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EU Patents Won't Stay Dead
sconeu writes "Apparently the EC is ignoring the restart directive, and has placed software patents as an A-Item on the Council of Minister's agenda with an aim for approval on Monday." From the article: "The directive is pitched as offering greater protection for software developers. Opponents, including many in the European parliament, fear it will simply provide big players, including America's powerful and litigious software giants, with a very large stick to batter upstart developers and the Open Source movement." Update: 03/04 22:04 GMT by Z : And just as quick as you please Denmark stops things in their tracks. Denmark's objection means that there will have to be further debate before the patents get the stamp.
Is it just me or does it sound like Microsoft and other litigious American software giants has bought the influence of this European commission? I can only hope that the many countries involved will stand up and fight to at least hold debate on a matter that might ruin most small and mid sized European software companies.
Its not users who are broken, it's systems not taking account their likely behaviour and fixing it technically.
... for a second reading, can't they kill the measure then even if the Ministers approve it?
There is nothing wrong with patents per se, but rather the *reasons* why they are being called for.
The European computer patent measure seems to be aimed at stifling competition rather than encourage innovation - that is why it's not a good idea.
Unfortunate, the US patent system has the idea right but it's been misused into oblivion (with wonderful contributions from those granting patents, too) - but it was never created for the reasons that the European Computer Implemented Inventions Directive is being created for.
Damn unfortunate.
Why do Europeans allow a non-elected commission to determine economic policy? It makes no sense to me that a state would agree to hand out such important matters that, in my mind anyhow, require representation to do. Personally, I don't give crap about software patents, I'm more amazed the EU is run like this.
Burn Hollywood Burn
batter (verb):
1. To hit heavily and repeatedly with violent blows.
2. To subject to repeated beatings or physical abuse.
3. To damage, as by heavy wear.
You're not as clever as you think you are.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Who will earn the most money from this?
Who has enough money to be able to spend it to get this through because Linux is starting to gain popularity?
I won't answer either but we all know the answer.
I like muppets.
Sure, software patents protect small developers. That's why Carmack's Reverse is patented by 3DLabs (who John Carmack doesn't work for, and received royalties from Doom 3 sales), one-click ordering is patented by one of the online auction giants, and is why we're seeing elements of standard computing operations being patented on a weekly basis.
How does the patenting of the components and standard processes of computing protect the small developers if the small developers are no longer allowed to freely develop?
Apparently, the Danes have stepped up to kill this one! http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=428
:wq
I'm not up on my EU procedures. Assuming it is approved by the ministers, does it still need Parliamentary approval? If so, and assuming it receives such, is there some type of court to which an appeal can be brought? Does the EU have any type of Judicial redress?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
According to this article in the German IT magazine Heise.de (use the fish), the danish parliament has giving their minister for economy, Bendt Bendtsen, binding orders to request a complete restart of the whole negotiations.
The parliament of the Netherlands have giving their representative orders to support any demands for new negotiations.
Finally, the German representative would face sever pressure (he'd probably have to resign) should he ignore the German parliants demands for new negotiations.
As for many of the "new" EU members, they will probably not support a decision that might severly restrict their fledgeling IT economy - no matter how much Microsoft and the other "big players" try to lobby.
So, all in all, its as good as dead - at least for now.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Today, the danish comission of European affairs ORDERED their governement to not treat the new software patent directive as a "done deal".
The Dutch governement had earlier said it was hoping on a redraft opf the bill, but would not block the vote, something the German Governement had also done.
In the meantime the Dutch VVD also brought in a motion to try to get an amendment to bring "community patents into the bill, which then would have to be completely redrafted.
Source: www.webwereld.nl
I dont know about you folks, but I'm thinking: "It ain't over 'till the Fat Lady sings"
And I somewhat like the idea of a commons of patents.
Anytime you put a bad law or tax or whatever up for a vote.
It gets voted down. So the powers that be hold another vote. Repeat until the TPTB gets what it wants. No rule in place to keep you from asking over and over, like a nagging kid wanting candy.
Same thing in my home town over a property tax for schools. Put it up for a vote, and it's a no. Do it again. And again. And finally it goes through. And the school board starts doing backflips. Whee! A mandate from the masses!
Any truly fair system would hold a single vote, on a single topic - and then no more. Not forever, but for say...at least 7 years or so.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
If the EU Parliament can make a stink about this autocratic move by the EU Council, and stop the power grab, it will be a larger victory for European democracy. This kind of abuse will happen all the time in Europe, making a sham of democracy as corporations and other interests make end runs around a subordinate democratic government. But if they can drive a stake through its heart now, democracy can rule a functionary state body instead. Europe has had centuries of warmup for a continental democracy experiment, including staging a mixed bag of results across the Atlantic. Now, as it is formally getting underway at home, is the time to ensure the balances are correct.
--
make install -not war
That's a little extreme. Corporations are not obligated to commit ethical violations just because it might net them more money. Most shareholders would probably not put up with unethical behaviour just for increased value of the stock.
The people pushing patents believe in their black, black hearts that this is ethical. That Intellectual Property is just that. I've been in a patent discussion with our lawyers and it's amazing that they actually believe the IP argument. They just don't understand how software works, they like thinking of it as a CD or a web page, since those are concepts that they understand.
Save a life, sign your organ donor card.
developments: Computerised inventions: the Commission refuses to budge
As heise reports, the Danish parliament has bindingly instructed their secretary of commerce to vote AGAINST software patents,
so the law can't be nodded through.
According to their parliaments some other ministers are instructed (more or less bindingly) to support another country's approach to restart the whole process:
Poland, Netherlands, Spain (had already voted against it in the last session), maybe Germany (but represented by some stubbor a..hat, so..)
Also it is likely that some countries that were neutral during the last voting (like Austria, Belgium, Italy) will support a complete restart.
I live in Switzerland, which is not part of the EU, thank God, and given the EC blatant disregard for the EU parlimentary request to restart the process of software patents, I will make very sure, by the democratic means of public initiative, aka privately initiated referendums, which we have in Switzerland, that Switzerland will never join that bastion of corruption.
I do not want my country ruled by a cabal of easily bought unelected scum in Brussels, and, given the way things are going, I think there are many current EU members, such as the UK and Denmark that are wondering how they can get out of it as fast as possible.
If you look here: http://ffii.org/ there's some possibly better news.
Has there ever been some study or likewise that support patents, in the sense that they show an increase in innovation in areas that are patent regulated?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
IMHO, this is the effect the general political disinterest the population has here in the EU. It may be stronger than in the US, but it' still declining.
And it is now SO LOW that corruption rises steeply. This is corruption, isn't it? Not calling it corruption would euphemise it.
Maybe, people still care a bit about what the media say. The media don't say anything about 'smaller political issues', only the important ones.
But the media also decide what "important issues" are. For example they redefine that corruption is about privately using frequent-flyer-miles (not ok, of course, but corruption?), about contacts of politicians into red-light districts (wtf?!)
They let politicians talk about "high-tech", "information economy" etc.pp. But if important laws are proposed in this area, they do not notice or they do not want to notice.
If the Minister for Economic Affairs overrides decisions of the cartel office for apparently no good reason (as it happened here in germany), it's pictured as "saving the economy". Arrrrrrgh!
If they push this through, "we" should not stop trying to prevent software patents. We should lobby for the abolition of software patents then. But this will be hard.
Sometimes, I have the vision for 2020-2030 of some grey-haired FLOSS developers drinking tea together and being nostalgic about the wild times where software development wasn't illegal and fundamental rights were still respected.
But I can not, in any way, accept such a development.
They're eager to show that nothing is rotten in the state of Denmark. :)
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
The French revolution. Those in power repeatedly ignore the cries of the people and defile common sense with their governmental decisions. The rich live their lives in naive luxury while those outside their homes are starving. Finally the straw that breaks the camel's back will fall, and the people will rise to usurp their so-called "leaders". Chaos will soon follow, and the rage, blood, and death will spread across the countryside like wild-fire...
Anything and everything just seems to be getting more and more messed up in the world of politics today. My only question is what will be the 21st century equivalent of the guillotine? Laser guns? Oh please, please let it be laser guns!!! =D
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
What I mean by that is that if someone defines, say, a new crime and brings out laws against that crime, from that point on you can try people for breaking those laws. But you can't retrospectively try people who committed that crime before the laws against it were written.
Sure, patent law has existed for years but software patent laws are not currently recognised in Europe. If they do get through, by the same logic, no software written before those laws were enforced can come under them - is that the case or am I missing something?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The members of the commission.
Since telling it nicely doesn't work, and telling it with lots of money is out of the question, we should find other ways to uhm...convince them. The first step is to peel them out of this anonymus term "European Commission", so they can't hide in it.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
The requirements of fiduciary responsibility are usually negative, not positive. You can't do something that's clearly BAD for the company (remember the flap about the network whose manaagement wanted to run an anti-Kerry show? He backed down because it was clearly not in the best fiduciary interest of the company.) However, as for taking a particular positive action (should we develop X or Y? Should we lobby the EU for software patents?), there is no consequence as a breach of "fiduciary responsibility" for taking one action or another. You might get fired for incompetence, but not sued.
Clearly greed is a human motivation, and serves a purpose - medieval scholars wrote "Blessed is the inclination to evil, without which a man would not plant a vineyard, take a wife, or establish a house." But we all know it can be destructive to society as a whole when applied on a huge scale.
Fiduciary responsibility does not, in a practical sense, mandate immoral behavior. Dressing it up as some sort of moral obligation is the worst sort of cynicism. It's a call to inaction - "These huge powerful companies HAVE to act this way - no sense in trying to make it turn out any differently." What a bleak world that would be to live in.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
But those over 30000 illegally issued software patents give us an idea of the future.
They include basic user interface widgets like tabs (EP689133).
FFII has a list of the last 100 software patents they found.
Becoming a republic won't help rid you of your royal family.
Just look at us: we've never had a royal family in our whole history as an independant country, yet we still have the Kennedys.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Your civil war was a long time ago and you may think wars are a romantic way to solve conflicts. Here in Europe people remember the last two wars we fought, and we don't labor under such notions. We won't go to war over a perceived democratic deficit (which is funny, coming from a nation with only two parties, which are identical anyway), and we certainly will not go to war over software patents.
And before you ask - we don't need liberating at this time. Thanks for asking, though. No, we don't have oil.
AC comments get piped to
If so, why not appoint a new commission and negate their actions on patents?
Indeed it must, but not for that reason. Who gives a shit about European software developers (says I, a European software developer)?
What's really important is that the European Comission (we-the-comissioned as in non-elected b"euro"crats.) put forward this bill. The Concil of Ministers ("we-the-elected") voted against it.
The European Parliment ("we-the-people") ordered a restart of the whole process.
Rewind.
The CoM resubmitted the proposal, this time as a please-rubberstamp-me item, which should be reserved for uncontroversial bills. Only through massive public uproar did we get the EP to notice, and vote down the proposal again.
The EP (as you may remeber, "we-the-people") ordered a restart, again.
The EC, totally against all rules flatly refuses and are now submitting the law again, rubber-stamp-fashion.
No doubt the EC will continue to flout the EP and resubmit the bill again and again until by a fluke it gets voted through.
The EP has only two options. Sit down and take it, or fire the EC. Everyone seems to think the latter would be to extreme, I for one do not.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
I see many posts about Europeans not being interested in politics and the European parliament in Brussels being corrupt.
I 'd like to remind everyone out there of the many Europeans who are very active in protesting against patents like the people of NoSoftwarePatents and the Federation for a Free Information Infrastructure, encouraging people around Europe to get a hold of their MEPs and making them aware of the importance of the matter.
Hey a lot of us went to Brussels (with bananas!) to protest February 17, there where busses organised even from Paris.
We write, fax and mail our politicians, even send them fresh fruit to show how much we care about this!
Because if there is one thing parliaments _really_ hate, it is that kind of thing...
There's a [mailing list http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/in-parl/] here. The Indian ordinance needs to be ratified by Parliament yet.
Another interesting tidbit from the article:
I sent email via faxyourmp to my EU members of parliament, one UK independence party (hates the EU entirely, along with anything foreign), and the Liberal Democrats
I havent heard anything back from UKIP, which surprises me -I thought they'd be "the EU is evil, here is why".
The lib dem MP gave some patronising guff about technical innovation and "balancing the needs of large enterprises and small businesses", nothing about consumers, OSS developers, etc.
But he did say they had voted to send it back, and were miffed at the response. They werent letting it lie, as it was a sign of a broader power struggle between governments (council of ministers) and the EU parliament itself.
Many news and medias outlets are foisting article titles so fast that even if you read them, they go like a blurr...
...
EU Patents Won't Stay Dead
Euro ministers set to OK patent measure
European Parliament votes to scrap software patent text
EC rebuffs Parliament's patent restart request
Reboot ordered for EU patent law
Open source prepares to kiss EU patent ass goodbye
EU patents vote delayed
EU patent law stumbles, fail
European Parliament Throws Out Patent Bill
My head is spinning. Perhaps, I haven't fully absorb the new Euro government structure and its basic triangle relationship between the EC, EuroParliment and Patent. But these medias aren't helping with their front-page titles.
The only one that I understand is this one article:
Linus Torvalds against EU patent directive
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Sorry for not putting links in the aboves title. I don't believe in karma whoring.
The cynic in me tells me that the "Software implemented inventions" item will probably be removed from the agenda next monday. It does not matter. It was a big mistake on the part of the pro-patent lobby to push so hard for the adoption of the directive when there was no majority. It put the pro-patent lobby in the position that they had to lobby against democracy. This destroyed any chance of a patent-friendly directive.
Commissioner McGreevy had effectively lost when the EU parliament voted for the restart with a very large majority. Sure, the commission could refuse the restart, and it foolishly did so. The council might even have adapted the directive. But there was no way this would get through a second reading. Denmark saved McGreevy and the rest of the commission from a devastating showdown with the EU parliament. The commission should be grateful.
If you'd read the Articles of Impeachment, Clinton was impeached for Lying to a Grand Jury (if I had lied to a Grand Jury at the same time as he did, I'd still be in jail, fwiw).
Also, the President has much LESS "control of the country" than you seem to believe - the economy folding had little, if anything, to do with the impeachment, and much more to do with the fact that people suddenly realized that they had invested a great deal of money in companies with no profits, and no prospect of making a profit in the near future (I wish I were unscrupulous enough to have taken advantage of the dotCom boom - I'd be retired now, and all I'd have had to do is come up with something to sell on the Net, below cost, but made up for with high volume)
The dotCom boom/bust was fascinating to watch - so much like 1929. But it wasn't Clinton who caused the boom, nor was it Clinton's fault it went bust.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Let the game begin. Jose Manuel Barroso: sg-web-president@cec.eu.int Margot Wallstroem: margot.wallstrom@cec.eu.int Guenter Verheugen: guenter.verheugen@cec.eu.int Jacques Barrot: cab-archive-barrot@cec.eu.int Siim Kallas: CAB-KALLAS-WEB-FEEDBACK@cec.eu.int Franco Frattini: Cabinet-Frattini@cec.eu.int Viviane Reding: Viviane.reding@cec.eu.int Stavros Dimas: stavros.dimas@cec.eu.int Joaquín Almunia: CAB-ALMUNIA-INFO@cec.eu.int Danuta Huebner: Cabinet-Huebner@cec.eu.int Joe Borg: joe.borg@cec.eu.int Dalia Grybauskait: cab-grybauskaite-commissaire@cec.eu.int Janez Potocnik: Janez.Potocnik@cec.eu.int Jan Figel': CAB-FIGEL@cec.eu.int Markos Kyprianou: sanco-mailbox@cec.eu.int Olli Rehn: olli.rehn@cec.eu.int Louis MICHEL: Louis.Michel@cec.eu.int László Kovács: Laszlo.Kovacs@cec.eu.int Neelie Kroes: Neelie.Kroes@cec.eu.int Mariann Fischer Boel: Mariann.Fischer-Boel@cec.eu.int Benita Ferrero Waldner: benita.ferrero-waldner@cec.eu.int Charlie McCreevy: Charlie.Mc-Creevy@cec.eu.int Vladimír Spidla: vladimir.spidla@cec.eu.int Peter Mandelson: Peter.Mandelson@cec.eu.int Andris Piebalgs: cab-archive-piebalgs@cec.eu.int
I find it interesting that there is an ongoing suggestion that only big money firms are innovators and that small companies and open source concerns are just copiers. Such willful ignorance is staggering.
You have any doubt? Let us look at Microsoft then as they are the biggest and surely the "most innovative." Which world famous products of theirs have shown them to be the great innovators that all else copy?
MS-DOS? A clone of existing operating systems. They took someone else's idea, made their own implementation, and profited.
Their greatest triumph? Windows OS. So can we assume Microsoft created the first graphical operating system? The first window based operating system? The first point-and-click, mouse navigated operating system? No, no and no. In all three cases they took an existing idea from someone else, extended it and profited.
Which is exactly what small companies and open source projects do. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...
Tell me then, what is the second item Microsoft is famous for? MS Office. So then, did Microsoft invent the word processor? Spreadsheet? Email client? Database? Not one thing that Microsoft is famous for is a software idea of their own invention. In every case they have extended a previous software idea. And have gotten rich doing it.
This is how software has ALWAYS been created... until now.
Software patents are simply a tool for the mighty to beat the young in manners they themselves were NEVER subjected to. If the EU passes this proposal they should be consistent and pass a proposal to allow adults to choke and stifle children, to choke them until they die. Sure, we understand that we became adults because someone else was leanient toward us. Just as the process of creating software was leanient toward today's giants. Should that debt cause us to extend the same courtesy toward those that come after us?
Pass software patents? Let us be consistent then: punish the weak, the poor, the young, the lessers - all they who fall outside the scope of the "master race." Good Nazi's vote in favour of patents.
Things are different with software. Firstly, you don't need vast resources to mass-produce software. A web site is about all you need; and reasonable servers and bandwidth are within almost everyone's reach these days.
Secondly, there's already something preventing a big company from copying your work and selling it as their own: copyright.
So patents don't work for the little guy in the same way (even when they're working as designed, which they don't seem to be). What do they do for him? Why do you have them? Beats me.
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