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European Parliament Rejects Software Patents
heretic9 writes "The European Parliament unanimously rejected the software patent bill recently put before it. Hugo Lueders of CompTIA, a pro-patent lobby group, said that the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups, which muddied debate about the rights and wrongs of software patents." Meaning, essentially, that the Conference of Presidents got its way.
Another example of the far more sensible approach our friends across the pond take to things. Even though the majority of people are citizens, not corporations, we only value the corporations when it comes time to protect "people" over here in america because they have the majority of money.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
From the article: "The latest rejection means that now the bill on computer inventions must go back to the EU for re-consideration."
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within." - Albert Einstein
So, when he writes to lawmakers asking them to consider his point of view, it's called "lobbying".
How come when I do it, it's called "muddying debate"?
Sheesh...
These sigs are more interesting tha
They will only give up when software patents are legal. This is going to be a LONG fight.
And I just don't get why Europe would EVER legalize software patents. Right now they are legal in Australia, India, the US, and Japan. So basically, right not, Europe is the only place in the industrialized world which can do something simple like include a help icon in its software.
Without software patents, Europe will become a Mecca of software development!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
a pro-patent lobby group, said that the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups, which muddied debate about the rights and wrongs of software patents
How dare they discuss the bad points about software patents. Isn't the pro-patent lobby group a special interest group? What makes them think they have a right to present their views, while groups which are against software patents do not?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Software patents as implemented in the US do not promote the progress of science and useful arts, and are therefore not covered by this.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Surely the problem with US patents isn't that they're software based but because there's a lack of novelty. This is a problem in all areas of inniovation, not just software.
Why was the RSA public key encryption patent such a terrible thing, whereas a patent for a hardware encrytion device is a good thing?
This is *not* OSS vs Commercial soft, it's smaller software companies (and OSS) vs the big multinational corporations.
I think this is a good move for EU since it does not benefit them at all nor their citizen. US, on the other hand, do benefit even if they (US) passed the law since the M$ is in US itself thus also paying tax to the US.
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
Maybe, but not in Europe. Your laws end where your borders end. Outside the US, your constitution has about as much value as a sheet of toilet paper.
"Yes, but us American's have, truth, justice, and the American way on our side"
Erm...
"truth" - there are WMD in Iraq, and that's the reason to go to war?
No Truth, sorry.
"justice" - Guantanamo Bay? (sp?)
No Justice, sorry.
"American Way" - well, fair enough, but since you are the only ones who WANT it; Meh!
As the Patriot act shows, inside the U.S. the U.S. constitution can be treated like a sheet of toilet paper, too.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
There is a clear requirement that the current patent laws in EU be cleared up! It is quite obscure and vague on some points and this has actually allowed for software patents to get through, just check the iiff.org website.
The discussion is not whether new and uniform patent legislation accross EU is needed. It is about the content.
The pros want EU to align with USA, in many other areas, aligning laws with important trade partners is beneficial for all parties. But with the development in USA in this case, the benefits of such alignment can be disputed.
Unfortunately the continual rejections and attempts to force through a particular piece of paper has now become a dispute about democracy and who has the power - attention seems to be shifted away from the original content.
I am looking forward for the process to restart so the discussion can get back on track.
Yeah sure. It is not a troll just a different opinion. You should obviously read about how to make a difference between something you DO NOT agree with and something that has been created for the purpose to stir controversy. I have to conclude that it was rather the former.
First, GP is correct imo. There are signs, which would be too numerous to detail here, indicating that the USA is behaving as an empire, not as a nation. In a democratic way the USA wouldn't ignore international laws and customs just because noone is in the place to punish them for doing so. If you would examine your economics textbooks a bit more in-depth, you would realise that Japan beat the US economy on a lot of points, pushed the usa out of a lot of markets in the 80ies. It needs a bit longer explanation. After WW2 USA administration assumed that the soviets are 20 years behind technologically at the time. They were proven wrong by the A-bomb two years after, the hydrogen-bomb and sputnik and Gagarin. The administration had a panic reaction and realised that they need to improve the education in the states drastically, which happened in the 60ies (i'm thinking about bleeding edge science here, so universities and laboratories mainly). They pushed a TON of money into the education system and into so called "base or basic research". They came up with a lot of progress and inventions, and the electronical industry LIVES from those inventiones UP UNTIL TODAY. The USA, however stopped these researches because of the economic changes, think of oil crisis, etc. This gave place for Japan in the 80ies to grab markets, because although japan didnt run any base research, they improved the technology they bought from the USA, so that's why it had a big impact on US economy. I have to note that most of these info is from a course i'm attending now and the reasoning i presented is from my teacher specialized in this subject
I'm not saying that something similar is going on with the EU atm, just that there are consequences if someone ruins the education system and that the USA seems to make bad decisions when messing with the economy.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Nope. Those have gone to South China.
India.
I'll see you in Brussels, then, because that'd be the EU.
We're pretty much running along on the momentum of our past accomplishments here, although that momentum is considerable and should carry us for a decade or so before the decline becomes undeniable and the inevitable bickering about whose fault it is kicks in. The very idea of globalization is that countries do what they are undeniably best at. What is the US these days better at than any other country?
That'd be spending money.
So become an invetment banker, young man, and specialize in investing the accumulated wealth of two hundred years of domestic economic accomplishment overseas. Or if that career path is not open to you, there is always retail.
There is no will to chart out a brighter course for the people who make their living by creating things or performing services. If you doubt this, look at education reform. Oh, I have no objection to "No Child Left Behind", other than its utter lack of boldness. I was born on the tail edge of the baby boom, so I know what serious, shitting-your-pants-because-of-sputnik education reform looks like, and that ain't it.
Software patents are just another example of something that is good for capital but bad for people who create (although ostensibly it is for their benefit!). As innovation grinds to a halt because of legal uncertainty, companies can continue to exploit their past innovations without creating any new ones. For Joe Engineer, his job security is only good as his next innovation. His part ones are signed over to the company.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But, come to think of it, let the damn thing pass, individual countries who do not want it can very well refuse to honour and protect software patent law.
There are precedents: even though abortion was illegal in Canada (until the law that forbade abortion was declared unconstitutional), Québec refused not only to uphold that law, but even funded abortions.
So if a particular country wants to have a thriving software industry, it can simply tell patent holders to shove their patents where their constipatedness shines...
Yes, you have. But only if you take *the whole cake*.
:-)
Currently "patents" (by lack of a better word : "goverment endorced extortion papers" would be a better description for quite a few of them) should have a *limited* scope, and only so you can *retrieve monetary investments*.
Many of the current "patents" have been given to "discoveries" that have *no development-cost* to them (they where just a bright idea, with no follow-up). But still they are used to back the demand for licence-fees.
It strangles innovation, instead of helping it grow.
At the rate of change of software (IT in general), no patent should last for more than about 3 years. If you could not get your *investment* back by than, you won't ever
Well both organizations deal with power, since money is today the most effective representation of power, while religion and access-to-gods has been "the" power for a long time.
...
One thing that people/organizations in power do, is try to get even some more power, which helps in getting even more power later on, which at the end destablizes the social system in one way or another.
In fact, concentration of power into too few hands is the single most important reason why manysocial systems collaped in the past. Examples are everywhere. From the roman empire to the middle aged church-state, form the indian 4000 old castes-based system, (in which not surprisingly the priests become the dominant caste), to even the soviet so called "social" system
We as humans need to learn from hour history and enforce very strict rules that limit power accumulation, in all its incarnations.
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
You raise some interesting, if not directly related, points.
You are dead right in that corporations rarely exist as part of the nation-state idea anymore, but they still provide jobs for someone, somewhere. When a corporation who provides jobs moves factories to another country, it creates jobs in that other country. Those people are now the families of the corporation.
As to culpability and liability, that again raises interesting questions. If you polled the workers at GM if they thought a large monitary judgement against GM was 'unfair' - dollars to dounuts they would say "yes!" Do you think the people employed by Enron or Worldcom went to work every day saying "gee, I hope someone brings my economic life to a screeching halt by closing down that sham of a company I work for"?
People are looking to protect their own economic self interest, so pointing to unhappy workers at one plant means you need to look at the happy workers somewhere else.
What I personally have a problem with is companies slavish devotion to quarterly profit statments. But there again, I can show a clear reason why they do. Companies are owned by shareholders, and that's what shareholders want- quarterly returns. I think corporate boards often make shortsighted decisions to satisfy that need at the cost of long term sustainability.
And in the end, that hurts the 'people' who work for them, no matter what country they are in.
A sig?!? I don't think so.....
Yo, you are SO ON IT!
Empire is the key here. And like every empire, ours will pull back. As I've mentioned before, the current path of the US empire is not sustainable. We generate the majority of the world's green house gasses, consume the majority of it's oil, wage war with the most powerful military, and try to dictate one set of values while engaging with another. At some point, we're just gonna get tired of it. And honsetly, I think we're getting close to that.
Hey, I love the US. But I'm also a globalist because it's unstoppable and frankly, I'm not afraid of the world economy or infusion of cultures. You can even look back, from an anthropological point of view, and see societies and groups around the world, that either isolated themselves directly or indirectly, pretty much always died off if they couldn't assimilate.
The EU is on the right path, but only because of their proximity to each other and thousands of years of war. In the end, they've finally figured it out - they're sick of killing each other and realize that working together is a better way. Our empire at some point will realize this too. And not just from an economical standpoint, but a social one as well.
It's an unstoppable law of nature that those that can't adapt get plowed under. We'll see what happens to our rigid robber barons of the present...
My right to patent my idea is granted to me by the Constitution.
"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"
First of all you have absolutely no right to patent something that is not an invention. Writing down a mathematical function or a series of mental steps is not an invention. No one involved has any objection to patenting inventions. The objection is to the attempt to extened patents to non-inventions. It is an objection to software patents.
Secondly you have no "right" to patent anything. It would help if you quoted the constitition correctly. What you quoted was a HALF SENTENCE. It has absolutely no subject. Read in isolation it is absolutely incoherent. The way that portion of the constitution is written can be a little tricky if you aren't familiar with it. Notice that the only period is way down at the end of clause eighteen, eleven clauses later. The first half of that sentence is waaaaay back at the begining of clause 1. Everything is broken up with semicolons, and it seems nobody today has any idea how to use semicolons correctly. To be honest I doubt I could use a semicolon properly. Anyway... the proper way to find a sentence in there is:
The Congress shall have Power [...] 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 []
Power number 1 through power number 7 are snipped out in that first '[...]', power number 8 is the listed Progress Clause, and powers 9 through 18 are snipped out in that second '[...]'. Congress has the power to do each of those things if it chooses to do so. You have no inherent right to a copyright or a patent. Congress has the power to create copyrights and patents if they want. Just as they have the power to collect taxes. However congress was perfectly free not to create copyright and patents, just as they were free not to impose taxes. Congress is perfectly free to pass a new law declining to grant copyrights anymore and perfectly free to pass a new law declining to grant patents anymore, just as congress is perfectly free to pass new laws eliminating various taxes. I seem to recall such laws being referred to as "tax releif", so I guess that would make the other laws "copyright relief" and "patent releif". Grin.
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