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EU Parliament Demands Fresh Start for Patent Directive
ravenII writes "Members of the European Parliament from countries including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden have asked for the software patent directive to be redone from scratch, according to a report on Monday."
Groklaw's commentary on the request provided some interesting comments. One reason is that if the motion is granted, software patents end up years away rather than months away. Another reason is that it provides the European Council a graceful way out of software patents.
While I am glad that software patents have been thwarted in Europe -- hopefully for good -- I do wonder if that kind of motion will be broadly used to set back other controversial, but less pernicious, kinds of legislation.
So, Ms. Lohan, what would you do if you had a GREAT idea for a REVOLUTIONARY gaadget, but didn't have the resources to create a prototype?
Your sentiment, while popular, only makes it EASIER for corporations to dominate the patent arena, since they have the capital to actually create these things.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Yes, and it's not too late to show your gratitude either by adding your signature and any comments to the "Thank Poland" letter. People on Slashdot so often advise writing letters to bureaucrats in order to complain, it's nice to able able to thank them for getting it right once in a while.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The list of all members is linked here
As Entrope pointed out there is another disscussion at Groklaw. Various user comments and the article makes a good read
The US is not homogeneous when it comes to support of software patents. The US Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that software for a general-purpose digital computer is not statutory material for a patent. Unfortunately a lot of people are determined to mis-read their opinions, particularly Diehr. Diehr has a section IV specifically about "Don't misread our ruling this way" describing the way their ruling is always misread.
But then if I could get a hold of a copy of your copyrighted work, I could build the invention myself -- your copyright wouldn't stop me from doing that.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
"Patents were slightly different - they were originally around so that the garage inventor would be protected from the giant corporation (at least, I hope that's the original intent!). "
Not quite. The original reason behind patents was to keep innovation from being kept secret, the idea being that if innovations are out in the open, others can build upon those innovations and advance the technology.
The deal made was that if you are willing to share your innovation with the public, then congress would grant you a limited monopoly in order to make some bucks off of your innovation.
Without patents, companies would be much more likely to keep as much as they could secret, forcing others to reinvent the wheel, and making standards harder to agree on.
Not to say that there aren't things that need to be changed, just pointing out that patents aren't there to protect the "little guy" -- they are a contract between the government and the inventor.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
When I write software people can compete by writing their own software. I patent a process in my software (maybe i came up with a great 3d rendering engine). Now i didn't patent "3d rendering engines", I patented a process of a specific 3d rendering engine. So if joe schmoe wants to patent his own process of 3d rendering - i cannot sue him for that. I can only sue him if his code was stolen from me.
So the Software Car is your 3d rendering engine, the specific car (your Honda) is the specific 3d rendering engine that I created.
Another example: Software car = First Person Shooter games, while the HOnda = Counter Strike.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I can only sue him if his code was stolen from me.
If his code was stolen from you, you could sue him for copyright infringement.
Patents have nothing to do with that situation at all.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Yes, that's what I'm saying. We have clear rulings from the Supreme Court against patents on software for general-purpose digital computers. They didn't rule on patents covering software that doesn't preempt the use of algorithms on general-purpose digital computers, and called on the legislature to clarify things, but that never happened.
The dissent in Diehr criticized the majority for not issuing a clear ruling to reiterate Benson and Flook. For my part, having read Diehr, I thought the opinion was clear enough. But widespread misconceptions about Diehr prove me wrong and the dissent right; more clarity would have helped. I try to do my part with Diamond v. Diehr, abridged.