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."

Comments

Never truer than now

[Saven Marek]

They say "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" and it looks like that is how europe is having to work to defeat patents.

You know well they will try again to introduce patents again and again but keep being vigilant and we will keep winning. thank you poland!!

The best mac support on the web

Hah

[mao che minh]

When politicians put things on hold to "rethink", it usally means "let's pretend we care about what the common man thinks while waiting for the corporate lobbyists to come up with more cash". I wouldn't hold my breath.

Square -1

[Doc Ruby]

Instead of repeatedly sending SW patents back to the starting point as a way of procedurally rejecting them in an endless game of snakes and ladders (chutes and ladders to Americans :), they should pass a constructive law guaranteeing freedom of innovation and expression in its place. Otherwise that IP monopoly protection racket will return every time, stronger, more wily, and attached to more attractive special cases, until it finally passes (American-style "amendments"). Europe's new leadership in true freedom must explicitly fill the power vacuum, or the revenant IP monopoly laws will.

Re:Square -1

[Doc Ruby]

Innovation and expression are inherently profitable. EU legislators need to learn how to get their bribes from a growing domestic software industry, rather than just one software monopoly company at a time. Increased competition might not allow a gargantuan dominator like Microsoft to grow in Europe, but it will allow the industry to grow larger, and support larger bribes as a whole. Then the EU legislators taking bribes from competing industries and consumer groups can compete with them, raising the bribe ante along with the increased overall productivity, and therefore profitability, of the EU economy.

Re:Square -1

[Doc Ruby]

I'm a wealthy American due to the lack of IP monopolies in my old startup business' market in the 1990s. Nowadays it would be much harder and less likely; many of my more recent startup plans have involved Europe in many ways, all relating to their freer markets. You are afraid to compete on merit, preferring to hide behind a law that protects the best lawyered corporation.

Re:Square -1

[kanweg]

"they should pass a constructive law guaranteeing freedom of innovation"

I'm a patent attorney, and we'll always try to stretch the law. Don't forget, if you read the European Patent law you'd think that patenting software is impossible. Yet it happens.

Apart from that there is (already) freedom of innovation when it comes to software. The goal of patent law is to distribute knowledge, facilitating others to achieve the result themselves quicker than having to find things out for themselves. The problem with software patents is that they don't help in this respect: It conveys just an idea (I can come up with 5 software "innovation" ideas per evening. Just let me use shitty software like MS Office). The programming is the hard part. The only exception I can think of where software patents contribute above what the skilled programmer (who can think up things to program faster than he can program it) can come up himself, is compression technologies.

BFN

Bert

Re: Square -1

[Alwin Henseler]

The IP monopoly protection racket over here as worked pretty well for us.

Let me guess: Working in the legal business, are you?

We're bigger, richer, and more powerful than Europe partly because Intellectual Property in all its forms is protected.

You must be confusing 'protection' with 'abuse'.

It's why Europe is so stagnant, and why America really the land of opportunity.

Look again. In economic sense, Europe isn't doing so bad compared to the US. Maybe the Euro-Dollar exchange rates over the last months could give you a clue?

Re:Square -1

[Doc Ruby]

I'm not so sure that patent law, at least the part that grants monopolies on inventions, is essential to medicines (pharmacological inventions). Most patented medicines, especially the most (either theraputically or profitably) successful ones, were derived directly from a traditional medicine. Asprin from the willow is the best known, but in fact most effective medicines were directly derived by researching active ingredients in aboriginally bred biology. The patents protected big corporations with global marketing from the risk of competition, but it thereby excluded competitors from using the same base from which the patenters benefitted. Including aboriginals using their own medicines, now replaced by the more expensive patented versions.

That system, perfected in the 1800s, is the model for most appropriation of public domain IP by monopolies. The latest example got a tiny bit of publicity when America revised Iraq's IP laws last year to criminalize Iraqi farmers using native seeds now available in GM form from American companies. But the entire IP protection racket is running amok. It is unjust, anticompetitive, and serves innovation only in the shortest terms, for the fewest people.

Re:Square -1

[kanweg]

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

Re:Square -1

[Doc Ruby]

I am not a politician. I don't distinguish between "campaign contributions" and illegal bribes. I am also not entirely uncorrupt - that makes me more expert in identifying corruption, not less.

Thanks to the Poles

[SteveAstro]

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

Re:Thanks to the Poles

[dadioflex]

" They fought the Germans, they fought the Russians, they fought the communists and now they have beaten off the bureaucrats." They just can't get along with anybody.

Don't shout victory now

[Kartoch]

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

Somebody celebrating is news?

[xXunderdogXx]

Next up on Slashdot: Linus has people over for tea.

Am I the only one...

[This Is Ridiculous]

...envisioning happy software Ewoks partying to primitive-sounding music?

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

USPTO punting on software patents (approving most)

[obiwan2u]

What I've heard from a lawyer friend here in DC is that the patent office is basically punting on software patents (ie. approving most of them) and letting the courts sort things out afterwards.

This might be one of the reasons that the volume of patent related lawsuits is going through the roof. See the graph patent lawsuits per year (from the article A radical cure for the ailing U.S. patent system)

Ben in DC

Re:Alan Cox is a moron

[technolalia]

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

Change of strategy....

[johannesg]

Let the Wookey win.

You'll have to read the article to figure out what that means ;-)

Re:What exactly is a software patent?

[wikinerd]

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.