for someone who knew of this prior art to file for a patent and not disclose it to the Indian government. Assuming Indian patent law is "in synch" with most other nations.

Re:No.. This was surely driven by outsourcing clie

[SteeldrivingJon]

Er, my statement, which you quoted, was assuming the non-existence of Indian patent law.

I was giving an example of a potential exploit of a software patent-free India. The existence of this exploit is the sort of thing which would lead non-Indian companies (and nations) to pressure India to enact software patents. That pressure would take the form of threats to use non-Indian offshore development service providers, thus jeopardizing a strong growth sector in India.

The idea was not that the technology would be patented in India, despite being patented elsewhere by someone else. The idea was that the technology described by a US patent would be used in India, and if India had no legal concept of software patents, that patent violation would be shielded to some degree.

ie, if a US company wanted to take advantage of someone else's patent, without licensing it, they'd hire an Indian firm to implement the patent and operate the resulting software. The US firm might then ship data over to be processed with the patented technique, for example. (Perhaps the patent covers a software method for identifying bad loan candidates. They could send over loan applicant data, and it would be processed by the Indian firm, using the patented technique, and then the results would be returned to the US firm.)

The US company would not be selling a product in the US which used the patent, but they'd be obtaining benefit from use of the patent.

Thus the patent violation would be held at arms' length, and performed by another company, in another country, where software patents are not enforced.

the other side of the coin...

[Anonymous Coward]

whay does everyone assume that patents are bad for the indian software industry? what makes u think that american companies with 0wn all IP there? Patents will infact give a big boost to the industry. Imagine yourself to be an indian startup for a moment. now in an environment without patents what would be your incentive to come up with a new idea, if it were only to be copied by a dozen others? you would likely spend your time in making clones of internationally avaiable software or move to the US (or any other place where your IP would be protected). the indian industry is now mature enough to go to the next level, ie innovation. the same holds true of the pharma industry.