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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."
God bless them cheeseheads! Lets all wear wooden clogs and chant stranges incantaions in recognition of their greatness!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
The problem isn't patents, the problem is the patent system. We need to invest more money in the patent system so that we can separate the "stupid" patents from the legitimate ones.
Now software patents, that is a whole 'nother ball game.
...and what incentive will you have, sir, to protect your hard-work from those who'd not hesitate to rip it off you?
As an American patriot I hate EU because it makes me hate my own corrupted government who only wants to do what's best for corporations, don't giving a damn about small business or open source. Damn you Europeans! You make me sick! Sick of jealousy!
here
Besides that, I wonder this means they (=Brinkhorst) is actually going to vote or will abstain which would basically mean yes.
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
Copyright- which has protected programmers för over 50 years !
Just saying it like it are.
Donate free food here
71 voted in favour, 69 against. Note that the Dutch parliament has 150 seats, so an extremely close call - could have gone the other way if some more people bothered to vote, it seems.
Voting was along party lines, but the Dutch parliament is like a zoo: in favour were PvdA (labour, largest leftish-center party), SP (socialist, populist, at heart even maoist...), GroenLinks (merger of communist, pacifist, green parties), D'66 (center party, slightly leftish, pro-education, pro-democratic reform), ChristenUnie (leftish christian party). Against were CDA (traditional biggest party, center, christian), VVD (what we call "liberal", i.e. pro-free market, pro-business, traditional values, typical rightish), SGP (right wing hardline christians).
Currently government is formed by CDA, VVD and D'66, who together have a slim majority. So this win is because D'66 defected, and SGP is slightly smaller. D'66 is much the smallest party in government, and this is certainly not what government wanted (remember they pushed hard to pass the directive in the last few meetings of the Dutch EU presidency end of last year). The minister pushing then was Brinkhorst (D'66!).
Anyway, this is the first time I see D'66 do something that makes me actually happy with the vote I gave them :-)
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
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.
I'll say it again.
Don't want to see software patents in EU? Want to do something about it?
Donate money to FFII today:
http://ffii.org/money/account/index.en.html
Interesting proposition.
The patent system was originally instated to grant an inventor a temporary and artificial monopoly on a new invention. The first patents are found in the 15th century in the republic of Venice.
Patent abuse is nothing new. Prior to the enactement of the Statute of Monopolies in 1623, the crown would issue letters patent providing any person with a "monopoly" to produce particular goods or provide particular services. This was abused by the crown, leading to the legislation setting a term limit for the monopolies granted by a patent.
Most people seem to agree that granting an inventor a patent for novel idea or implementation fosters innovation. Let's say I invent a non-obvious and novel idea for building a smaller, lighter and more secure watertight latch for use in large cargo ships. Using this door would save shipbuilders lots of money in materials and labours. If there are no patents to protect me, any other company or individual could reverse engineer my design and sell a knock-off. Since they have little R&D costs to recuperate, they can sell it a cheaper price than me, thus preventing me from recuperating my R&D costs.
The patent system works by granting me a temporary monopoly on my design. I can choose to license it to other manufacturers, so that if they choosem to enter the market, I can still recoup my development costs.
The problem with the patent system today is that the patents are often not in the hands of those that produce and implement the patents in question. Instead, they are concentrated into holding companies that use them to cash in on patent infringments. Often these patents are neither novel nor non-obvious, so many have no idea they are infringing on a patent before they are slapped with a lawsuit.
If this model of business was to be made unprofitable, many of the problem with the patent system would vanish.
Cheeseheads? You are lagging behind. For quite some time now, we are widthly known to be potheads.
All kidding aside, this is, imho, the first good decision our parliament has made in quite some time. Good to see there are still some remains of our once so liberal nation.
By the way, why would you chant strange incantaions in recognition of our greatness? Am I missing some reference to my own folklore here?
I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
They can't, the Dutch government isn't bound by motions from the Dutch parliament.
Donate free food here
The result of the decision by the dutch goverment is that the Central European Commission cannot continue with it's intention to put the proposal on the agenda for approval. Instead the European parlement has the initiative again: they can rethink the whole plan. The major problem with the current proposal is that it allows for strong ownership/copyright of software-solutions, making it difficult for other parties to expand and further improve on current software, since lot of features may be protected. While i generally support protection of idea's and developments, i consider the software world still a developing one. Strong protection of idea's might easily lead to a halt in new software developments, a concentration of innovative power in that hands of those who already have the power to begin with. Software isn't just good enough right now and the 'powers that are' haven't proven they can innovate the way that is beneficial to us users. And stricter laws won't change that as well. Patenting is intended to reward those that invest in developing new idea's. I think there are still many many commonly shared idea's on how to improve software. For the moment, to develop those idea's, all that is needed is time, time to develop. So companies have a way of protecting their investment: they invest the time, and get a lead on their rivals that didnt invest the time in that particular advancement. When the time comes when significant advancements in software are the result of intense high cost investments and true developement of new idea's and insights, then more strict protecting laws should be applied.
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
Questions:
1. Do you have to worry about breaking the law by writing your own software? No.
2. Do you have to worry about breaking the law by smoking a joint? No.
3. Do you have to worry about breaking the law by sleeping with a girl below 18? No.
Conclusions:
1. Move to Netherlands.
2. Have a peace of mind.
3. Profit.
Perhaps it was incidents like this that persuaded the Dutch parliament to make this decision.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
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.
Well fine, get rid of patents for software...
But to remove the patent system entirely? Many patents in the world outside of software are held by companies that spent millions developing them. You think a paypal donate link is going to benifit them when once their piece of hardware (or whatever) is out in the world and some 3rd world company reverse engineers it and takes all their profits?
Remove the ability to protect your research and the guy who can sell the product for the least amount of money gets the money. A company spends huge amounts in R&D cannot compete with a company that only steals ideas since the company that steals ideas has far less costs.
East Coast Brewers
We need to invest more money in the patent system so that we can separate the "stupid" patents from the legitimate ones.
We don't necesseraly have to invest more money. Plain simple rules are cheaper and easier for everyone and make patents more valuable because a lot of todays uncertainty is removed. Business methods should be totally banned and every patent claim that can be implemented on a universal computing machine (software on computers). The rules have to be easy to understand and easy to follow. You will always have a gray zone of uncertainty but you can keep it as small as possible.
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.
Dear Sir,
I am a programmer and a researcher in computer science, thus one of those supposed to benefit from a software patent system. And frankly, both from what I have experienced personnaly and from what I see in the press, I dont feel protected *at all* by software patents.
Software patents are so silly that any dispute related to them can not be based on rational argument and any form of justice that should derive from it. Those disputs are pure lawyer technical fights. They require money and are possible only between big entities (read corporations).
So, Sir, software patents are not an incentive at all. They are a way to lock the market to keep small structures and individuals out. Anybody saying the opposite is a liar or an idiot.
--
Go Debian!
The problem isn't solely that inventors themselves aren't the ones receiving the patents;
The problem is also that the number of "inventors" in the realm of computer programming is very very big.
On the left hand: How many people are there that can tinker at home, and make special types of macrophages, or whatever it is that biologists do in research time?
On the right hand: How many people are there who can apply XOR to draw cursors on their home computers? I was doing that when I was 12, and I don't consider myself particularly bright.
The definition of "obvious" or "non-obvious" is not clear. I can easily imagine the baffled patent examiner, considering the XOR drawing algorithm. "Wow! This guy knows about bits, and logic gates, and,... other complicated stuff. Hot damn, that can't be obvious. We gotta do something about this... We gotta... Make sure nobody else does this for 20 years!"
20 years!
Even if the programmers are the ones receiving the checks for their "invention," we still have the same problem:
Specifically, the patent system is prohibiting innovation rather than encouraging it.
That is one thing, but I also think there is something else more specific to software, and it's not a theoretical but a practical difference.
By far most software in use today is custom-made. People create websites, design databases, and implement business rules. Just check the size of the IT consulting business. The stuff that you see on the shelf is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, the incentive for innovation is not money, it's the simple fact that you're working on a project and your customer has requested feature X. So you figure out a way to implement it. Your development costs are paid directly by your customer, and even if you did not have patent protection and everyone else implemented the same feature in the software they're writing for their customers, you'd still get paid.
Hence, innovation would still occur if software patents did not exist. Software is a service, as they say, and if you work is protected by copyright, others must do the same work (implementing feature X) again.
The big problem with software patents as they exist in the USA today, is that it is these features (one-click shopping for example) that are patented. That just doesn't make sense. It essentially gives the patent holder the right to tax anyone who implements that particular feature, in exchange for what? Thinking up new features? I don't think we need incentives for that.
"bedoeld" :P
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?
Simply reducing the amount of time a patent is valid from 20 years, to about 5 years, and making them non-transferrable (ie. Company A cannot purchase patents from Company B, or acquire them by purchasing Company B) might go a long way to cleaning up the system.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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?
The article is misleading, the Dutch won't be voting against the patent directive, because there will be no voting.
Basically, the whole patent directive is one big swindle:
The only thing that Dutch government can do is to strike this A-item again from the order of council. What's gonna happen when Council decides to ignore JURI recomendation for returning this directive to first reading? Honestly, I don't know...
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
Umm... easy on the pot dude. It's playing hell with your spelling.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine