European Software Patents Not Dead Yet

Ensign Nemo writes "Software patents in Europe still being pushed. They're at it again and they're not waisting any time. Even though opposition is there the backers of software patents are getting sneakier and sneakier." Poland, if you help us out again, I pledge to never, ever forget you.

Comments

Not to be pedantic, but..

[Dancin_Santa]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Sheetrock]

Software shouldn't be patented. It shouldn't even be copyrighted or trademarked. There is such a short shelf life on software and software companies that the impact of denying access to techniques and logarithms effectively shuts out competition and fair use not only for the life of a product but well beyond, negatively influencing people well beyond the useful scope of any novelty that could possibly be discovered.

One only has to look at the rampant achievements and success of Free Software and Open Source to see how much the rest of the industry is being held back by software patents and other "intellectual property" restrictions.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

Um, I think you're a little confused.

Open source software, and free software *depend* on copyright. Yes, depend on it. Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. Basically, it'd defeat the point of the difference between "free", and "Free".

Software shouldn't be *patented* because you're patenting an algorithm. And computer code is a completely logical process. It'd be very similar to patenting a mathematical formula. They're both *discovered*, not really *created*. It also creates a lot of problems in enforceability, and in large corporations being able to sue anyone they please. It's not only logically wrong, but also effectively wrong. It's similar, in a way, to the DMCA in that it gives bigger corporations the power to control everyone.

Very very few people argue against copyright when it comes to software. Free software people/open source people argue against patents alone.

oh, and trademark has nothing to do with the issue. Don't lump the three under the whole "intellectual property" umbrella. You'll almost always be wrong when you do. They have very little to do with each other.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[__int64]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

12:02 Restate my assumptions:
1. Mathematics is the language of nature.
2. Principals and ideas in mathematics are universal truths; hence they are discovered, not created.
3. Computer science is the straight forward application of discreet mathematics. Thus ideas and algorithms written in computers are not patentable.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[gardyloo]

[...]the impact of denying access to techniques and logarithms effectively shuts out competition[...]

Ah, yes, the old "don't let them look up logarithms in a table" trick.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Azh Nazg]

Yes, but if copyright law is not enforced, companies such as Microsoft would quite likely start enforcing even more draconian digital restrictions managment measures upon the software distributed, so we would in effect have almost the same economy. A way to solve this would be to also make digital restrictions managment illegal. Of course, the odds of either such law getting passed through any modern beauracracy is slim to none.....

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Yartrebo]

Very good post.

Copyright and patents were intended to encourage people to make stuff that otherwise wouldn't be done. When people and organizations are willing to create an entire operating system and a collection of thousands of programs (GNU/Linux and the thousands of associated programs), the basic premise of copyright and patents is nullified.

If people will create without incentive, there is no reason to impose needless costs on both consumers and creators by strangling the public domain with laws like copyright. If Microsoft refuses to develop Windows because it no longer has any copyrights, then Linux is there as a replacement, and it will become 10x what Windows ever was or Linux is today once it becomes unshackled from copyright and patent issues and has the customer base of MS Windows today.

And that is assuming that no grants are given to fund open source development. The Chinese government, among others, has shown that they are willing to fund open source work. A small amount of federal funds would replace a massive amount spent in retail software licenses.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[kenthorvath]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

The motivation behind patents is not to reward people who innovate for the sake of patting them on the back, but to provide insentive for them to begin innovating in the first place, with the hopes that society will benefit from their creation after a small time period.

The reasoning behind patents is dubious in general - it presupposes that there would be less innovation were they not to exist (or even to exist in a more limited form). If history has taught us anything, it is that greed always finds a way to mask its ugly head and I'm sure that businesses would find a way to profit from their inventions even were patents not to exist. Being the first to market (and the name recognition that goes along with it) can be a very powerful ally indeed.

Secondly, it is not clear that the current time period for software patent expiration is anywhere near reasonable. In the fast-changing world of computers and information technology, even a year can be a long enough time period for software to become obsolete. How long do software patents last? 10 years? 17 years?

Then look at the patents that companies try to secure - one click ordering via amazon.com? If the patent on one-click ordering were even remotely influential on the companies decision to implement that feature, then I could perhaps see that a software patent may be useful in achieving its dubious purpose. But in this case, it is the ease of ordering - the desire to improve the customer's experience - from which the implementation gains its lure.

The above question strikes me as no more grounded than when a five year old gets into a fight with his sibling and says "stop copying me!". One person's being the first to have a particular idea does not in anyway entail his or her posession of that idea. So with this in mind, the question is: "If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *SHOULD* you be able to get a patent on it?"

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Tony Hoyle]

If you don't want someone to know how you did something, close the source. If someone comes around 2 weeks later and duplicates your work.. well it wasn't really novel was it?

I've come up with many algorithms in the past that I've thought were novel... then found out someone thought of it and gave it a fancy name 50 years ago. I could have got a patent on it if I'd wanted - but I wouldn't have deserved it. I'm just not *that* good.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Dancin_Santa]

The problem is that you are trying to shoehorn your lifestyle choice into the real world of creators and users. You forget the one central tenet that pretty much defines the Western civilization. Creators are primarily motivated by money.

While there may be a few 'inventors' who sit in their basements thinking up inventions for the sake of having fun, the vast majority of creators who generate useful inventions work for real companies for real salaries. This is irrefutable.

But by taking away the ability to patent, and subsequently license, the invention (which you and your smelly friends would love to restrict) you remove any incentive for a company to innovate anything. If they can rip off the next guy who created something, then basically they are gaining knowledge for free. So why invent?

As for your industry which "is being held back by software patents", I defy you to name some area in which the state of the art is not the state of the art. Patents hold nothing back, as we all know that patents are fully open and can be incorporated into further designs based upon the base patent.

In addition, companies cross license patents all the time. When one company infringes on another company's patent, there is usually a pretty thick cross-pollinization of patent infringements across the board, so they agree to license patents to each other at no fee so they can both use the patents freely. This encourages the creation of new inventions, as companies would rather hold patents which can be cross-licensed than to sit on their ass and let every patent holder come and extract a ton of licensing fees.

Patents beget patents. Patents are for inventions, so if patents encourage invention, they must also necessarily encourage progress.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[cyberfunk2]

Yea, i mean, if we deny logarithms to people, how are they gonna do math ?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[0xC0FFEE]

Because everything of value should be instantly be shared over the world to improve the life of others. You need others right?

Because you didn't really create something of value, others came before you and did the grunt work, you're just putting the pieces together.

I'm playing devil's advocate here. Of course ideas are valuable and should be protected and inventors should be given exclusive rights do their inventions and given the possibility to distribute/licence, wait for it, as they wish!

If some people, even if they were the majority, want to give algorithms/methods they possess for free, then more power to them. The fact is, if you work your ass off for a number of years researching, fleshing out details and coming up with solid solutions to problems, you have something of value on your hands and that should be protected.

Some whiners will want to throw away the patent system because of the way some companies have patented obvious ideas and trivial algorithms. Those particular patents should be reneged by the patent office or offered to the public domain as a goodwill gesture.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[eric76]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

The purpose of patents is to allow the patent holder a limited monopoly on the invention while telling everyone how it's done.

Think of it as a solution to a problem for which one can, if the solution is truly clever, receive a government granted monopoly on the solution for a period of time.

What we have now is that any solution, no matter how obvious or trivial, is being granted the same monopoly protection as if it were really unique.

It's like giving a class a test in which the first person to solve the problem by some method gets an 'A' and the rest using the same method are given 'F's. The question is whether that problem is sufficiently difficult that the other students would have been able to arrive at the same solution without copying the solution of the first to solve the problem.

If the other students could have only solved the problem by copying that of the first, then the 'F's would be appropriate. But if the problem was such that every student satisfactorally solved the problem on his own, they should all receive 'A's.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[j. andrew rogers]

Software shouldn't be *patented* because you're patenting an algorithm.

Newsflash: ALL patents are algorithms. Stop acting like this unique to computers. Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable and very obviously map into the same space as "software algorithms" and yet those are not considered controversial.

And computer code is a completely logical process. It'd be very similar to patenting a mathematical formula.

This is not an argument against anything. Everything machine is reducible to software, and every software is reducible to machine. It is a distinction without a difference. To reuse my example above, chemical process patents are not generally considered controversial here, yet every argument against software patents can be used against them because they are the exact same kind of thing.

Everyone needs to stop pretending that software patents are a special aberration. The reason this is controversial at all is that many people are trying to assert an arbitrary distinction where none exists. We either need to decide that patents are good, or patents are bad. Quibbling over meaningless distinctions between identical classes of things is completely missing the point. All it does is make it an argument purely from politics i.e. who does and does not get special protections for their particularly flavor of Kool-Aid.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Waffle Iron]

Creators are primarily motivated by money.

I'm a creator, but I'm concerned that operating in a legal minefield of vague, overlapping and bogus patents will destroy my ability to make money.

Copyrights are a reasonable match for software, and that's all the protection it needs. Software is too maleable to support well-defined patent claims. Software doesn't need copyrights and patents. Other kinds of products don't get double IP coverage; why should software?

I'd rather take my chances that some someone duplicates the functionality of my products and competes in the marketplace than risk having some jackass submarine patent-holder pop out of the woodwork demanding cash out of my bank account.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[darkewolf]

Ah, a reference to Pi. Just made my day.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[QuantumG]

I really think you're under the same delusion as a large number of people in the software industry in that you think compiling software somehow magically encrypts it so people can't possibly know how it works. If you come up with some brilliant algorithm and your business hinges on you maintaining control of this algorithm, giving an implementation of it to your customers, even if in binary form, will be the end of you. Your competitors will reverse engineer your software and provide an implementation of your algorithm in their product.

So what of it? If you rule out patents there is absolutely no market for new algorithms. Thankfully academics who come up with new algorithms have the incentive of career advancement. Not that I'm in any way advocating software patents as the system currently stands. But it would be great if we had something other than academia to incite people to work on developing new algorithms full time.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[zerblat]

Pantents exist to encourage innovation by making research that wouldn't be profitable otherwise possible. Do software patents encourage innovation? Will software patents give us more software related inventions? I haven't seen any studies that indicate that. I have however seen studies that suggest the contrary, that software patents in fact inhibit research (e.g. these two).

So, tell me again why we should introduce this costly, bureaucratic and monopolistic process. Exactly how will it benifit the citizens of the EU? Will it give us new, innovative software? Will it give us more jobs (apart from all the patent lawyers, that is)?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Coryoth]

Ah, yes, the old "don't let them look up logarithms in a table" trick.

But it's true! Your used to be allowed to request a copy of Eton tables in math exams, and be provided with one. The last time I asked a proctor for a copy they just looked at me completely blankly as if they'd never heard of it.

Jedidiah.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[maxpublic]

In the United States, the ONLY valid argument for patents and copyrights are defined by the Constitution as: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

So the only question is: do software patents or copyrights "promote the progress of science and useful arts"? Anything else is irrelevent.

Max

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[maxpublic]

Your second point is irrelevent. According to the Constitution copyrights and patents apply to the "respective writings *and discoveries*" of the person in question. Notice that nothing is said about having to create something new; you only have to discover it.

Max

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Coryoth]

Being the first to market (and the name recognition that goes along with it) can be a very powerful ally indeed.

To be fair, this was potentially something that patents were about: If a small company or lone inventor comes up with a stunning new product they potentially don't have the capital to get it to market. To get the capital they need to shop the invention around venture capitalists. Once they've made the idea somewhat public (in the shopping around phase) a large company with lots of resources could easily duplicate, produce, and market said invention before the inventor can manage to raise the capital and get production underway. In principal the patent would help alleviate this because the invention could be openly published, but there would still be a window of time for the inventor to raise funds and get his product to market before anyone else was allowed to join in.

Of course in this day and age of NDAs for everything, and the rate at which new products (particularly software) can be brought to market, this sort of concept just doesn't carry as much weight as it use to.

Jedidiah.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[KeithIrwin]

Well to begin with, patents are an imposition on freedom. You give someone a temporary and artificial monopoly in order to gain benefit to society. You don't have to justify why not give them patents, you have to show why you should. The benefits (at least in theory) are thus:

1) Companies have a greater incentive to innovate and create new products.
2) Little guys don't get their inventions stolen.

Except that neither of these apply to software patents. Now, clearly, there's no shortage of innovation and new product creation in the software market. I mean, really, there are fifty zillion software companies out there and myriad individuals just writing software in their spare time. And software patents are more like to hurt the little guy than help them. The little guy can't afford the cost of doing a patent search for every line of code he writes to make sure that no one else has used the same idea in the last 20 years.

In software how novel things are is very unclear. There would be nothing wrong with patenting things which truly are completely novel, but if ten programmers are given a problem, four or five of them are going to come up with the same answer. If we allow the first one to come up with an idea to patent it, it means that the others aren't allowed to solve the problem in the best way even though they would have on their own.

And more to the point what will actually happen is that the second, third, fourth, etc. guy will come to the problem, have no idea how the first guy solved it, but come up with the same algorithm and implement it. They won't know what the other guy named his algorithm, so they won't be able to find the patent and the software will be produced. Then at some later point, the first guy's company will discover this and hold the other guys' software hostage with a patent lawsuit. Patent is meant to prevent really stealing people's ideas, but when you look at the patents which have been granted for software in places where such is allowed, the level of novelty required is so low that multiple independent creation of the idea patented is not only likely, but in many cases inevitable.

Further, showing prior art in physical devices is fairly easy, but showing it in software where other people's source code is hidden from you, becomes almost impossible. So maybe in the above scenario, it's not the first guy who patented it, but the third, but the first and second ones didn't see it as novel or didn't work for companies which worry about patenting things. But by the time the lawsuit roll around 10 years later, the first two have completely forgotten all about it and their code is each buried inside some obsolete product whose source code is locked away in a secret vault somewhere.

Now, you may note that this also makes it harder to find the lawsuits to press to begin with, and that's true. But there is one very obvious section of software which is more vulnerable to suits over software patents: open source software. I personally know of at least one major, well known open source project used by a significant portion of the user base of this web site which accidentally stepped on the patents of a large company. Now, in this case, the company has done a really terrific thing, they've not filed a lawsuit and aren't mentioning it in public (which is why I'm being so vague) so as to not hurt the reputation of the project or in any way cause FUD. But, in general, software patents are likely to hurt open source because they'll be enforced on open source products much more often than on closed source products.

Keith

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[morbiuswilters]

Very good points, both of you. I do agree, waffle, that patents are overkill for fundamental things like "one-click checkout" or a particular algorithm. I imagine that copyright protects software sufficiently (the industry has done well for itself without them). To me, it seems that if an algorithm or process is sufficiently complicated enough to have a legitimate desire for the protection of a patent, then it is probably sufficiently protected by the high-level of knowledge required to implement it as well as the protection copyright would afford it due to its unique nature. Most of these software patents seem like novelists or publishers trying to patent a particular character type or plot line, which would completely decimate Hollywood's ability to make money. In that case, as with software, copyright prevents outright stealing, but allows enough wiggle room for authors to reuse the same old ideas in different ways. Software patents don't seem to be about protection of property and innovation as the protection of monopolies and litigous companies who cannot compete in a free market, much like compulsory DRM, which would almost certainly be rejected by consumers for its expensive nature and alien view of ownership of content. However, I still think it is neat that IBM is offering protection to open source developers by loosening some of its patent restrictions, even though I wish it was not granted that power in the first place. Now bring on the Polish jokes!

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[cgenman]

The other reason behind patenting was so that the public could have a full and complete record of the invention that was patented, and so the public would be in a good position to take full advantage of the invention when it fell into the public domain. If you ever needed to know how something worked, you could just go the patent office. This made a lot of sense when people were patenting guns made from exchangable parts or new suspension types on horse drawn carriages, but is less useful these days when you're patenting specific polymer suspensions for hydrobearing contact lubricant formulas, and which will be obsolete by the time it falls out of patent protection anyway.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

If you create something really novel

The issue here is changing the extent of the "something" that can qualify. If I create a novel equation, do I get a patent on it? If I create a novel sequence of thoughts, do I get a patent on it?

Pysical objects and physical processes may be inventions, may be patented.

As the US Supreme Court ruled in Parker v Flook, all algorithms/equaltions/calculations are to be considered to be familiar prior art for patent purposes. You cannot "invent" a new equation. The lower courts have be admitting software patents in FLAGRANT violation of that Supreme Court ruling. The baffling part is why the Supreme Court has allowed the lower courts to run amuck like this. I know the Supreme Court is very busy and can't hear every case, and patents are generally not a very sexy subject, but jeez! The last time they even touched the subject was in 1981 in Diamond v Deihr in 1981. And while some may try to cite Deihr as somehow pro-software patents, in fact the majority(5 judges) were explicit that they were not addressing or altering the novelty criteria for patents. The very novelty issue I cited in Flook. And as for the 4 judge minority, there were absolutely positively anti-software patents and they were afraid the majority ruling would be mis-construed as opening the door to software patents.

It's mindboggling that the Supreme Court has entirely neglected the subject for 24 years while this has been going on.

The only thing computers can do is calculate. You can certainly attach a computer to a speaker, and that speaker can make sound, but the copmputer itself can only calculate and equation. You can invent and patent a new speaker, but you cannot invent or patent the equation for converting one set of numbers (an MP3 file) into a different set of numbers (the data sent to the speaker). The software IS the equation. Non-patentable.

Moreover software is just a series of mental steps. As a programmer, I can state catagorically that any software a computer can run can (eventually) be run purely mentally. In fact running software mentally is a routine part of writting and debugging software. In principle any software patent can eventually be carried out through pure thought. Yes in some cases it would take many lifetimes to do so, but in many other cases software patents can in fact be carried out mentally in a matter of moments.

Can the law ever claim to prohibit a sequence of thoughts?? And if that is not itself patentable, is there anything inventive about adding the single the blatantly obvious step of using a computer simply to speed up that otherwise non-patentable calculation?

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[coaxial]

Well to be pedantic, "pedantic" isn't a synonym for "contrarian". You should know what the big words mean before you use them.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[morbiuswilters]

I think you miss the point. Patents provide the incentive for people to engage in economic activity by protecting their investment, whether you call it discovery or invention, it makes no difference practically. Other posters have stated that people would still invent without patents, and although true, it would most likely lead to a less productive society. I do think there needs to be a degree of uniqueness to a discovery or invention, but this was what was intended by the framers of the constitution. The patent system is indeed an artificial construct of government, but without companies will continue to try to protect their investments, leading us eventually to DRM-like schemes where you aren't allowed to know what the companies don't want you to know. I see intellectual property laws, when properly balanced, as an attempt to give inventors (or discovers, whichever you prefer) the protection of law but at the same time allowing individuals access to the internals of the discovery or invention. As many have pointed out, this is central to the FOSS community, as the GPL, BSD, Apache, et al. licenses are using the protection of law to allow individuals access to the disovery, without giving up all rights to the content. Of course, most of the people who create for free could not do so without either a day job whose gains are protected by IP laws or through government fiat, the mediocre results of the latter attesting to the viability of that social model.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[gnuguru]

Are you claiming the zero's and ones are yours, and yours alone?

Are you patenting the group of zero's and one which make up a 32 bit word?

So what if the word(s) you hold a patent on, by chance, is/are included in the output of a paint program writing an image?

Are you claiming that writers of the imaging software should pay you a royalty because they contain that series of zero's and ones, or maybe paint programs should be rewritten so as never to *infringe* on your patent?

Are you claiming that the instructions in the C, or C++ language are somehow yours and yours alone
if grouped in a particular way?

Are you saying that you, and you alone should have control over the way assembly language is written?

Should schools and universities pay you royalties so that they can teach fundamental mathmatics?

Get over yourself, and get over the idea of patenting the language which describes yourself, and the entire universe.

Mathmatics should not be patentable.

Imagine having to teach a child to count under software patents where the concept of 3 is patented. Extrapolate.

1, 2, (4-1), 5, (5+1)

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[morbiuswilters]

No offense, but do you really think the 250 year old efforts of our ancestors to flesh out a working government is the only practical way of doing things, or that it is even the best? They were clever about a good deal of things, but they also goofed up a lot. Hell, they spent a lot of time arguing if we should have a king or just two co-presidents. Then there was the whole slavery thing... The fact is, our constitution is a wonderful document, but I am annoyed by legalists who can't wrap their minds around the idea that there might be fantastic ways of doing things that our ancestors had never heard of, like, you know, computers and all. This mindset has led to the invasion of law into every nook and cranny of our lives so that no almost no interaction with the government apparatus can be performed without the services of a lawyer and so that many otherwise bright people instantly dismiss any good idea as wrong because it is illegal and and will accept the injustices of their government because somewhere it is written on paper that this is how it must be done. Sorry to rant at you, I'm sure you probably weren't meaning any harm, but I think that the mindset echoed in your post hints at a much bigger problem in society.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Fire Dragon]

Newsflash: ALL patents are algorithms. Stop acting like this unique to computers. Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable and very obviously map into the same space as "software algorithms" and yet those are not considered controversial

Yes, but with software patens you see companies patenting things on chemical side like water, wild flowers, air and other kind of things that make no sence

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[aussie_a]

Because if I invent it myself completely independant of the patent and with no knowledge of the patented product, with the errant belief I'm the first to invent this, I will not be allowed to do anything with it.

With software the likelihood of this happening increases dramatically. In my opinion that's wrong.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

The grandrant commented about both patents and copyrights, but you just addressed patents and that's where I'll jump in.

by taking away the ability to patent

No one is taking away the ability to patent. This is about restricting patents to inventions, which I addressed in another post.

Programmers are authors. They are protected by copyright. By not expanding patents so software those authors retain copyright and the incentives it provides.

As for your industry which "is being held back by software patents", I defy you to name some area in which the state of the art is not the state of the art.

By definition the state of the art would be the state of the art whether patents had held things back or not.

In fact the entire explosion of the computer industry and in software occured without software patents. The United States properly and consistantly threw out any attempt to patent software until the 80's, and really only started granting a substantial number of them in the 90's. And they are still virtually never enforced, and even when someone does try to enforce one it is throuwn out half the time.

So the state of the art became the state of the art in the entire absence of software patents and in the non-enforcment of software patents. Perfect proof that there is no "need" for them. And if software patents do start to become enforced in signifigant number is *will* be crippling to progress in the industry. Hell, our entire economy would pretty much collapse if every sector of industry suddenly had to rip out all infringing software. Linux would likely be ruled to infringe about 100 patents. Imaging ripping out Linux and every application that runs on Linux. In many cases that would include vital and essentially irreplacable applications. The entire country would grind to a halt. And of course that is on top of all software development fleeing to countries with sane laws that do not permit logic patents.

companies cross license patents all the time

You say that like it somehow helps your position. Cross licencing is a way for companies to escape the entire patent system with each other. The end result being further entrenchment of huge established industry players at the expense of upstarts and innovators.

Patents are for inventions

Exactly. The entire notion of logic patents is rediculous and harmful.

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[orangesquid]

Who are you to know what makes sense?

All too often, I hear someone say that their patent is, "in truth, fairly simple/straightforward." It's the R&D that goes into perfecting a particular implementation.

Patents are generally formatted by first listing the simplest overview of the process, then progressively adding detail until the most intimate details are listed.

Without any patents, everything would become "trade secrets," and, in a different culture, releasing trade secrets to the public or stealing them for another company could simply be labelled as actions intended to cause damage to thousands of people's jobs and punished severely.

I don't think the "general method" of any patent should be enforceable---in fact, the general method ought to be a starting point for anyone interested in implementing something similar (why re-invent the wheel?). Plus, if two companies are not allowed to release their two products which use *completely identical* processes, innovation might disappear. Not being allowed to exactly duplicate someone else's work will encourage people to try alternate solutions, or experiment with variables. However, if some company patents something in OO-language pseudocode, and another company turns around and patents it in Fortran-like pseudocode, the second company hasn't really contributed anything useful, so the second patent should be stricken down.

Patents which are too ambiguous and too general, those having no real use to an overall industry or those too similar to existing patents or existing work, should not be condoned. Companies should not even bother---it makes them seem disrespectful to the industry.

Also, I couldn't find waist in the dictionary. I did discover that waister is a seaman stationed in the mid-section of a ship of war. This could be metaphorical for someone whose ethics yet appreciation of capitalism "station" them in the middle of the spectrum on the software patent issue, like I. Does this mean that a softwaister is someone who holds views like mine? Or is this supposed to be a reference to the common pun of "seaman/seamen" sounding so close to semen? Or, perhaps, this is supposed to have something to do with someone's waist---is "to waist no time" a pun referring to someone who gives up a diet before seeing any results? Please enlighten me ;)

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[johannesg]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

Because that is not what usually happens. Software patents are used as weapons to destroy competition, not as protection for true innovation. If patent holders would limit themselves to only truly innovative, non-trivial solutions I doubt anyone would care. As it is we (anyone making a living in software) are under constant threat because someone might take out a patent on some completely trivial technique tomorrow and shut you down for the next twenty years.

I asked this in the previous patent discussion as well, but let me ask again: does anyone know of any "good" software patents? I.e. non-trivial, innovative, and realistic? The only one that came out of that previous discussion was the RSA patent, which I agree meets these criteria and as such is worthy of patent protection.

But right now most software patents do not fall in this category. Instead they patent utterly trivial "inventions", often in ways that have been standard practice within the industry for years.

Let me add a prediction for what will happen within a year of software patents becoming a reality in Europe: with patent protection finally possible in all major markets, Microsoft will make its big move against open source. It will attack Apache, Samba, Mozilla, Open Office, and perhaps some others, stating they all violate Microsoft-held patents. I suspect Linux itself will be allowed to exist as a sort of token competitor to Windows, but there will not be any useful software left to run on it, which accomplishes Microsofts goal as well as destroying the OS itself.

Moreover, the people who worked so hard to make these incredible projects a reality will be painted as "thieves" in the media. After all, they "stole" "intellectual property" that so clearly belongs to our beloved "innovator", Microsoft.

One final question on my mind: who keeps adding software patents to all sorts of irrelevant agenda's in Europe? It is very annoying having to fight this battle every two weeks, especially since our adversary is some nameless civil servant who apparently got one bribe too many...

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[ikkonoishi]

More along the lines of all the other students are expelled for plagerism.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[novakyu]

This is not an argument against anything. Everything machine is reducible to software, and every software is reducible to machine. It is a distinction without a difference. To reuse my example above, chemical process patents are not generally considered controversial here, yet every argument against software patents can be used against them because they are the exact same kind of thing.

I guess this is one major difference that sets software apart from everything else: R&D cost. As far as I know, R&D for chemicals and proteins (i.e. medicine) is expensive, even after taking the salaries of the researchers/inventors out of the consideration, due to the infrastructure, equipment, and raw material necessary even just to build the prototype. So, for someone (and nowadays, most likely a company) to even get started on a new invention/innovation, he has to have some sort of guarantee that if he succeeds, he will be able to recover his costs and even proft, perhaps---thus, a simple solution is legalized monopoly (and the price-markup that necessarily follows).

On the other hand, software patent? What R&D cost exactly goes into it? Sure, programmers might get paid a lot (or at least there was a time when that was the case...), but if a lone-coder is making a program, other than the so-called "opportunity cost" what other cost is there? Hardware purchase cost? Perhaps---but that's negligible, compared to other expenses (i.e. "cost of living") throughout a year. Multiple hardware purchases (for testing, etc.)? But that would only be limited to programs that deal with the hardware directly, and those don't constitute a majority.

So, with software, the developer doesn't have to worry about recovering the costs because there isn't that much to begin with (now, profit motive is something else, but why should we make a law that make a few people wealthy beyond reason?)---so, there isn't that much incentive software patent gives to innovate. Rather, by creating an artificial barrier-to-entry in the market, it stifles innovation (and yes, the same argument may be used for even traditional patents, but in those cases, it can be argued that the incentive outweighs this).

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[killjoe]

"Open source software, and free software *depend* on copyright. Yes, depend on it. Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. Basically, it'd defeat the point of the difference between "free", and "Free"."

RMS invented the GPL to hack the copyright. If copyrights were to be abolished RMS would be dancing in the streets.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[maxpublic]

No offense, but do you really think the 250 year old efforts of our ancestors to flesh out a working government is the only practical way of doing things, or that it is even the best?

It's the only legally valid method of doing things in this country. If you want a different method our canny ancestors provided you with the ability to AMEND the Constitution, an effort which you can spearhead at any time.

If you aren't up to it, then obviously the law isn't important enough to change. And I think the 'problem' here is that people know many of the things they want (e.g., gun control) can't be written into the Constitution via an amendment because they'll never gather the support required, so instead they try to do an illegal end-run around the law.

If people want what YOU want, then you'll be able to amend the Constitution. If they don't want what you want, you can either a) suck it up and live with it, or b) remove yourself to another country more to your liking.

Max

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[novakyu]

But it's true! Your used to be allowed to request a copy of Eton tables in math exams, and be provided with one. The last time I asked a proctor for a copy they just looked at me completely blankly as if they'd never heard of it.

Why would you want to look it up when you can just use a simple (infinite) Taylor polynomial to calculate it to any precision you want? Why settle for 5 significant figures? :) Wait.... hmm, is Taylor polynomial copyrighted/patented? Maybe that's why?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Dwonis]

The question is not "why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent", but "is there a significant net benefit to society to enforce a patent on your behalf, versus not doing so?"

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[mpe]

If a small company or lone inventor comes up with a stunning new product they potentially don't have the capital to get it to market. To get the capital they need to shop the invention around venture capitalists. Once they've made the idea somewhat public (in the shopping around phase) a large company with lots of resources could easily duplicate, produce, and market said invention before the inventor can manage to raise the capital and get production underway. In principal the patent would help alleviate this because the invention could be openly published, but there would still be a window of time for the inventor to raise funds and get his product to market before anyone else was allowed to join in.

Of course if the inventor dosn't have enough money to bring their product to market it's also unlikely that they have enough money to defend their patent(s) through the courts either...

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[RWerp]

Other kinds of products don't get double IP coverage; why should software?

They sometimes do. You can patent a particular way of producing something, and explain this way in a book. This book will be protected by copyright.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Wolfbone]

"Not true. There are patents applicable to software going back for decades. It became evident many years ago that the line dividing software and hardware was practically non-existent, but it seems many slashdotters will never catch up to that simple truth for at least another decade."

Unlike IBM perhaps?:

Cooley takes pains to praise the Gentleman-Sande paper, as well as an earlier paper by Sande (who was a student of Tukey's) that was never published. In fact, Cooley says, the Cooley-Tukey algorithm could well have been known as the Sande-Tukey algorithm were it not for the "accident" that led to the publication of the now-famous 1965 paper. As he recounts it, the paper he co-authored with Tukey came to be written mainly because a mathematically inclined patent attorney happened to attend the seminar in which Cooley described the algorithm. The lawyer, Frank Thomas, "saw that it was a patentable idea," Cooley explains, "and the policy of IBM and their lawyers was to be sure that nobody bottled up software and algorithms by getting patents on them." A decision was quickly reached to put the fast Fourier transform in the public domain, and that meant, in part, publishing a paper.

The publication of the Cooley-Tukey algorithm brought on an explosion of activity, as researchers from all branches of science rushed to apply the new technique to their own computational problems. One of the most spectacular applications--at the time--was an FFT computation of a sequence of 512,000 data points taken from interferometer measurements. This computation, done using a program designed by Norman Brenner at MIT, enabled Janine Connes, an astronomer at the University of Paris, to calculate the infrared spectra of the planets for a book that has become a standard reference in the subject.

You don't seem to have quite grasped the point that for the two decades after the first software patent was acquired (by Goetz in '68 iirc), hardly anyone else did so or even thought about software patents ,and there was nothing quite like the insane free-for-all of recent years.

By the way, it became "evident many years ago that the line dividing software and hardware was practically non-existent" only to lawyers. No-one else I know and respect who is reasonably numerate and scientifically literate has any trouble making the distinction.

"You've got a patent to study and nothing to worry about. What's the complaint?"

Businessmen call it "uncertainty", and they seem to hate it for some reason. And if you can find a software developer who thinks that studying patent claims is useful, they are probably working for an "IP company" and not actually writing any software.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

>So the state of the art became the state of the art in the entire absence of software patents and in the non-enforcment of software patents.

Not true. There are patents applicable to software going back for decades.

Absolutely true, and I go into it in more detail in this post. Software patents were consistantly and properly thrown out until the 80's. They were only issued in signifigant numbers in the 90's. And not they are rarely enforced, and even when someone attempts to enforce one it is still tossed out half the time.

So yes, the software and computer and software explosion started in a complete absence of software patents. It then had a virtual non-existance of software patents in which to grow. And it only continues to thrive due to almost universal non-enformcent. Virtually all software patents are nothing but wasted money and paper rotting away in a draw. And when they are pulled out and dusted off they just cause damage.

Nobody is seeing the problem with facing an unenforced patent

Aside for the pure waste of resources, it is going to turn into a disaster when a patent war heats up. I'd say the primary reason we haven't seen it happen yet is that they are waiting to impose software patents in the EU. If a patent war fires up now it would be a huge boon to the EU and economic blow to the US. Not just all software development fleeing to the EU, but US industries across the board suffering the loss of vital and often irreplacable applications. The result would be congress to immediately fixing the law and eliminate software patents. Under such circumstances the EU certainly isn't going to cave to US demands to "harmonize" and cripple themselves as well.

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[baadfood]

To add to the other excellent replies: Because software patents are too easy.

Unfortunately I have lost the link, but there was an interview with an ex MSFT who has setup a company with the express purpose of dealing, and profiting only from leasing out a large stable of patents. Yes he intended to hire software engineers, but they were never to actually produce anything tangible - other than a stream of patents.

Their method of 'work' was to, perhaps once a week or month, throw the engineers into a room, to eat snacks and brainstorm while being recorded. Lawyers would then go over the recordings to extract any worthwhile 'ideas' and patent them.

Now, im sorry, but when it comes to 'novel' and 'unobvious' as pre-requsites for a patent, I imagine someone like Thomas Edison, slaving away in his workshop for years and finally producing the lightbulb and associated patent applications.

Not a bunch of dorks sitting in a room basically going 'won't it be neat when X could be done in software'.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[slux]

Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. Basically, it'd defeat the point of the difference between "free", and "Free".

Similarly, anyone could take the binaries this company would be selling and redistribute at will. They'd have the privilege of developing their version without anyone helping, of course but no exclusive distribution rights which might make selling proprietary software somewhat difficult.

This assuming that NDAs would still be possible. In a world without copyright they might be viewed unnecessary.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

first software patent was acquired (by Goetz in '68 iirc)

Do you have more information on that? I never heard of it before. I dug around Google a bit, but can't find any quality information on it.

In particular, was it ever upheld by any court? And if so how high did it go? Just because the patent office issued a patent doesn't make it legally valid (not to mention whether it is rationally valid chuckle). As far as I'm aware the patent office issued a number of early software patents and the courts struck them down consistantly.

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[pesc]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

If you create something really novel, even if it is a plot in a book, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

Can't you see how wonderful it would be if JRR Tolkien could be awarded a monopoly on writing about Dragons? Rowlings could get a monopoly on books with young wizards? Spielberg could patent films with dinosaurs? That would advance science and culture, wouldn't it? Why should patentability be limited? Granting monopolies is good, isn't it? Because those that gets those monopolies can get rich!

You need to understand that software is written by authors. What a programmer "creates" is merely text that he can publish in a book or on the internet. Nothing else! If we introduce software patents we remove the right of expression for software authors. The author can be sued for expressing his original thoughts in a book or on the internet because he might (or might not) have stepped on a monopoly.

I think the right of expression for all authors is more important that the right to get rich by those few that can get a monopoly granted.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Hast]

There are software ideas that are unique enough to support a patent. The problem is that every software idea ends up being patented, unique or not.

This effectively makes it very hard for small and independent software developers to exist as they don't have the money to get a patent. Don't have the money to protect against lawsuits for unjustified patents (it takes a lot of money to get a patent overturned). And finally, if they some way get a patent, they can't afford to protect it.

Furthermore a problem with software is that you patent an idea and not a solution. Eg you can patent "buying items with one click" instead of the actual implementation.

My biggest gripe is that I don't see any benefits from software patents. If you can demonstrate that it has some benefits I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Wolfbone]

"I asked this [slashdot.org] in the previous patent discussion as well, but let me ask again: does anyone know of any "good" software patents? I.e. non-trivial, innovative, and realistic? The only one that came out of that previous discussion was the RSA patent, which I agree meets these criteria and as such is worthy of patent protection."

Please try and find another example - and preferably not one that is a direct assault on my freedom to study and communicate mathematics. As I have said before and elsewhere:

The RSA algorithm is neither innovative nor a non-obvious invention. The unnamed lemma (which I would call Cocks's lemma if it were up to me) from which the algorithm is derived, is a moderately interesting discovery in elementary number theory and it might reasonably be called an innovative (but tiny) piece of mathematics. The algorithm itself however, follows naturally and obviously from this lemma and when someone implements it by writing a computer program, he or she is doing nothing more than would be required to implement anything else found in an elementary mathematics text book; the discrete Fourier transform or Euclid's algorithm for example.....

.....It is intolerable (to most of us) that computational mathematics be subjected to patents in this way, no matter what the uses to which it is put: there is a vast difference in consequences between granting the monopoly right to exclusive use of a physical invention that depends on mathematical, scientific or logical ideas and doing so for the actual expression (regardless of implementation particularities) of those abstract ideas in exemplary form, as is made possible by computers.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Tim C]

Very very few people argue against copyright when it comes to software.

Which makes the constant stream of slashdot posters arguing against copyright for music, films, etc all the more gauling and hypocritical. Why should the result of my efforts be afforded special protection just because they happen to be code, rather than music?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Fire Dragon]

Patents which are too ambiguous and too general, those having no real use to an overall industry or those too similar to existing patents or existing work, should not be condoned. Companies should not even bother---it makes them seem disrespectful to the industry.

In perfect world this wouldn't happen and therefore software patents should be possible. But in the real world, where companies try to patent anything that they can, patent offices are not able to investigate wich patents are too general to be allowed. This is why you get patens for one-click, double-click, scrollbar...

Other industries have existed long before patenting and on those industries most of the common tools and technigues have been availeble for everybody to innovate. When it has gotten more complex, then came the patents. But with more complex structures you need more R&D or something really innovative to prevent anybody else of doing something basic stuff.

software industry is just too young and evolving to be limited with patents.

Not being allowed to exactly duplicate someone else's work will encourage people to try alternate solutions, or experiment with variables.

Or just forget their ideas, because they have not enough resources to find out what parts of their innovation has been already been patented. Why risking everything, when you can join the big company and work there as they have allways done.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Feztaa]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

Because your program is already protected by copyright! Having both copyright & patent protection is double-dipping, IMO. You don't see Ford taking out copyrights on their trucks, and you don't see authors patenting books.

As far as I am concerned, software should either be protected by patents, or copyrights, but NOT both. And frankly I prefer copyrights.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Wolfbone]

http://www.cbi.umn.edu/collections/inv/cbi00159.ht ml

Also google for the words "Goetz" "Autoflow" "IBM". The Goetz/IBM story is full of hindsightful ironies - who would've guessed that IBM were the original "free" software advocates and anti-software patent activists ;-)

I don't think there's all that much around on the 'net on this subject and I certainly don't know about court case specifics but I'd very much like to get a deeper insight into IBM's early anti-swpat policy myself.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[QuantumG]

In that kind of environment there's no more incentive to create a better algorithm than there is to create a crappy algorithm. Say you spend $x to create a new fast algorithm. Now say there are n people who want a product based on this algorithm. You're going to have to charge at least $x/n to each person to cover your costs. Now say after selling your product to s people a competitor enters the market by reverse engineering your product, in the process spending some $y. They can now sell their product at $y/(n-s). If that amount is less than the amount you're selling it at everyone will buy it from the new competitor instead of you.

Big deal? Well obviously before spending $x you're going to think through this possibility and opt to release a product with a crappy algorithm instead. As the n people who want the product have no-one else to buy it from they'll happily buy the product with the crappy algorithm. A competitor can enter the market also but only with an equally crappy algorithm. If they decide to make a better algorithm the above applies to them just as much as it applies to you.

Now consider if we had a fair and sensible patent system in place. You could spend $x to develop a good algorithm safe in the knowledge that you and you alone will be able to commercially exploit that algorithm for some fixed period of time. After that period of time has expired you will have recuperated your investment and can compete on price without making a loss. In fact, as any competitor who enters the market will have to spend $y to reverse engineer your design, you can easily beat them on price (as theoretically you could change $0, this being software and all).

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[frankvl]

You can already patent (really novel) software, as long as you can put it in the form of an industrial application. And if you have a lot of time and money to spare (getting a world patent costs about 150000-250000 dollar and 3 years of procedures).

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Flyboy Connor]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

There are many reasons, which others will have undoubtedly posted, but let me just give you one thought:

How is it possible to create comething novel in software without relying on the novelties thousands of other have created before?

Suppose you design a new compression algorithm. Do you really think that is possible without using many concepts which others have thought of before? If these other were allowed to patent their "novelties" (such as "conditional statements", "storing of data in a file", etc.), you would have to wait for twenty years before you could deploy your "novelty" without infringing a patent.

Of course, you can agree to pay your predecessors off. That will be quite expensive, given the fact that there are thousands of them. And you run the huge risk that one of them says that you cannot use their patent, which will basically destroy any chance you have to market your "novelty".

And this is all assuming that you will be able to track down these thousands of patents you are potentially infringing. Count on a six-figure fee for the team of lawyers you have to hire to do that for you.

And that is why software should be protected by copyrights, not patents.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

Thanx for the effort, but that link actually had less info than the other links I found. Chuckle.

Hopefully some kind soul will jump in with more info. Even a simple confirmation whether any judge ever even laid eyes on it would be nice.

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[frankvl]

You can't close the source, because it still consists of machine instructions, which are rather easy to reverse engineer by a moderately experienced individual. Copyright doesn't make any difference between open and closed source however.

And you can't get a patent on something that has been publicized before, unless it has been published as a patent in another country.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[instanto]

Because they are not patenting a product, they are patenting a common method such as waking up and putting the right leg on the floor before the left.

How about someone patenting that.... they just need to create a vague description for it, and give it a name such as "autonomous interaction with horizontal surface to attain stability and lift for bipods" and describe how 1) a person 2) waking up 3) using their legs 4) to attain lift 5) by assuming that 1 6) has 2 pair of lift mechanisms 7) interacts with surface 8) capable of ... etc.

*wham* suddenly everyone pays you money for waking up and using the right leg before the left one... or you can only wake up and roll to the left side, until somebody patents that as well. Just like One-two-three click shopping.

How about visiting your local bookstore and having to click 41 times before you can make the purchase, because the other 40 clicks were 'patented'. Not including a Soft-click, a Hard-click and a Right-left-click drag..

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Tim C]

If people will create without incentive

Some would say that the incentive is in seeing others improve upon your work and give those improvements back to the community; enforcement of this relies on copright law.

If Microsoft refuses to develop Windows because it no longer has any copyrights, then Linux is there as a replacement, and it will become 10x what Windows ever was or Linux is today once it becomes unshackled from copyright and patent issues and has the customer base of MS Windows today.

How so? The *vast* majority of the Windows customer base have no skills relevant to software development, and a very high percentage of those of us who do have no interest, time or inclination to turn those skills to improving an operating system.

Sure, Linux would undoubtedly gain some extra developers, but I'd be surprised if it was as many as you seem to think.

A small amount of federal funds would replace a massive amount spent in retail software licenses.

You seem to be confusing free and Free; RedHat Enterprise, for example, is Free, but most certainly is not free. Besides which, compared to the cost of even my graphics card, the cost of my copy of XP Pro was negligible. At work, I use development tools that cost 10x that or more - or do you envision a world in which *all* software is free?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Elektroschock]

Two important points to add:

1. Novelty: You assume that novelty matters or novelty constitutes a right. But look at many areas where novelty or beeing the first does not matter.

Try to find out why you regard novelty as important.

Silly examples e.g.
"I was the first who sold sausages together with novels. My business plan. I went bankrupt. Now someone "stole" my idea and does the same. I bear the costs of the invention."

In the Software business you usually are infringing on a patent you never read. Your own independend work is by no means influenced by the patent. Good inventions are "unique" inventions that will not get invented by others. In a patent race however not the best researcher but the smartest patent writer wins.
In the software field those persons who filed for the patents are totally unknown in the market place. They were the first to file. Americans usually stress the principle of prior art whcih plays an important role in their special "first to invent" system. However only another patent application constitute good proven prior art. You ask yourself, oh, what is new here? Patent bureaucrats will explain it. Usually software "inventors" "invent" known processes. Others, software authors write code and do not waste their time with this horrible bureaucratic overhead that has so much dangerous effects on freedom of competition and the market place.

2. Inventions: Is there such a thing as a software invention. According to the European Patent Convention software cannnot constitute an invention.

A philosophical argument: "mathematics" "patenting thoughts" etc. is always very weak in politics. Your opponents will depict you as someone with a rather religious belief that Code shall be patented. So it stands "business" against ethics. Guess who wins? The bogus business interests, i.e. the patent attorney association.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[brunos]

you do need to patent chemical processes, machines etc, because they are not covered by copyright. Software, on the other hand is already protected by copyright, and copyright is a much fairer way of protecting creativity as you have it automatically, whereas you must spend a lot of money and time to get (and defend) a patent.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Wolfbone]

Yes - but if no-one else turns up anything, the reason I gave you that link and left you to google for others is because those 30 boxes and many other documents in the University of Minnesota CBI collections would be a good place to look for this kind of historical stuff - stuff which isn't really ever likely to appear on a website. BTW - look what they use to navigate their dictionary pages!

I don't live anywhere near Minnesota and maybe you don't either but if I did, I'd certainly be sticking my nose into some of those boxes. :) What intrigues me most is the hint in the article I quoted earlier that IBM had a policy of opposing software patents.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Znork]

Yes, but you (probably, who knows these days) couldnt sue someone for patent infringement for distributing the book.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Znork]

I think you miss the point.

Software patents create a disincentive for people to engage in economic activity by removing the possibility of generating a return on an investment.

One single piece of software can easily infringe on tens or hundreds of so-called 'software patents'. Each of those patent holders can do anything from taking the entire profit to denying the distribution of said software completely.

So, how would you feel about writing some new software you wanted to sell when you know that someone else will come along and legally take your money if you ever become moderately successful?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[johannesg]

Please understand I'm playing devil's advocate here: in order to make the statement that "all software patents are evil", we must prove that there are no software patents that are "good". Which is why I am asking for examples. There are many people, even here on slashdot, who think software patents are somehow good. Let them come up with concrete examples of such "good" patents.

I agree that the notion that some modes of thought are effectively illegal, especially when related to a field in which one strives to excel, is intolerable...

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[MourningBlade]

A sibling post mentions the desire to have a "full and complete record" to allow the public to exploit inventions after they fall out of patent. This is true. Allow me to take a different tack and see if it helps explain things.

You do not have to patent an invention.

Let me stress that again: you do not have to patent an invention.

A patent is a disclosure of your invention and a description of its functioning, sufficient to make a working implementation - given the proper tools. If you give this out there is a more than reasonable chance that a competitor could solve the same problem in a different, novel way. So, many companies have their inventions remain magic, never disclosing the problems they solved or how they solved them.

This is an important concept because it phrases the patent not as a reward for your labor but as a public contract: you give the public something, the public gives you something.

So the question regarding whether or not something should be patentable should not be the effort that went into it, it should be: is the public interested in it?

This is the reason for the obviousness clause. If you were to demonstrate your product, such as a shock absorber, without revealing any of its functioning, and another company could equal or better your achievement just from looking at it, then you do not deserve a patent for that invention.

So it is with most software: how many pieces of software cannot be replicated after having their functionality demonstrated? The amount of complaining about "reverse engineering" should tell you all you need to know about that.

The "reward for things that would not be produced otherwise" is copyright. The creation and maintenance of a system whereby a company is identifiable is trademark (names, icons, colors, etc). It is easy to conflate the concepts of trademark, copyright, and patent, but they are separate and for separate purposes.

Another sibling mentioned that mathematical formulae are "discovered" not invented. This is true. Let me give you another explanation within the bounds of obviousness:

A mathematical algorithm is its functioning. Given the transformation that it supplies, you cannot help but have the algorithm itself. The algorithm is an answer: the genius is in knowing what question to ask and how to ask it. Thus the patentable invention is the application of the algorithm in a novel way.

That last bit is a bit fuzzy, sorry. it's pretty late for me.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[MourningBlade]

Excellent explanation! Care to take a stab at a similarly clear one for trademark?

That one throws a lot of people.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[david.given]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

Because software is such a specialised field that the patent office cannot distinguish between worthwhile and non-worthwhile patents.

Since the overall penalty to society for not allowing any software patents is less than the penalty for allowing the non-worthwhile patents, the only thing to do is to disallow them all.

If you could actually set up a competent software patent office who could distinguish the good patents from the stupid ones, that'd be great. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[KontinMonet]

...novel...
And here's the key word. Patents are supposed to describe something new and 'non-obvious'. But 99.9999(9)% of patents on software are utterly trivial and even any half-witted developer routinely produces simple algorithms that are blindingly obvious:

x = 2;
y = 'z';
print 'Eh? if x is not z;

is the sort of thing that springs to mind. But ISNOT is being patented.
Hardly novel or non-obvious. It doesn't contribute to the sum of human wealth and economy in any arguably sensible way that I can see.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[c0p0n]

Man, this is the best explanation I've ever seen about the evil of software patents. With your permission, I will quote the entire text everytime somebody asks me about this matter...

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[rjshields]

Newsflash: ALL patents are algorithms

Newsflash: no they're not. Amazon patented "one click ordering" - does that sound like an algorithm to you? Does it? Huh?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Halo1]

Newsflash: ALL patents are algorithms. Stop acting like this unique to computers. Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable and very obviously map into the same space as "software algorithms" and yet those are not considered controversial.

They're quite distinguishable. Suppose you have a patent on adding element A to B, wait a while and element C. Now suppose you have a patent on the software-implemented algorithm to add "A" and "B", wait a while and add "C". In the former case, the patent only applies if you are using those particular chemical elements. In the latter, it applies regardless of what A, B and C are, because a computer can't tell chemical reagent A from a bullet in Doom 3.

his is not an argument against anything. Everything machine is reducible to software, and every software is reducible to machine.

Please reduce a machine to make chocolate to software (+ a computer). You can't make chocolate with software. You need a special machine for that (of course the machine can be steered using software). It is however true that everything described in software can be turned into hardware (e.g. an fpga or an asic).

And that may exactly be the FTC report concluded that patents in the computer hardware industry and semi-conductors are generally considered to be not very efficient either.

Further, even though the intellectual achievement is quite similar (the routine and layout of the chips may require some extra time), in practice you often need either a chip fabrication line, or have to buy stock of those chips with someone else. In case of software development, almost the only investment that really counts is human capital. You don't have to setup a new assembly line for each program.

Quibbling over meaningless distinctions between identical classes of things is completely missing the point

There are indeed general problems with the patent system (e.g. triviality). However, software patents turn out to be especially sensitive to those issues, and they are in fact different. Otherwise, why would all those studies make a special case out of software?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Per Abrahamsen]

1) Because the benefit to the economy of rewarding people with patents for publising ideas, does not outweight the damage done to the economy by the monopoly. Or so the economists say.

2) Because I, as a programmer, do not want to be a lawyer as well.

3) Nor do I want to be forced to work for one of a very small number of companies, with enough patents to have cross-license agreements with each other.

4) Because no nation with software patents have ever been able to limit them to really novel and non-obvious ideas. This include the software patents granted by the illegal preactice of European Patent Office.

5) More generally, because I should be able to use my own ideas freely. Copyright limit how others can use your expressions, patents limit how others can use their own ideas.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[lucason]

"Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code"

So? We've got the original source code right? So what's the problem? The company can earn money on enhancements until someone else figures out how to do the same by creating his own code. Where is the problem.

What you are saying, is that Open souce needs copyrights because otherwise large cooperations would steal the copyright. Only... They couldn't because it wouldn't exist. Aha!

So copyright is only important to OpenSource because it exists.

If not you'd be in a Catch 22 or maybe Catch 11.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Znork]

Of course, when you've spent $x to create your new fast algorithm, and start selling it, three ip-holding companies come along and tell you that you've got to pay them each $y for their patents which your product incidentally infringes. Then your competitor decides he doesnt want your new and improved algorithm on the market, and promptly sues you for patent infringement for doing what your product does at all.

You end up unable to sell a product at all, the majority of your investment capital ends up in the pockets of others, and you go bankrupt.

Software patents cannot be commercially exploited by inventors, because any piece of software will infringe on tens, hundreds or thousands of other software patents. Your single patent will never cover the costs of procuring licenses for the rest, or the litigation risk. To benefit you need many, many patents yourself to defend against competitors, and even then those wont protect you against the no-product extortionists.

The only ones to really profit are patent lawyers. Guess who the ones who want software patents are?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[QuantumG]

Maybe you missed the part where I was advocating a fair patent system for algorithms that expire after a reasonable amount of time.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[essreenim]

Very very few people argue against copyright when it comes to software. Free software people/open source people argue against patents alone.

Yes, and thats why the term $Intellectual$Property$ is totally evil. It is an attempt to insult our intelligence and band the 2 together. In other words, if we want $IP$ protection we might well end up patenting something instead. Please stay away from that word and avoid using it. If you have to use, put dollar signs around it or something. It is written in the language of Mordor, .. which I will not utter here

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[HerbieStone]

Newsflash: ALL patents are algorithms. Stop acting like this unique to computers. Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable and very obviously map into the same space as "software algorithms" and yet those are not considered controversial.

Ignoring its application, algorithms and chemical processes are the same.
Ignoring illumination, black and white are the same.
You are oversimplyifing.

Patents are not equally bad applied for chemical prozesses and applied to algorithms.
Example: Programms work better if they use standards. Patents easily forbid the use of standards.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Nexum]

I find the following is a very useful analogy to understand the difference between what we have now, and what software patents will mean:

Right now, any code you or I write is protected by Copyright - noone can steal the code verbatim from us, that's illegal. Books and plays are copywritten in exactly the same way, they're both seen as an act of personal expression/work.

To understand the difference that patents will make, let's look at what would happen if we were able to patent elements of plays instead of software. At the moment, I can write a love play between a man and a woman, and as long as I don't copy anyone elses work verbatim (word for word) I can happily publish my new masterpiece and profit off of it. Surely no problem with this right? Noone is being harmed by my play and I'm not stopping people write any more plays whether they be love themed or not - the theatres will be very happy.

But what if we allow literary patents, which, just like software patents, will take something out of the domain of copyright and into the domain of patenting? Well we have a different story altogether:

I now can't just go ahead and write my love play - noone can, the patent for love plays is held by someone else and he has the right to sue me just for writing a play about love. Now only one man on earth has the ability to write plays about love, and I have to pay him lots of money to be able to publish my particular play.

This is what happens when things are taken out of copyright, and moved into patent law.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[KontinMonet]

Richard Stallman said:

"...an Australian government study of the patent system in the 1980's concluded that aside from international pressure, there was no reason to have a patent system. It did no good for the public and recommended abolishing it if not for international pressure."

Maggie Thatcher's favourite economist, Hayek, said:

"I am thinking here of the extension of the concept of property to such rights and privileges as patents for inventions, copyright, trade-marks, and the like. It seems to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work. In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have seriously to examine whether the award of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of risk-bearing which investment in scientific research involves."

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Halo1]

Creators are primarily motivated by money.

Actually, they're primarily motivated by competition in the software sector. If you don't innovate, your competitor will. See e.g. the FTC study.

Additionally, one person's protection is another person's limitation. Patents allow one person to make money, but inhibit a lot of others (since they're per definition monopolies). As such, they discourage follow-up innovation (after all, to be able to use your work, you will have to pay to the owner of every other patented technique you use).

In the world of software, where almost all inovation is sequential as opposed to revolutionary, this has large negative consequences.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Znork]

"Now, im sorry, but when it comes to 'novel' and 'unobvious' as pre-requsites for a patent, I imagine someone like Thomas Edison, slaving away in his workshop for years and finally producing the lightbulb and associated patent applications."

And ironically, Edison didnt invent the lightbulb, he didnt patent it (he bought the patent cheap from Woodward and Evans who were unable to secure enough funding), the patent was ruled invalid due to prior art, and finally managed to have the patent upheld by having his attorneys tamper with the evidence.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Jedi Alec]

x = 2;
y = 'z';
print 'Eh? if x is not z;

remind me to patent ISNOTDEF ;)

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Vince Mo'aluka]

Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but some people don't see anything wrong with that. That's why they created the BSD liscense.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[nickco3]

Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable and very obviously map into the same space as "software algorithms" and yet those are not considered controversial.

You can't copyright chemical processes, that's the difference. Software is legally a "literary work", and protected by copyright. I don't see how something can be both a patentable machine *and* a copyrightable literary work. If the proposal was to drop software copyrights and instead implement a patent system, then I might be prepared to consider supporting it. But that's not what's on offer.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Jedi Alec]

please allow me to be the first to patent the use of a scene "in which a persona of the male persuasion uses a musical instrument to entertain a persona of the female persuasion standing on a balcony or in front of an open window"

now, where are those descendants of shakespeare?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Vince Mo'aluka]

The Chinese government, among others, has shown that they are willing to fund open source work.

Regardless of whether or not the people support it.

I'm pro-OSS, been that way since '97. But there's no way I would ever agree that it's moral to force people to support it. The way I see it, voluntary choice is the core paradigm of OSS. People don't work on OSS because they have to; they work on it because they want to. When you invoke the force of government to fund OSS, you destroy the core paradigm of voluntary choice.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Znork]

Maybe you missed the real world where the same lawyers, IP barratry companies and declining uncompetetive large corporations who want software patents have no interest in a fair patent system for algorithms that expire, ever?

It is impossible for a patent system to be 'fair', because it is always biased towards those who have money and legal resources.

In many fields this is not a huge problem, as the barrier to entry is already so high that anyone capable to reaching that barrier may have those resources, so it becomes only a slightly harmful resource drain. Also, any single product is less likely to infringe far more patents than it itself implements.

In software it becomes deadly, as the barriers are far lower. A single inventor can create a product in his basement and sell. It's a product of the mind, not a product requiring manufacturing plants, labs, inventory purchases, etc. He will rarely have access to the resources to either patent or defend himself.

Patents as they are have outlived their usefulness. If you still want something like it to promote development I'd suggest you give the patent office a bunch of money and have them give money to the inventors, rather than monopoly rights.

That way we'd see the cost directly, rather than being subjected to it through hurting innovation, consumers and the world as a whole.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sorry, but I believe you're confusing Europe with the US. Europe did find against Microsoft, and is only discussing software patents now because they already rejected the proposal the first time around.

Europe as a whole certainly has its flaws, but its government being absurdly pro-corporation is not normally one of them.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Halo1]

Copyright and patents were intended to encourage people to make stuff that otherwise wouldn't be done. When people and organizations are willing to create an entire operating system and a collection of thousands of programs (GNU/Linux and the thousands of associated programs), the basic premise of copyright and patents is nullified.

First of all, patents have relatively little to do with open source or not. E.g. IRIS is company which has nothing to do with open source, which is very innovative and which doesn't want software patents. Patents are mainly big vs small, and not really open vs closed.

Next, Open Source and Free software do need copyright. They're built on it just as much as closed source software is.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

RMS invented the GPL to hack the copyright. If copyrights were to be abolished RMS would be dancing in the streets.

So many people say in these parts. So if a world without copyright is really what RMS wants, why doesn't he advocate something like a BSD licence, which is much more free-as-in-actual-freedom than the GPL?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Hognoxious]

I'm sorry, but I believe you're confusing Europe with the US.

I concur. Only an imbecile would think that the EU is run for the benefit of corporations. It's run for the benefit of bureaucrats, politicians and similar sinecure holders. Oh, and French farmers.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Waffle Iron]

You can patent a particular way of producing something, and explain this way in a book.

Then your something is covered by a patent, and your book is covered by a copyright. Neither one is covered by both.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[KontinMonet]

Well, it is because it follows the strict definition of having a stopping point. But is is utterly trivial and should not have gained a patent.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[KontinMonet]

...Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable...

Poor argument. They map only one way and are not used generally. How many chemical processes are used to calculate my tax or send an order after 'one-click'?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Bloater]

As an example there is a patent on using pointer exchange to swap two large data structures instead of swapping each member of the two structures. The patent applies to any software that is implementing a CPU emulation. So a very old technique is patented because nobody has documented that it has been used in a CPU emulator, even though it is just the same as any other case.

This is the problem, software is easy. It is trivially easy such that a teenager can master the most advanced of techniques. The only difficult thing is not making mistakes and missing bits out when you translate the logic into source code. That just takes discipline to write down each and every step in full and knowing how the language you are using actually works. It is thus certainly not patentable. However, I beleive that things like the psycological model that an mp3 encoder uses to select information to throw away might be reasonable to patent.

But many devices are just the sampling of a signal, then transformation, followed by the application of the result through an output device. The input device should be patentable if it is inventive and difficult, and so should the output device. The transformation used to be difficult when it consisted of cogs and cables and things. With software, when you know how the transformation should go, it is trivially easy, and thus should not be patentable.

I think this "Computer implemented invention" thing is supposed to cover the cost of discovering the necessary transformation. That could be reasonable if the transformation is a truly new and difficult thing to grasp. But I think a patent is still wrong for that. The effort has gone into mathematical calculations of the relationship between the input and output and the acceptable margins, and that effort should be protected enough to allow people to produce without cheap duplicates running the original producer out of business.

I think that the discovery of scientific knowledge for business purposes should be protected. That is what patents are supposed to do, but that has nothing to do with software, and no software technique should be patentable. Only the application of a specific transformation to convert a particular defined input to a particular defined output to complete a given physical (*not* logical) task should be covered. How you make the software do that is always trivial and should be always unpatentable. Making levers and cogs do it is hard and could be intrinsically patentable but not software.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Halo1]

Free Software needs copyright law like a hole in the head. Free Software would like a world without copyrights on software.

You obviously have no clue about how the GPL or copyright work.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[NoOneInParticular]

Beating a dead horse, but okay. RMS does not want a BSD-license because someone can come along and lock up the software again under copyright, viz. Microsoft's ftp client. What he wants to achieve is that the software is free, but more importantly, that it stays free. This until the copyright runs out, and then its free for ever. A BSD-style license can not guarantee that. Only when copyright on software is completely abolished there is no need anymore for a copyleft license.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[sbrown123]

EU is not for the benefit of citizens, but for the benefit of corporations.

EU is not for the benefit of corporations. EU allows for trade and business between and outside of member states. A cattle rancher in the UK could be hurt or assisted by trade regulation enforced by the EU with the United States. That cattle rancher is not a corporation, but an individual doing business within trade laws enforced by the EU that his/her country is a member there of.

It is a market, not a democracy.

Actually, it is a democracy. All member states have equal representation and vote. It has a presidency that is regularly rotated.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[lfourrier]

Europe did fight against MS, for years, with no result in view.
Looking to the proposed constitution, what is garanteed is liberal politic.
And European governments pass 90% of their time converting in national legislations decision from the inelected commission.
Europe was Economic Comunity of Coal and Steel, then European Economic Community, and essentially a big market (Marché Unique, in french, not sure about the english translation).
Politics want to introduce a constitution, giving an illusion of power to peoples, but it is historically and basically a pro-business construction.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[mOdQuArK!]

Patents provide the incentive for people to engage in economic activity by protecting their investment, whether you call it discovery or invention, it makes no difference practically.

That's what people keep claiming they're supposed to do, but no one has actually done effective studies to see whether the net effect is a benefit for a society or a detriment. In absence of such proof (and with many stories of how the system is being abused), we should err on the side of more market freedom & allow people to do what they wish with their own private property instead of giving other people the power to restrict the expression of arbitrary ideas.

If a society wants to encourage inventions, then it would be a _lot_ more straightforward to just pool money together and pay people to do research on useful things. Then anybody smart enough could take the fruits of that research & make a buck based on it.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

Yea, you're right. I did sorta ignore anything other than the GPL. Guess I shoulda left it at "Free Software" instead of "Free Software/Open Source Software"

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Halo1]

Free Software wants a world without copyrights, where anyone can share the software. Copyright stands between Free Software and its goals. So it uses copyright the best way it can to achieve something close to these goals. The GPL is an artificial construct to get as close as possible to a state of no-copyright. If there were no copyright laws, the Free Software Foundation and GPL would no longer need to exist, as all software would in fact be free.

In a world without copyright, all software would be public domain and not Free in the sense of the GPL/FSF. It would be more like a BSD license without any requirement for attribution.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

Heh, I can't tell if you're being serious or not...but have fun qouting. Read the other comments before you do so though, some of the other slashdotters have posted some good responses to it. I'm sure someone like RMS or some of the other good, insightful people of our day have written something much better.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Europe did fight against MS, for years, with no result in view.

They were handed down a significant fine after Steve B himself camr over to try and talk them out of it, and was pretty much told to go away. They also had various other restrictions imposed, IIRC including producing a version of Windows without Media Player built in. These decisions were upheld in the second highest court in Europe recently, and although the EU people waited until the outcome of the US action was clear, the actual proceedings in Europe were much faster than the laughable "justice" department in the US managed. Europe's response was proportionate, reasonably timely, and has been upheld when challenged. How is that fighting for years, and with no result in view? Did you expect them to order Microsoft broken up and a fine of 95% of their bank balance or something?

And European governments pass 90% of their time converting in national legislations decision from the inelected commission.

That's hardly true. And while some of the bureaucracy is clearly asinine, they've also given us things like the European Convention on Human Rights and the Working Time Directive. Both of these have brought significant improvements for many people here in the UK, often at the expense of business.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[AviLazar]

Also, on a minor note, corporations are run by people and employ people. Their profitability helps ensure people have jobs and that new quality technology gets created.

Corporations != Satan...PResident Bush = Satan :D

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[j. andrew rogers]

You can't copyright chemical processes, that's the difference.

Yes you can. You can copyright the recipe -- it does not describe implementation except in abstract terms. Just like real software patents. And you can own the copyright on an implementation of software when someone else owns a patent on the underlying algorithm. My description of a chemical process implementation is most certainly copyrighted, and the underlying process can be patented as well. So try again.

And "one-click" patents are not really software patents, and asserting as much is clouding the issue. If you want real software patents, look at something more like RSA et al.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Wolfbone]

" Sigh. Listen, moron."

Your definition of moron must be rather unusual - Unlike your good self, I have found that Jonas is able to read and easily comprehend what he has read:

"All this can be found on the Free Software Foundation's website, if you ever took the trouble to visit it."

What is Copyleft

The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public domain (18k characters), uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software (18k characters). They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.

In the GNU project, our aim is to give all users the freedom to redistribute and change GNU software. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might have many users, but those users would not have freedom. So instead of putting GNU software in the public domain, we ``copyleft'' it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[baadfood]

Well then. My life is a lie. And not even the people I belive should have patents deserve them.

patents must die!

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Yartrebo]

The average windows user might not be savvy, but if Linux is now the dominant platform, every manufacturer will have to release the product Linux-ready or else they will cut themselves out of the largest market.

As far as cost goes, an equivalent Windows set up using proprietary software would be very expensive:
- WinXP Pro $300 - replaces Linux Fedora Core 3 (free) and many basic usilities like fdisk and telnet.
- SSH client + SSH server $???
- IIS server replaces Apache $???
- Photoshop replaces GIMP $???
- MSVC++ commercial edition replaces GCC
- MS Office replaces Open Office $200 to $300
- Video editing software
- Anti-Virus software
- FTP server.
- IRC client
- scheduling software replaces atd and crond
- Partition Magic replaces fdisk, mke2fs, and fstab $30?
- and a whole lot more.
In all, it could easily cost me $5,000 in software to get a Windows box with similar functionality, and I would be bound by a whole slew of EULAs and would not have any source code.

Also, while it would be similar, it would be inferior. I need to purchase licenses to at least a dozen and perhaps close to a hundred different programs, and I have to install them all one at a time. If the setup gets messed up by some all-too-common spyware, I have to start over from scratch and hope I have all the install disks and serial numbers so I don't have to buy anything twice.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[lfourrier]

your advance in UK are compromise. They are backward movement in France.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

you're right. However, the larger a corporation gets, the more they *typically* forget any moral or social responsibility, and become simply greedy. For example, SCO. How is SCO benefitting technology with what it's doing right now? How is it benefitting anyone but the small amount of lawyers it employs, and the small amount of shareholders? SCO was a large company at one point. Walmart is another example. Walmart employs much child labor, runs out every business it can, and generally does harm to the world, plus it treats the great majority of its employees like *crap*, paying minimum wage, and immediately destroying any concept of a union.

It's not the small corporations I'm worried about, it's the ones that help to increase the class divide that annoy me.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[LuSiDe]

Open source software, and free software *depend* on copyright. Yes, depend on it.

Not by definition. Source code ('software') can be open source and / or free software *and* public domain; public domain means its *not* copyrighted.

Open source software, and free software *depend* on copyright. Yes, depend on it. Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. Basically, it'd defeat the point of the difference between "free", and "Free".

Regarding 'depend on it'. The GPL (and LGPL) depends more on it than say the BSD license (orginal or revised), MIT (or X11). There's some chances developers who use the BSD license (or any license i named after that one) wouldn't mind their software be public domain whereas the GPL tries to prevent the code to be liberal in the sense of being public domain, or similar (with the same rights, almost or ~ the same rights as PD source code).

Long message short: Open source software and / or free software != GPL by definition. There are licenses which allow: Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. but still are defined as open source and / or free software! Examples: BSD licensed (original, revised), MIT (aka X11), or (although not licensed at all, since there's no copyright claimed on it) simply public domain source code.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

Someone's already brought up this point, I apologized for including the term open source software ("Free Software" (with a capital F) is used solely with the gpl), and agreed that I did leave out BSD licenses and such. I award you -1 Redundant.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[LuSiDe]

("Free Software" (with a capital F) is used solely with the gpl)

Heh. Thats new to me, and i think its BS. Free software is simply the definition put by the FSF. Free software doesn't equal the GPL. The GPL is an example of a free software license (FSF's definition). This fact can simply be proven by going to the Gnu.Org website. There the FSF states a number of licenses which are GPL-compatible and which are GPL-incompatible; those which are GPL-incompatible may or may not be free software -- some indeed are free software.

People generally use Capitals to show something is of Importance to them. For example, President of Germany, Queen of England, Your Rights are screwed -- etcetera. I generally don't follow these (written or unwritten) rules myself, except by definition for names (of people and places, not titles) and when i start a new sentence. I'm certainly not gonna do it with 'Free Software', implying that when i use 'Free Software' i mean the GPL alone and when i use 'free software' i mean... FSF's definition of free software -- quite idiotic IMO.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

A patent "applicable to software" is a patent that prevents someone from using software to implement at least some of: the functional means, method steps, or logic processes, of the claimed invention.

And as I said, there is no such thing as a logic invention.

Logic patents are absurd.

If you invent a physical object or a physical process you may be eligible for a patent. You cannot get a patent on a number or an equation simply because no one ever wrote down that number or equation before. The US Supreme Court has ruled all algorithms and math are automatically deemed part of familiar prior art. See Parker v Flook.

The invention could be a process or device that could be implemented in whole or in part by software.

An invention can certainly in part make use of software. As per the cited Supreme Court ruling, any patent where the supposed "invention" is wholly software automatically fails on novelty grounds.

Give it up.

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

Okay, okay, there we go, I made another mistake then. What I meant to say was "Free software" is used with GPL-compatible licenses solely. Sorry. No, there's no difference between free software and Free software, except that the capital F usually reminds people that we're not talking about money. Most people on slashdot, if they capitalize Free in Free software, it means GPL-compatible.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Xepo]

Wow, okay, you officially pwned me with that last one. Yea, you're right, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

(Writing GPL-compatible made me go, wait a second, that couldn't be right, I checked the list of GPL-compatible licenses, and it lists everthing you were saying.)

Anyway, maybe I'm just confused and I have my own definition of it. I always thought of "Free software" meaning anything with a copyleft sort of license, and "Open source" as any software that has the source available. After questioning that definition, I'm not positive that my definitions match up to everyone else's. Anyway, sorry for wasting your time.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[c0p0n]

I was totally serious. Yeah, you can discuss some things here and there, but I think that it's a very good description of the problem for the non-techies.

Thank you :)

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

I dunno, "First patent issued for X" seems pretty pretty pointless. The real issue is the extent of valid patents. With "valid" dividing into potentially non-identical catagories of what lower courts have actually upheld, and the deeper issue of whather ther lower courts are upholding invalid patents in violation of Supreme Court Rulings.

-

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Alsee]

A microprocessor is logic

No, a microprocessor is not logic.
To the extent you are reffering to an invention teaching about a novel and non-obvious physical object and harnessing the forces of nature in a novel and non-obvious way then you have a patent.

However I don't think that is what you are referring to. I think what you are reffering to generally FAILS to qualify for patents at all. Even the idiot lower courts that routinely rule in favor of software patents reject the patentability of what you are referring to. What you are refering to is actually integrated circuit topography. This is covered by sui generis coverage under copyright law. NOT patents. To any extent that processors resemble "logic" they are more accurately described as having copyright-type protection. I'll admit I only have a passing familiarity with this sui generis protection, but I'd wager you've never even heard of it. You are the one who has no idea what you are taking about.

Wrong again. You apparently don't know what "novelty" means

I'm the one citing Supreme Cort rulings, you're the one doing nothing but tossing insults. You apparently didn't bother looking up the referrence, so were it is explicitly:

Whether the 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.

Software, in the absence of any novel and non-obvious physical object or any novel and non-obvious physical process, is nothing but a purely mathematical formula. It is treated as a familiar part of the prior art.

Addition is not an invention and is not patentable. Calculus is not an invention and is not patentable. The pythagorean formula is not an invention and is not patentable. And while the mathematical formula for a given peice of software is long and complex, it is still not an invention and is not patentable.

Any court ruling otherwise is not only stupid for violating the mental steps doctrine, but they are in direct violation of standing Supreme Court law.

software on a machine-readable medium is patentable

The US patent office certainly issues them, and lower courts have at times upheld them (actually I think there was a recent signifigant appellate strikedown/change in media patentability), but upholding any such patent is clearly in violation of the Supreme Court rulings. The problem is that the Supreme Court is busy and can only review a tiny fraction of cases. Patents are a fairly un-sexy area of law and such cases are rarely taken up. But even in the face of such a busy court, it is absolutely appaling that they have not addressed the feild in the last TWENTY FOUR YEARS. And with that neglect, the lower courts have absolutely run amuck in violation of Supreme Court rulings.

Give it up. Or at least include an actual claim or argument in your next post. Something more than an unfounded insult that I don't know what I'm talking about.

-

Oops.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're at it again and they're not waisting any time.

Would you say they're throwing there weight around?

Re:Oops.

[Anonymous Coward]

Weight, theirs a eror n Slahsdot?

Re:Oops.

[thej1nx]

I'd say the chances of their winning are rather slim.

Re:Oops.

[saned]

They're at it again and they're not waisting any time.

I'd say more like they're shooting from the hip.

-P@

Re:Oops.

[notanatheist]

I'd say "there throwing their wait around" if I were the Anonymous Coward but I'm not so I'll just get modded down for trolling instead.

Should I....

[Azh Nazg]

Should I interpret this as "European Software Patents 'Not Dead Yet'"?

Re:Should I....

[thej1nx]

Coming up next...Sega Dreamcast sues showing prior art of its "Zombie Revenge".

Re:Should I....

[Jubii]

I immediately thought of Monty Python's Holy Grail scene:

Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.

Re: Should I....

[Alwin Henseler]

Should I interpret this as "European Software Patents 'Not Dead Yet'"?

Better interpret this as "EU democracy and software patents mutually exclusive".

Meaning: If the EU still has a grain of democracy left, then software patents should be dead. Or, if software patents get passed somehow, EU democratic principles are proven dead.

Either way, Netcraft will confirm it.

Re:Should I....

[einhverfr]

Should I interpret this as "European Software Patents 'Not Dead Yet'"?

Right. Just a flesh wound.

Re:Should I....

[einhverfr]

To give credit where due: Monty Python reference.

Re:Should I....

[Azh Nazg]

You say this almost as though almost anyone on here could, at a moment's notice, give a script of that entire scene.

Re:Should I....

[einhverfr]

You say this almost as though almost anyone on here could, at a moment's notice, give a script of that entire scene.

Given the popularity of Monty Python among Geeks and the slashdot crowd, and its impact on tech culture (including the word spam) do I really need to give refernece to the seen?

Ok, if anyone doesn't know what the scene is, reply here and I will post a more detailed reference....

Re: Should I....

[RWerp]

Because? I'm against this directive, but why does passing it mean that EU democratic principles are dead?

Re:Should I....

[RWerp]

Sure. The directive will probably pass to second reading, because Poland will not block it this time -- too much pressure from other countries.

Re: Should I....

[nkh]

Because we (the citizen) haven't been asked to vote whether for or against it?

Re: Should I....

[NoOneInParticular]

Because European parliament has voten and decided that software in unpatentable. Parliament has this authority. The council now ignores the parliament and tries to push it through. Hence undemocratic.

For me as a Dutchman, there's another thing going on as well. The Dutch parliament has instructed our government to *not* allow software patents. Obviously the Dutch ministers are now voting in *favour* of software patents in the council. Not sure if similar stuff is happening in other countries, but it's really annoying to see two successfull lobbies in the two correct democratic bodies being ignored, apparently without repercussions.

For all Dutch ./ readers out there; the Dutch minister of Economic Affairs is Brinkhorst, and unlike his party (D'66), he's apparently not convinced by the importance of the Dutch parliament. Let him know that you won't vote for his party if he continues to ignore Dutch parliament here.

Re: Should I....

[RWerp]

Do you vote on everything personally in your country? Those ministers that are pushing the directive through didn't come from Mars, did they?

Stay tuned

[Staplerh]

Hmm. Guess we'll have to wait until next Monday for more definate information. From TFA:

That the matter would be settled for good next Monday, Luxembourgs Economics Minister Jeannot Krecke for one announced at a meeting of the European Parliament's Legal Committee this Wednesday.

Hmm.. Guess we'll get yet ANOTHER Slashdot story on Monday - if Ms. Krecke is correct in her prediction. Oh well, this is a matter of importance and I suppose as many news stories/comments as we can read, the better informed we'll all be on the subject!

Re:Stay tuned

[lkratz]

Mr. Krecke ... it's a man

Jeannot Krecké Luxembourg ministry of economy.

Re:Stay tuned

[gstoddart]

Hmm.. Guess we'll get yet ANOTHER Slashdot story on Monday - if Ms. Krecke is correct in her prediction.

I wonder if the Ms Krecke is conspiring with the Slashdot editors to make sure they don't run out of dupes? =)

I'm still waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

er, "wating" for confirmation from Netcraft.

In Europe, Only Old People Support Software Patent

[XChilde]

:-)
Is it true?

Déjà vu in Brussels

[dweezil-n0xad]

This reminds me, next month is FOSDEM (Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting) in Brussels: http://www.fosdem.org. I suggest we raid the EU headquarters and talk some sense into the EU ministers.

Waisting time?

[jd]

Execs are blasted as "fat cats", politicians are accused of pork barreling, it's no wonder they're all getting overweight.

usually el-reg stories are posted quicker

[nzkbuk]

The Register story http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/12/patent_mep s_resolution/

Why not be pedantic?

[KarmaBlackballed]

The difference between invention and discovery is an arrogant illusion.

Re:Why not be pedantic?

[freedom_india]

Hey i like your saying. Pretty deep stuff and insightful.

Re:Why not be pedantic?

[excessive]

So, does are you saying that the telephone was discovered or that America was invented...?

Re:Why not be pedantic?

[KarmaBlackballed]

The mechanism by which voice can be carried on wires was discovered. Bell and Watson were trying out various combinations of microphone materials and electricity until they discovered the right combination.

It seems reasonable that even the most complex creations of man are nothing more, and nothing less, than the intelligent assemblage of various smaller discoveries. The end result is the discovery that putting them together in a certain fashion does something useful.

And America was discovered.

no duh

[edward.virtually@pob]

of course they're not dead. software patents benefit the corporations that control the governments, so they will eventually be installed in all countries. you'd think people would get the message from the backdoor process that was used to almost install them on eu countries this time. don't count on stopping it again.

Re:no duh

[thogard]

The only way to stop it is to get enough people to fund laws that explicitly stop them. The current situation is mostly that there isn't anything on the books specific one way or the other and a few companies are trying to swing that to their side and the opposition only seems to be stopping that, not swinging legislation all the way to the other side.

Re:no duh

[gearry]

Laws are installed now too eh? I hope they come with a better unintsaller than some of the software I have seen on computers lately. My guess is that some of these laws will be engineered much like spyware, so embedded in the system that the only way to fix them is to erase the whole mess and start over. ;)

Re:no duh

[edward.virtually@pob]

when making a spelling/grammer gibe, it's usually best to avoid making such errors yourself. :-) but yeah, i should have used 'enacted' in that context to be canonical.

Valid point, however....

[maxwells_deamon]

I think that a very limited term of copyright is useful to thr promotion of progress...

Strictly limted ( 5/10 years or only as long as supported ) and no patents

That said, a valid view point would be to make all software free and open. If someone "steals" the code and modifies it so what. If there modified version is not better it would die on the vine.

Re:Valid point, however....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to patent/copyright the correct spelling of words in the English language. At least no one on /. will be able to sue me then.

Sheesh. Give me a damn address and I'll send you a dictionary, for fuck's sake.

Re:Valid point, however....

[novakyu]

I think that a very limited term of copyright is useful to thr promotion of progress...

Strictly limted ( 5/10 years or only as long as supported ) and no patents

I'm not sure if such blanket solution will even be fair. There are some materials that 5-10 years is too short for copyright period: books, work of art, etc. Copyright covers far more than software, and, well, for software, 5-10 years will still be too long (anyone 'still use Windows 98 or Office 98?).

I think US currently has the copyright law set up so that it's effective for a few decades after the author's death---now, I think that's just absurd. Why can't we have copyrights expire along with the author's life? It seems to be that would be just the right time to release everything to the public domain.

Re:Valid point, however....

[mpe]

There are some materials that 5-10 years is too short for copyright period: books,

Even this case is debatable, considering that many books go "out of print" within less than this time. Most books (,movies and music) make most of their sales within a fairly short time of their publication. One one thing which does tend to boost sales of old books is if the same author has published a new book. There's also a more fundermental issue of how much copyright, especially very long copyright, acts as an incentive to authors, poets, musicians, etc.

I think US currently has the copyright law set up so that it's effective for a few decades after the author's death---now, I think that's just absurd. Why can't we have copyrights expire along with the author's life? It seems to be that would be just the right time to release everything to the public domain.

Having copyright expire on an author's death might well have the effect of putting a price on certain people's heads.

Re:Valid point, however....

[sangreal66]

A lot of copyrights are owned by corporations. AND THEY NEVER DIE

Corporate copyrights are generally shorter than individual copyrights. Invidual copyrights are the authors life + 70 years. Corporate copyrights are 90 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.

Re:Valid point, however....

[Pofy]

>I'm not sure if such blanket solution will even
>be fair. There are some materials that 5-10
>years is too short for copyright period: books,
>work of art, etc.

Are you saying that for the majority of books, if the copyright had only lasted, say, 10 years, the writers would have argued, that it is too short and that it is not worth writing the book? I doubt that.

You seem to have missed the point and reason for copyright to start with. It is to encourage the creation of new work for the society to experience and have. The purpose is not to be able to make as much money for as long as possible. Actually, too long copyright time hinder creation in part, since you don't have to create new work. Instead you can live off old work.

In almost any case, be it books, movies of computer software or anything else covered by copyright, a time frame of 5 to 10 years is more than adequate for the creator to be able to make enough money to be motivated to make the creation. Any length after that does not in any way promote the creation of new art and other works.

Re:Valid point, however....

[BlueStrat]

"Copyright covers far more than software, and, well, for software, 5-10 years will still be too long (anyone 'still use Windows 98 or Office 98?). "

Just to point out, I *do* still have a copy of Win98SE that originally came with this machine and a legit copy of Office '97 on one partition (now multiple harddrives, and usually at least 3 different linux distros, including a recent freeBSD 5.3 install). I still use it for gaming and the times when compatibility issues force it, and there's still updates (for now). The 5-10 year limit might still be too long, but not for that example. That is if you favor software patents in the first place.

Strat

Re:Valid point, however....

[novakyu]

Are you saying that for the majority of books, if the copyright had only lasted, say, 10 years, the writers would have argued, that it is too short and that it is not worth writing the book? I doubt that.

Should I cite Tolkien who protested the pirated version of his The Lord of Rings being sold in U.S. and appealed to fans not to buy the pirated version? (O.K. Now, I don't remember how far from the original publication of TLOR it was, but the point remains valid.) I would think authors do care about their intellectual property, and some things (books, work of fiction) stay "up-to-date" for much longer than some other things (software, some new invention).

Besides, who says the purpose of copyright is to encourage creation of original work? I think you are confusing copyright with patent. So far as I know, the purpose of copyright is for the protection of the intellectual property.

Would you say (if you live in U.S.) that the first amendment is incentive to speak up and criticize the government? Of course not! But it is a protection of one's right to do so.

Re:Valid point, however....

[novakyu]

The Constitution of the United States of America.

Where in the Constitution? I can't find a single word "copyright" or even "patent" in the whole of the Constitution and the Amendments.

Am I missing something?

Re:Valid point, however....

[Pofy]

True, iot never says copyright or patent, those are the means to fullfill what it says though. From article 1, section 8 clause 8:

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

It only mentiones writings and inventions though were one can say that inventions is covered through patents and writings through copyright. Do note that the principles of copyrights for example, existed far before the consitition was created so that concept was just taken not made up to fullfill the consitution. I am sure someone more knowledge in the consitution and the story and thinking behind it can tell more (I am note even an american, just looked it up for now). I am sure there are more text to tell the reasoning behind various parts and so on.

The Ministers of what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"....the Ministers of Agriculture in their meeting of the EU Council of Agriculture and Fisheries on Monday are to give the nod to the controversial position of the EU Council of Ministers on the Directive on the Patentability of "computer-implemented inventions"".

Isn't that a bit like asking the Minister of Defence if they think the tax system should be revised? Or asking the Minister for Education what his thoughts are on creating a new highway?

I'm beginning to see why so many Europeans don't take the EU seriously.

Re:The Ministers of what?

[lordholm]

Yes, it is sort of like that. I do believe that it is illegal for them to do it (correct me if I'm wrong).

And many Europeans are always pissed on the Council and their undemocratic methods (they are not directly elected, but they have lawmaking power).

The thing is that ppl are complaining on the Council and the lack of democracy in the EU and at the same time, the same ppl are crying out loud on every attempt to move power from the Council to the Parlament (they are basically afraid of the superstate of Europe); however, a federal path for Europe is the only way to go for ensuring democratic legiticy for the EU.

(And of course the EP voted no to SW patents the last time)

Re:The Ministers of what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right. The agriculturalists are the main beneficiaries of "Europe" and a complete industry has been created on subsidies.

Besides that, they have absolutely no business discussing, let alone deciding, on the software patents issue. They have absolutely no knowledge or understanding of the subject matter.

Re:The Ministers of what?

[DataCannibal]

The people on this committee have no idea about agriculture either.

Re:The Ministers of what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is, as far as I know, pretty much the same as when other, sometimes totally unrelated, decisions are piggybacked onto a bill that is to be aproved by congress. I.e. a small decission that has been agreed upon and passed on just to expediate the process.

In the EU council this procedure seems to be called A-list agendas. Things on the A-list agenda is supposed to be agreed upon beforehand and should be possible to go to vote on without any discussion.

OTOH I just might be smoking crack and pulling all of this out of my *ss

Re:The Ministers of what?

[KontinMonet]

Nope. That's a succinct enough explanation..

Re:The Ministers of what?

[pjt33]

The thing is that ppl are complaining on the Council and the lack of democracy in the EU and at the same time, the same ppl are crying out loud on every attempt to move power from the Council to the Parlament (they are basically afraid of the superstate of Europe); however, a federal path for Europe is the only way to go for ensuring democratic legiticy for the EU.

You seem to be confusing two orthogonal issues. Movement of power from the Council to the Parliament is much-needed reform: the federal issue is about movement of power from the constituent states to the EU and, IMO, highly objectionable. The EU should get its house in shape before asking its member states for more power - and even then I don't see why it needs its own army.

Re:The Ministers of what?

[Scarblac]

You seem to be confusing two orthogonal issues. Movement of power from the Council to the Parliament is much-needed reform: the federal issue is about movement of power from the constituent states to the EU and, IMO, highly objectionable.

The Council consists of the governments of the constituent states.

Which is why you can't move power away from the council while not moving it away from the constituent states. Exactly what the parent to your post was talking about.

Don't ever believe your government when it says it was forced by the EU to do something - they had a veto on that in the Council, but chose to accept the thing (probably in return for some favour by some other government).

Re:The Ministers of what?

[pjt33]

You seem to be confusing two orthogonal issues. Movement of power from the Council to the Parliament is much-needed reform: the federal issue is about movement of power from the constituent states to the EU and, IMO, highly objectionable.

The Council consists of the governments of the constituent states.

Which is why you can't move power away from the council while not moving it away from the constituent states. Exactly what the parent to your post was talking about.

The state and the government are distinct. Taking power away from the government doesn't necessarily take it away from the state. Moving power from the government to the directly elected representatives of the people would more closely mirror the balance between government and state, at least in the UK.

Don't ever believe your government when it says it was forced by the EU to do something - they had a veto on that in the Council, but chose to accept the thing (probably in return for some favour by some other government).

I doubt Tony would allow a minister to say something so off-message, but that's not what I'm worried about: my concern is the government saying to the Houses of Parliament, in effect, "We've ganged together with other governments to force you lot to do foobar".

As far as vetoing goes, isn't part of the move towards federalism to eliminate most vetos?

Re:The Ministers of what?

[nutshell42]

As far as vetoing goes, isn't part of the move towards federalism to eliminate most vetos?

Yes but the constitution would at the same time drastically strengthen the position of the European Parliament and national parliaments. See here

It's not perfect because the national governments tried to retain as much power for the council as possible but it's better than the situation now because the EP could face the Council as an equal. (That doesn't automatically improve the situation of course. Because as the EP gets more powerful lobbying would intensify but one of the advantages of the EP is the high number of different parties. For effective lobbying you'd have to own influential MEPs from the major parties in at least a dozen EU countries because due to national rivalries party whips lack the influence they have in more homogenous environments)

jm2c

there is only one way to stop this nonsense

[geekoid]

it is for all developers and techlogist to go on strike until it is against WTO policy for a country to have software patents.

It would be in place in a week.

Re:there is only one way to stop this nonsense

[Benaiah]

The american economy would be screwed if it didnt have ip laws. Look at what you have done in the name of globalisation. You have outsourced all of your IT to india. All of your textiles to china and soon with the free trade agreement youll lose farming to australia. IP is all thats gonna keep u from the third world.

Re:there is only one way to stop this nonsense

[1u3hr]

with the free trade agreement youll lose farming to australia

As an Australian, I wish. Unfortunately, American products, particularly wheat, will continue to unfairly take markets due to the massive subsidies that will continue in one guise or another.

Re:there is only one way to stop this nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

not when the third world is a burnt out hull! BOMBS AWAY!

Re:dont think so

[Fire Dragon]

patents create property. property is wealth. patents like all property create wealth. the more varieties of property in society the greater the wealth that can be created. the better off society as a whole becomes. you only need to look at the US versus poorer countries. it is the enforcement of property rights that has created wide spread wealth.


Weapons create property. property is wealth. Weapons like all property create wealth. the more varieties of weapons in society the greater the wealth that can be created. the better off society as a whole becomes. you only need to look at the US versus poorer countries. it is the enforcement of others property rights that has created wide spread wealth.

Reminds me of a joke

[coaxial]

Q: How many polocks does it take to stop software patents from being created in Europe?
A: A simple majority.

Wait. That's not funny.

Re:Reminds me of a joke

[pioSko]

no, it sure is NOT funny. Americans (and Europeans) see Poles as "dumb" people. Americans tell jokes. Europeans are diplomatic, but do the same. However, all you need to do is look back in history to see the achievements polish inventors, doctors, engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, scientists, authors, artist (..and others) have created. (getting too "off-topic" so i'll stop here)

Re:Reminds me of a joke

[coaxial]

my grandparents were from poland.

Re:Reminds me of a joke

[coaxial]

Not to beat a dead horse, but there's the inherent irony of the country of stupids saving the the countries of intelligence from their wise ideas.

Re:Reminds me of a joke

[coaxial]

My grandparents were Irish. Can I get away with telling Irish jokes? Well, sometimes, because the Irish tend to laugh at everything, but they also laugh while beating the crap out of you for crossing the offensiveness line.

But then they'll start crying about it. Drink does that to people. :)

Re:dont think so

[Anonymous Coward]

> patents like all property create wealth.

Property doesn't *generate* wealth! Patents prevent other people from generating wealth, not that patents are property to begin with, but let's not let the facts get in the way of your delusions.

Take 5 minutes...

[chrisvdb]

... and write to your minister of agriculture, if you're a EU citizen!

Let them know that software patents are important enough to deserve a proper discussion in the parliament. Add why *you* think they are important (and wrong).

For the Belgians and the Dutch: http://www.softwarepatenten.be/landbouwraad.
For the rest of us: http://ffii.org/.

Please, take this 5 minutes, it's worth it.

Chris.

Re:Take 5 minutes...

[Albanach]

Let them know that software patents are important enough to deserve a proper discussion in the parliament.

Software Patents have been discussed in the Parilament, and were rejected. The member Govwenments and unelected European Commission are now attempting to circumvent the Parliament's decision.

Re:Take 5 minutes...

[NoWhereMan]

Please, take this 5 minutes, it's worth it.

I would recommend taking another minute to sign the Thank You for the previous effort to kill these patents. It requires you to validate your email address to give the petition more weight.

Re:In Europe, Only Old People Support Software Pat

[novakyu]

How about, "In Europe, Only Old People Patent Software"?

Lobby with Dollars not Euros

[diprovo]

It isn't a coincidence that the 'new' members of the EC are succesfully opposing the patent legislation while the others behave like sheep. The patent lobby is not yet established in those countries yet. Now they realized they forget something there and now they come to those countries with their dollars (not euros) and 'buy' their votes for their assets. Fortunately for them these countries have a low price level so it will be a bargain after all. It's such a simple game once you notice it.

The EU is shooting its own foot

[Handbrewer]

Supporting Open Source software by not introducing software patents is the best thing we can do for our trade balance. By using more and more Open Source instead of paying overseas countries for commodity software like Operating Systems and Office suites the more likely it is that Europes own software packages sell more than we import from Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe etc.

That is a solid argument for the MEPs. Something they can understand.

Im all for copyright legislation because it protects Open Source aswell as commercial endeavours - that is very important, but patents on software algorithm and ideas should not be possible, next thing you know someone is patenting pi - or atleast the first five decimals :).

Re:The EU is shooting its own foot

[Spad]

The MEPs are against software patents in the majority. They actually started listening after all their constituants wrote to them and told them how bad software patents would be.

The vote went against patents in the European Parliament but despite that, thanks to ample pressure from big, largely US based, business interests, the European council of ministers seems determined to force the legislation through.

This is one of the reasons that it's actually had some level of mainstream media coverage, because it's widely seen as being such an undemocratic decision if it goes through.

The Pro-Patent Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

I attended the meeting where the UK Patent Office explained its pro-software patent position.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/14/patent_dir ective/

Their strongest argument was that a lot of things that used to be done entirely with hardware are increasingly done in software, so software patents are needed to replace hardware patents.

For example, electronic companies want to keep the same type of patent coverage for the next generation of their products (with more embedded code) as they are used to having. And what's wrong with that?

The UK Patent Office is aware that patents *may* be damaging to pure software, but believes that the "technical effect" rule will prevent this. Unfortunately they were utterly unconvincing when pressed for detail.

Their big picture is that the benefits of software patents to other parts of the economy (e.g. 'phone companies) will be greater than any harm to open source software.

Re:The Pro-Patent Argument

[Fire Dragon]

The UK Patent Office is aware that patents *may* be damaging to pure software, but believes that the "technical effect" rule will prevent this. Unfortunately they were utterly unconvincing when pressed for detail.

I'm against software patens in general, but the case with drivers or any internal chip-related software has its points.

Problem is, how to make real difference between firmware and software. Hacking some chip to do something else that it was originally designed for is something innovative and does not prevent somebody else to do similar tasks with diffrent chip.

What comes to patens and open source software, something done in OSS and being published shouldn't(can't) be patented by closed software companies. But does the patent office have resources and skills to find it out. And if copyrights of GPL'd software are violeted, who has the resources to correct situation.

Re:The Pro-Patent Argument

[KontinMonet]

The 'technical effect' is a weasel phrase that allows any form of software patent. The FFII has shown how ridiculous this is by assuming a 'book implemented invention':

"Imagine a book, so the technical effect of a book would occur when your hands get lame from changing the pages or the eye movement tires you. Therefore we had proven that a reduction of letters causes a technical effect. Book-implemented inventions that contribute to more efficient use of letter space thus involve a technical effect and can get patented. The mere handling and displaying of information as such however cannot get patented."

And there's plenty more to show what nonsense a 'technical effect' is. I've seen it argued that 'technical effect' will have the same effect as 'reasonable doubt' and that arguments on both sides will be heard. Oh, come on, get real. Who's got the money and the motivation to argue slowly and surely, building case law on their side such that 'technical effect' can mean whatever they like. Yep, those generous and humanitarian souls at the corporate legal department.

And as for those who argue that the software for a device driver should be subject to patent, I ask why? If the hardware doesn't change, but a new release of s/w occurs what's patently new? Nothing, switches are flipped, memory is updated elsewhere or whatever, which is how the hardware was designed to function. Why isn't the hardware capable of being subject to a good patent on its own? If it is, then the s/w does not need to be patented. It's like a car and the (human) driver. Patenting the driver is like patenting software. I bet even the USPTO might think twice about patenting a NY taxi cab driver...

Re:The Pro-Patent Argument

[JPMH]

The UK Patent Office is aware that patents *may* be damaging to pure software, but believes that the "technical effect" rule will prevent this. Unfortunately they were utterly unconvincing when pressed for detail.

-- Even more unconvincing if you look at some of the patents the UK PO has granted.

TEST: Positives and Negatives of Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

WARNING: This test can crush your ego and expose you as a biased and/or mindless drone.

1. I challenge all anti-patent activists to name several major *benefits* of patents and software patents.

2. I challenge all pro-patent activists to name several major *negatives* of patents and software patents.

3. I challenge both sides to propose ways in which we can get all the benefits of patents while eliminating all the negatives of patents.

If you cannot or is unwilling to see the other side of the issue, then you are getting in the way of true progress and wasting everyone's time.

---
"Hey, I found examples of bad patents--lets abolish the patent system! No more patents!"
==
"Hey, I found examples of buggy software--lets abolish software! No more software!"
---

It's like a spoiled brat asking again and again...

[borgheron]

Eventually someone's bound to slip up and say "YES".

GJC

Patents are for innovation

[NigelJohnstone]

"For example, electronic companies want to keep the same type of patent coverage for the next generation of their products (with more embedded code) as they are used to having. And what's wrong with that?"

A hardware idea simply re-implemented in software is not a new idea and not patentable.

A pure software algo is a mathematical discovery and not patentable. You cannot patent mathematics.

I think you misunderstood what the EU parliament did, the wording rules out pure data processing patents. It does not rule out software as part of an invention.

So electronics manufacturers can still patent their widgets because the software is part of the new widget.

The other change was to beef up the 'technical' requirement, to prevent business process patents disguised as software patents. e.g. electronic shopping lists, one click ordering, assigning rating numbers to how powerful a computer is in order to decide if games will run or not...

Who could argue that that isn't a good thing!?

Re:Patents are for innovation

[NKJensen]

You are refering to the old text. The current one allows anything "new" to be patent protected. "new" defined as not already patented.

Thats what democracy is about

[NigelJohnstone]

Surely thats what democracy is about. We argued our side in the EU parliament and won.

I challenge the pro-software and pro business process patent supported to accept the result.

help support poland

[sl4shd0rk]

Everyone run down to your neighborhood market and buy all the Kielbasa they have.

Re:help support poland

[michalf]

Unfortunately the product called "Kielbasa" or "Polish Kielbasa" (or whatever) that you can buy in the US does not even resemble the sausages you can buy in eastern Europe. This is a cheap marketing trick to give the customer the feeling sth is more "exotic".

I was in US for some time and was tricked for the first time as well. Sensing the trap I bought only one pack. Almost everything I had to throw away to the trash.

In most cases there is NO CONNECTION (even the manufacturer) with Poland.

First make sure the product is IMPORTED FROM POLAND ;-)

Anyway - you can support Poland talking good about us ;-) I am really happy with Poland's attitude to Software Patents and all the reaction it caused in the Open Source community.

The new countries did not oppose

[Klact-oveeseds-tene]

When the political agreement in the council was reached on May 18th last year, it was only Spain that voted No. Belgium and Poland abstained.

Some MEPs seem clued up...

[KontinMonet]

On the 13th Jan, I received the following (extract) from the UK Labour Party group of MEPs:

"The Labour MEPs' position is reflected in the amendments we tabled and voted for in the Parliament's report on the Commission proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. In short, the position remains:

. No US-style patenting of software.
. Software as such, must not be patented. No patenting of business methods or "general ideas"
. Opensource software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive does not have any adverse effect on opensource software and small software developers.
. Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies."

I'm not sure what they intend to do about this latest news. Email/snailmail all takes so-o-o-o long and I wonder whether it's just assistants sending stock replies...

Re:Some MEPs seem clued up...

[Halo1]

Labour is lying/weaseling out. With "software as such", they mean "the source code of programs". Nobody in his right mind would ever pay to get such a patent. There is already US-style patenting, and they're legalising exactly that. There's nothing in the texts they support that would prevent negative effects for open source (or any other kind of software producers, for that matter). The last point about litigation is another pious wish.

Look here for a point-by-point analysis of a letter written by Patricia Hewitt, Labour MP.

Re:Some MEPs seem clued up...

[KontinMonet]

Patricia Hewitt is a techno-brainless minister (not MEP). I believe that the majority of Labour MEPs are against software patents.

Re:Some MEPs seem clued up...

[Halo1]

Patricia Hewitt is a techno-brainless minister (not MEP).

I thought she was an MP (not MEP), but I saw wrong indeed.

I believe that the majority of Labour MEPs are against software patents.

Not really...

In Germany...

[CharonX]

In Germany there is a huge majority in the parliament (with supporters from EVERY party) that is AGAINST software patents.
Sadly, the parliaments "delegate" to this EU meeting (Federal Minister of Agriculture) Renate Künast has gone into a "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" mode, so demands that she stands up against the EU directive will probably fall on deaf ears.

EPO rulez!!!

[KontinMonet]

This so-called 'A-item' should not have been put before the committe in the first place as it disregards the rules for placing these items. The (unelected, govt. appointed) EU Commission (as usual) is simply making up its own rules as it goes along.

With this sort of arrogant crap we constantly suffer from the Commission, is it any wonder that even if this item is thrown out, we still might not win. The European Patent Office can still do its own thing. Don't believe me? The EPO is not bound by many of the laws or regulations that most of the citizens of Europe take for granted, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

Some examples:
. The Employment Law offers the staff extremely limited protection. Staff can be dismissed almost at will by the President and have no claims to unemployment pay or other social security payments
. Basic legal rights are ignored. The President is the ultimate ruler of the EPO. He is judge, jury and executioner. His decisions on matters within the office are final. Any decision made by the President can be enacted immediately. There is no "stay of execution" pending the outcome of appeal hearings. Sanctions are arbitrary and harsh.
. Even criminal law is disregarded: In 1995 the then President of the EPO physically attacked and injured a staff member, the Administrative Council of the EPO subsequently refusing to lift the immunity of the President.

What does agriculture have to do with software?

[kop]

Why do i have to write to my "minister of agriculture"?
What does agriculture have to do with software patents?

Re:What does agriculture have to do with software?

[pjt33]

Why do i have to write to my "minister of agriculture"?

Because it's the ministers of agriculture who will be asked to approve the Software Patent Directive on Monday.

What does agriculture have to do with software patents?

And that's precisely the main point I made in the letter I just wrote to my country's Secretary of State for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs. Just hope it arrives before the meeting.

Re:Bad timing for Brussels/FOSDEM

[Holger Blasum]

Hmm, I guess (correct me if that is wrong) that plenty of MEP assistants are in Brussels the following week anyway.

Do you have time to organize anything at FOSDEM? Would be very welcome. Please contact:

holgerlists at blasum.net (who will then try to route to another person who had a simliar idea), subject FOSDEM.

Thanks.

BBC radio doc on broken US patent system

[eetiiyupy]

Try to catch the BBC Radio 4 programme in business this week (warning the schedule info is correct but the content is still on last week's programme). I expected this to be just the normal corporate b/s, but it was in fact more interested in problems in the USA, particularly in patent examination. There are representatives on both sides of the argument, but I would have the "say no to patent expansion" side winning. There is a repeat on Sunday evening 21:30GMT. I don't know if the "listen again" has moved to the current edition yet - as I say, the web site is stuck on last week.

Re:BBC radio doc on broken US patent system

[eetiiyupy]

I have checked and the Real format listen again stream *is* the technology patent documentary and it's here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusiness/ram/in business_current.ram until 27th January. Listen again works directly from the broadcast stream: the BBC fills its broadcast output with trailers so that live shows which overrun slightly do not knock out the whole schedule. DO NOT be put off by the nice lady telling children's stories for the first 30 seconds of the stream. You might have to have a British internet presence to hear this: I can't be doing with proxying somewhere else to check.

If you are European, try to get an MP/MEP to listen to it.

But

[jeti]

You do not have to patent an invention.

But in this case you risk that someone else patents your invention and threatens to sue you over your own ideas - even if you published them before the patent was filed.

Sound ridiculous? It has happened in a prominent case.

Re:TEST: Positives and Negatives of Software Paten

[pjt33]

1. I challenge all anti-patent activists to name several major *benefits* of patents and software patents.

2. I challenge all pro-patent activists to name several major *negatives* of patents and software patents.

Benefits for whom? Negatives for whom? The summary is that software patents provide benefits for patent offices and lawyers (more work) and big companies (more monopolies to exploit) and corresponding negatives for small companies and open source developers (risk of being sued by someone with much deeper pockets than you, but financial inability to acquire and defend their own patents). The important question is whether society benefits or not, and that depends on your view of economics.

Re:Worrying FT article - Poland given in to lobbyi

[Halo1]

The Brussels-based Polish official said the same thing in December, which caused the responsible Polish minister to personally come to Brussels to block the decision back then. There's no guarantee he'll be able to do the same thing again, though.

EPO Technical FX...

[KontinMonet]

The EPO is stating that: A computer program can be patented as such, if it has a "further technical effect". But practically any solution to a computing problem constitutes a "further technical effect".

The EPO further declares that the "arrangement or manner of representation", may as well constitute a patentable technical feature. And examples which are given include pulse code modulation or a measuring instrument which produces a particular form of graph for representing the measured information and a computer data structure. This means that according to the EPO's guidelines, the order of information in a data structure could be patented if accessing the data structure is claimed. Yes!! I claim Name and Address (and Address and Name, to be on the safe side)!

As the FFI points out:

The most frequently used rhetorical trick of the Council paper works as follows: [A] is not patentable, unless [condition B] is met. But, upon close scrutiny, it turns out that condition B is always met.

It gets worse.

The wording "normal physical interaction between a program and the computer" means about as much as "normal physical interaction between a recipe and the cook", that is: nothing. It is a magic formula whose usage can be inferred only from recent decisions of the EPO, in which it served to justify the granting of patents on geometrical calculation rules to IBM. In the present case, according to the EPO, the "further technical effect beyond ..." consisted in the economisation of space on a computer screen. Wow! Novel or what?

re

[Anonymous Coward]

How desperate are these people?

Agriculture Ministers to pass Software patents?

Please... somebody get these people jobs !paid by SCO.... I feel pity for the pro-patent people, I honestly think that they are flogging a dead horse, trying to get this completely undeomocratic legislation passed.

Honestly, the patent people should just admit defeat, with some grace... it's sad at this stage.

Perhaps there are better options?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You seem to have missed the point and reason for copyright to start with. It is to encourage the creation of new work for the society to experience and have.

That is true. For that reason, I think an arbitrary duration for copyright is probably the wrong approach. It might be better to tie it into availability: as long as you continue to make your work available to society, it's covered by copyright, but if you lapse for a certain period, then it becomes legal to copy an existing work instead of obtaining a new one from you.

This deals immediately with things like people not being able to obtain books long out of print, old software that's no longer sold, or songs you can't buy any more but can't legally copy today either. It also means that an author who does continue to make a work available is not going to be undercut by profiteers who didn't add anything except lawyers, and I really don't have a problem with that.

The implications for free-as-in-FSF software are more interesting. You could argue that the software is available forever, and therefore the GPL has permanent authority. You could also argue that the software is never available completely free of restrictions under the GPL, so the restrictions must be lifted after the "no longer published" period. (After all, copyright doesn't exist to protect the philosophical views of RMS, either.)

Perhaps a middle-ground is more appropriate: you get a fairly lengthy period of protection guaranteed under copyright law, but you forfeit that protection if you cease making the work available for an extended period of time (I'm thinking maybe 5-10 years here).

Actually, too long copyright time hinder creation in part, since you don't have to create new work. Instead you can live off old work.

I'm not sure I buy that in practice. How often does someone write a work that's good enough to live off for the rest of their life without any further effort? Those who do write such works rarely produce a second work later on of similar quality anyway, so personally I'd rather encourage people to take the time to perfect that masterpiece that could be the key to their future, rather than rush it out because they know they have to get started on the next (probably not so) big thing.

In almost any case, be it books, movies of computer software or anything else covered by copyright, a time frame of 5 to 10 years is more than adequate for the creator to be able to make enough money to be motivated to make the creation.

And what if their motivation isn't monetary?

Duh!!!

[Anita Coney]

Software (and business) patents are like crack to the status quo. What easier way is there to eliminate all new competition but to make all new competition illegal?! The quest for software patents will only end when software patents are valid throughout the world.

Research and development

[mattpalmer1086]

The real costs in software development are not normally blue-sky research. In most cases the costs are those of development.

To compete with a product, a company would have to incur those development costs themselves, all the while catching up with the current state of play while the original company likewise kept advancing. And then to convince the marketplace to go with them rather than the established market leader. It's doubtful they could sell it much cheaper than the original; if they could - well, they have better processes, and that's how things improve in a competitive environment.

If software really needs patents, I'd be interested to hear from the pro-patent lot (assuming there are any on /.) examples of software in which really fundamental research needed the protection it would afford. I'm hard pressed to think of many things, except possibly in the fields of data compression and encryption where the value really is in the algorithm and not the implementation, (which is often trivial to implement once you know how).

Judgement day

[KontinMonet]

A US judge put it best (Atlantic Works v. Brady, opinion of Justice Bradley, US Supreme Court (1882) [see FFII UK]):

"It was never the object of [patent] laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and unknown liabilities lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made in good faith."

This was a prescient statement made over 120 years ago. If only EU politicians were as far seeing.

Re:dont think so

[KontinMonet]

That wasn't the case in the 19th century when the US was the worst IP thief in the world. Now the US has joined the IP oligarchs, now they want to protect their patch. This attitude does not generate wealth, it does not spread wealth and it keeps poor countries poor.

Re:It's like a spoiled brat asking again and again

[optimus2861]

Indeed; look at Judge Wells's discovery ruling in the IBM/SCO case. She even refers to SCO's tantrums as a reason to grant the discovery! ("By requiring this, the court seeks to circumvent future complaints by SCO alleging that IBM failed to provide all CMVC and RCS information.")

Re:TEST: Positives and Negatives of Software Paten

[CmdrGravy]

1) The major benefit is for companies which already have huge portfolios of software patents who can then make money licencing their patents to people.

2) The major negative is for everyone else who do not have large portfolios of software patents and will have to face the threat of court action when developing almost any piece of new software.

3) Patents are very useful in other areas where the idea being patented is clear and unambiguous and it can take a long time to develop an idea and bring it to market. Software is already covered by copyright which prevents outright theft of a persons work anyway so there is no reason for them to be covered by patents as well, especially since patents do not translate well to protecting software developments.

A-items mean `no discussion needed'

[raboofje]

the 5:40AM AC is *almost* right: An A-item is an item on which there already was uncontroversial consensus. It will not be discussed and (get this!) not even voted for, but simply passed. That's why A-items can appear on the agenda of unrelated council meetings. Now it's absolutely preposterous that this is brought up as an A-item, since if they would vote right now, there probably wouldn't be a majority (since Holland will abstain instead of voting `yes', and new member Poland will probably not vote `yes' either).

the directive is considered `uncontroversial'

[raboofje]

The directive is brought up as an A-item, which means it is uncontroverial and can be passed without discussion and even without actually voting. Obviously this directive is *not* uncontroversial, so it'd be a very bad thing if it got passed during the meeting monday.

M.I.B.

[CmdrGravy]

I've just spent the last 10 minutes on the Web trying to find out a) Who my MEP is and b) Who my agriculture and fisheries MEP is. I have drawn a blank in both cases.

I have found one MEP who may be my representative since she appears to cover the West Midlands area and on her website she says that "feedback is an opportunity for me to hear your views". Which is nice.

I would hazard a guess that 99% of people in the UK have no idea who their MEP is, have never seen them on TV or read about their opinions in the media, have never met them and have never been contacted by them. Doubtless this ignorance is partly our fault and we should take an interest but these people who are supposed to be representing us should I think make a much bigger effort to find out what our views are.

Re:M.I.B.

[Phil Hands]

Your MEP can be found via the new version of FaxYourMP

As for who to talk to relating to Ag & Fish, you probably want The Secretary of State: Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett MP, who is available via

Fax: +44 20 7270 8125, which they apparently prefer or failing that, email

Try to be polite :-)

Not only bad for Open-Source

[raboofje]

If done right, proper patent laws can protect opensource, small businesses as well as big businesses agains evil businesses (big and small).

The current text, however, allows abuse of the law in a way that:

• will allow small businesses to suddenly `pop up' and sue big businesses for enormous amounts of money because they happen to have a lucky patent lingering around covering something the big business uses
• will allow big businesses to intimidate others with their patent portfolio and resources to enforce it

Because...

[schon]

When you create software, you get *COPYRIGHT* protection on it.

When was the last time a book plot got patent protection? That's really novel, right? Why shouldn't you be able to patent the plot of your book? It's just the same damn argument.

Re:TEST: Positives and Negatives of Software Paten

[raboofje]

In principle, in my opinion, patents are a good thing (though time has told we can live without them). They allow inventors (big companies, small companies and open-source groups alike) to publish their Really Innovative Inventions while having time to gain marketshare over copycats. Trivial ideas should not be patentable (and one of the problems is that we lack a sufficient way to determine what is `trivial').

Still, I'm against the Software Patents Directive as it's proposed now. That's because even though I think software patents are essentially good, in the current form they can be abused. I'll give some examples:

• They run too long. IT is a fast market, the temporary monopoly should run out faster.
• They can be used to intimidate those who are smaller. Patents would be too expensive if they were all tested beforehand, so the idea is to basically grant all patents, and in case of dispute decide whether it should have been granted in court. Basically, if you're small, going to court against one of the big boys might not be a chance you'd be willing or able to take, even when the patent was really invalid.
• They can be used to `torpedo' big companies. Companies might turn up that patent ideas (or buy patents) that they carefully keep quiet until one of the big players also invents them and starts to depend on the techniques patented. Then they `emerge' and threathen to enforce the patent, at what stage the big company will be eager to pay large sums of money to be able to stay in business with the technique on which they have grown to depend.

Until problems like that are solved, I think no software patents are better than exploitable software patents.

Not just math. Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[hacksoncode]

Software, in the abstract, is still not patentable. I.e. the algorithm *as an algorithm* can't be patented.

It's only once that algorithm becomes functional by being run on a computer and generating actual physical operations beyond just the pure calculations that it becomes patentable. And yes, running an algorithm on a computer does generate physical operations (movement of electrons in particular pathways if nothing else), even if we usually abstract those away when we discuss how computers work. So do human brains but, so far, we as a species have decided to consider ourselves special in this regard.

You are welcome to think about whatever you want (don't you feel *special*?). You're welcome to write it down. You're welcome to talk about it, and improve on it as a thought experiment. All you're not welcome to do is stick it into a machine (itself a separate invention) and have that machine perform useful functional and physical operations based on that algorithm.

The problem with software patents can't be attacked on this basis. *All* inventions are essentially pure thought until you instantiate them in a physical object and have it do something useful. *All* inventions are pure thought. *All* inventions are algorithms. Ultimately, depending on your personal metaphysics, all inventions may even be pure mathematics.

Pick a better argument. Personally, I think the best argument would be one based on the non-novelty and obviousness of most of the existing patented algorithmic inventions.

Trying to fight software patents on the basis that they are mathematical algorithms will only get you laughed at. You're essentially trying to fight the entire notion of patents on anything. Only ivory-tower acedemic CS profs think that software is nothing more than math.

Confusion the other way.

[baldmerkin]

Um, I think you're also a little confused.

Open source software and free software are not the same thing.

Open source software under a GPL-type license permits reuse of the open code if the reuser agrees to perpetuate the same restrictions downstream - essentially to also have open code that can be incorporated by anyone that follows. It might be free, but it might not. That has a little to do with copyright, but a lot more to do with the license.

Copyright does not prevent anyone from taking the code, and modifying it for their own interest, only from copying it and reselling it. Sufficient modification is itself a derivative work, and the new parts independently copyrightable. There are just two copyrights instead of one. The old parts would, indeed, be infringing if sold. But nothing in copyright demands that you release source code. Only the license does.

Even more modification, it's beyond derivative work, and copyright does not prevent that "anyone" from reselling it with new restrictions. Patent law can. However, patent law can also prevent someone who independently comes up with the same solutions from selling their own work. That's why patent law is indifferent to open source.

I'm not saying that patent law or even patents are good. They probably aren't.

Your argument, that software shouldn't be patented because you're patenting an algorithm is very popular. But it is lazy, and flawed.

There is no f-ing difference between a paper mechanical patent, a paper electrical patent, or a paper computer science patent. In every case, the author thought up the solution to a problem and used the piece parts and tools familiar to em - four-bar linkages, op-amps, or the discrete cosine transform, whatever. In practically every case, no one ever built anything or tried it out, and it wouldn't matter if they had. All of them are completely logical and mechanistic, and all of them can be reduced to formulas - that's what a patent claim is trying to do. Nobody is patenting math or logic - they are patenting how to use that math or logic in combination with other tools to solve problems. Chemicals and biologicals are a little different. That is a process of experimentation, and even more discovery than creation.

Are there real economic problems, oh yeah. Does the enforcement of a monopoly cause disparities between big and small players - yes, both ways, and miserably. But it's not software patents that are the problem - all patents are the problem.

Do you want to work and live in a commons, and give it away, for sheer joy joy joy, and believe that cooperation makes for better design - then patents are bad. Do you want to keep it all yourself, and get more more more, and believe that competition makes for better design - then patents are good. But don't pretend that there is any difference for software patents. They are all the same.

As for the last topic, the DMCA is just stupid and the product of political influence and cash. Everyone knows that. But it is not related conceptually at all.

Re:Confusion the other way.

[Xepo]

Free Software. You should go learn the terminology before you attempt to correct me.

I also know the difference between a copyright and a license. If you had read the post I was responding to, you might have realized that the argument I presented was exactly what I was trying to present. Copyright is what allows software to have enforceable licenses.

You also seem to be confused about copyright law, IANAL, but if your product contains even one function of code directly copied from something else, then you have to follow the license of that 'something else' You can't just say "Oh, hey, I've changed this enough, it's mine now."

And about the algorithm argument being lazy, go read the other comments to my post. That argument has been presented, and other people have come up with better responses than I could have.

Here's some of the comments arguing about software patents being 'different':
Comment 1
Comment 2

Link issue to genetically engineered crops?

[quacking duck]

Some comments in a recent story post mention how Europeans are heavily against genetically engineered crops ( example comment).

If this is the case, comparing softare patents to agricultural patents (which Monsanto uses to fine and even jail often-innocent farmers with) should kill any support by EU agricultural ministries for SW patents in a heartbeat.

Re:THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT

[kaiidth]

I wouldn't guarantee that if I were you. According to current news,

In December Poland blocked formal approval of the deal, which opponents of the legislation argue will allow patenting of pure software, saying it needed more time to register its concerns about the new rules' impact on small and medium-sized businesses. But Poland has indicated it will not oppose the official adoption of the text of the May deal, due to be agreed to at a meeting of E.U. farm ministers next Monday.

Hope the news is wrong.

Software Patent Law not meeting the intent

[staypuff]

I'm not sure that the distinction we draw between software and physical process really stands up to scrutiny (what if you develop a complete theory of physical process, what would that imply?). But there is a much more practical angle on this. In the US, patent is specifically meant to encourage innovation. My experience as a software developer is that patents are not at all needed to encourage to software innovation. Instead, their practical effect is to form a cartel of companies that generate patents and cross license each other, then shut down the small competitors with infringement claims. So, whatever the theory, the practical conclusion is that patents are a hindrance, not a help, to software innovation.