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Linux Kernel Maintainer Joins Patent Celebrations
wikinerd writes "Linux kernel maintainer Alan Cox was among those celebrating the EU decision to rethink the introduction of software patents in Europe, while Debian developer Wookey says that 'This is a very encouraging sign.' However, Alan Cox adds that 'the battle isn't over.' The EU software patent directive was criticised as anti-opensource and anti-smallbusiness, while the US patent office has granted various controversial patents like the one-click shopping."
The ONLY folks brave enough to get this shouted down were the Poles. They fought the Germans, they fought the Russians, they fought the communists and now they have beaten off the bureaucrats. A victory for the little guys.
Well done.
Steve
Europe's ministers are planning to push ahead with controversial patent legislation despite a vote on Wednesday by MEPs to restart the process. The decision will set the two decision-making bodies of the EU at loggerheads.
The original news
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Nope. He advocated a vote for either UKIP or the Green Party as the only two UK parties that opposed EUsoftware patents.
See his open letter, where he says:
"Please, if you were not going to vote, either vote for the UKIP or Green-EFA alliance members."
That said, I personally feel that UKIP showed no real knowledge of the patent debate, opposing it only for being 'European', and thus leaving the door open to a UK patent legislation. The greens had a much better grasp of matters.
I do share the posters concern about voting UKIP - they're a ridiculous bunch of racist scum.
John
Hi,
1) As a patent attorney I work for the interest of my client, who wants to secure a patent.
Laws are written with words, and can't deal with each and every particular situation. So, if the arguments for a patent application are rejected, you try it another way. If you secure that patent, the border may have shifted a bit. That's a starting ground for the next discussion.
And it is apparently in human nature to like winning arguments.
2) A law comes with an explanation why it is there. An yes, that is the point. Logic sense tells you the same: If it takes me 100k to develop a product and you can copy mine for 10k, you can sell your product way cheaper than I can. I may go broke, while you get a profit.
Patent law is a necessary evil. But its basics are pretty nice. The general idea is: sharing. Sharing knowledge, and you can't keep the monopoly on the knowledge for ever. It will become the property of the society, so the whole society can benefit.
The (perceived) attitude of your post is interesting. And why judge me for the one click-patent. Firstly, I'm against software patents for several reasons (I mentioned that I could think of an exception, where I would say that indeed an invention is present: compression algorithms). One of them is that they rarely do share info, yet a monopoly is granted. The problem with software is implementing the idea (and getting all the bugs out). So, for that reason software patents should not be granted. Indeed I've written a paper to support open source advocates here in the Netherlands, and attended a meeting on this subject with a "sub" minister of economic affairs being present, in an effort to convince her that patenting software is not a good idea (I think it is detrimental to the economy and my business, because they will slow down progress in fields other than software). There are other factors here too: If some software is available for one platform only (and patents can ensure that), that is something that really can kill platforms. I'd rather have competition. Mac OS X wouldn't be as good as it is (or even exist at all) if Apple had had a patent on the GUI in 1984. And Windows wouldn't be as good, if it hadn't been for Apple.
I'm also critical of other IP laws. If politics decides to extend copyrights, let the copyright holder pay for it with an anual fee. At least here in the Netherlands, the annual maintenance fee for patents increases for each year you keep the patent in force longer. So, that forces the patentee to consider every year whether it is worthwhile to. So, this helps to prevent that monopolies exist longer than justifiable.
So, just the fact that I'm a patent attorney doesn't mean I'm putting my self interest (my company could earn money with writing software patents) first. Thank you.
If it is a significant investment, the programmer has at least his headstart. If it was hard for him, it is hard for another programmer as well. And it is not easy to reverse engineer software (otherwise the Word format compatiblity problems wouldn't exist).
"The patent office". I assume you mean the USPTO. The European Patent Office not only has fairly objective standards but applies them pretty well. It is also receptive to logical arguments. If I get a patent application rejected, I usually can live with the arguments they base their decision on. Also, the EPO considers documents from anywhere in the world. As to the USPTO, the state of the art seems to be US patents mostly.
Bert
The spirit of the patent law is to allow the inventors of useful devices to earn some money and continue living, so that they can invent more things, and also to encourage them publish the details of their inventions. So, if an inventor has invested 20 years of his life and thousands of dollars to build an anti-gravity spacecraft, then he can patent it. To do that, he must publish all details about the device and its blueprint, but in return he gets protection from the court/law system in case someone builds his spacecraft without his approval (which usually costs money).
However, in practice, patents, and especially software patents and business methods patents are used to achieve a mini-monopoly over an idea or simple device. In this way patents hurt competition and lead to higher prices in the market. In my opinion, restrictive patents are not very compatible with the free market ideas.
The law in most countries usually says that you can patent a device or implementation, but not the idea of the device, only if its construction is not evident to an expert in the field. For example if you can create a new aeroplane and its construction cannot be immediatelly described by expert engineers, then you have created something new so you can request a patent.
When you request a patent, you submit some papers and blueprints to a patent office. The investigators will check whether the patent is really new and may accept or reject it.
The problem is, how can we be sure that the investigators really do their job? How can we know that megacorps don't have the power to influence their decisions? Unfortunately, we can't.