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Dutch Say No to Software Patent Directive
Rik writes "Thursday night the Dutch parliament has decided that the Dutch government should not vote for the EU Software Patent Directive at the European Council of Ministers next week. The decision of the Dutch parliament strengthens attempts of MEPs of the European Parliament to send the Software Directive back to the drawing board."
...and what incentive will you have, sir, to protect your hard-work from those who'd not hesitate to rip it off you?
the convoluted European political system? Dutch Parliament, European Parliament, Council of Ministers, my head is spinning. It all sounds like some retro Soviet political wet dream.
Anyway, the Dutch Parliament, which I assume speaks for the Dutch people, decided against software patents. OK, so why should they end up with software patents after all is said and done if the Dutch Parliament voted against them? Do the individual governments of the member states not retain their sovereignty in the EU? I realize that for the EU to function as, well, the European Union, it has to have some political will. How far does this politcal will extend?
Just asking.
Patent's don't protect your work, copyrights do that.
Patents are a licence to rip off other people's work, granted by the state as an incentive for you to publish your work. There were perfectly good reasons for this at the time the system developed, but few if any of the reasons still exist.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Actually, there are more problems with these. While you do point out acurately, that holding companies are abusing these, there is another more common abuse.
A person will obtain a patent and then start a small company(1-5 ppl). However, a large company who watches it sees the potential and simply decides to do the same, but without paying for the patent. The small guy can not afford to take on a big company.
Now, one of the better examples to most here is MS vs. all the small companies that they do this to. What they are counting on, is stalling it in the courts and then paying just a fraction of what it has earned them. In the mean time, they have wiped out the company or buy them at a fraction of what they would have at the height of the company.
But they are no worse (and in fact, better) than many other medium to small. My father has a patent for a archery product. When a larger company decided that they liked it, they started manufactuering their own. When he spoke up and threatened lawsuit, the larger company simply went to all the stores where it was sold at, and stopped them from distributing his product. Since they were not a convicted monopoly, they are not watched by the feds. But they damage is there. And this goes on all the time
Basically, the patent does not protect the little guys. The high costs of the legal system prevents any real action. But it does allow a large company to harass the little guy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Here is an idea for patent reform. The person/organization that applies for a patent has to also submit evidence of the amount of resources (time and money) spent on the invention. In return, patent law, will grant them patent protection for upto 20 times the investment. Either they earn 20 times the money spent or they have protection of 20 times the number of hours spent . The number "20" is just something off the top of my head for now. Thus Jeff Bezos, after proving that it really took him all of 1 week only focussing on coming up with the 1-click process will have patent protection for 20 weeks, while a big drug company spending $1 billion on a new drug will have patent protection till it earns $20 billion on the same. If the drug company spent 4 years on developing the drug, they may also get protection for 80 years in case the $20 billion in royalties is not reached before that. In a fast changing world, 20 years of blanket patent protection for every small idea is simply too much.
The EPO makes a billion Euros a year for itself (never mind what the patent lawyers make). This might be due to volume rather than quality, of course, but I understand this is sufficient income for a well run PO.
Did he inhale?
But to remove the patent system entirely?
Why not, if it's broken? Replace it with something else perhaps? An Australian govt. research project came to the conclusion that not having patents would be useful to innovation and the only reason they kept it was because of international treaty.
Or how about the Journal of Economic Growth, 2004, vol. 9, issue 1, pages 81-123:
"Furthermore, patents affect the allocation of R&D resources across industries, and patents can distort resources away from industries where they are most productive."
I think the debate should be started to see whether patents are a useful mechanism or not.
Did he inhale?