Slashdot Mirror
Software Patents In The European Union Continued...
Christopher Reimer writes "O'Reilly Policy DevCenter has a nice overview concerning the legalizing software patents in the European Union. From the article: 'The Computer Implemented Inventions Directive (CIID), which seeks to clarify the issue, is still being fought over in the EU and may or may not result in legalizing them. For small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and in particular, free software projects, there is much to lose.'"
It is even really worth fighting software patents in europe when clearly the european parliment will do it's own thing whatever the people say?
Would like to hear from any European Slashdotters who have actually written to or phoned or emailed their elected representatives on this noxious attempt to hobble innovation.
Any response from your public "servants?"
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
For small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and in particular, free software projects, there is much to lose.
And for the attorneys much to gain...
My sigs offend the max # of people all over the world, regardless of race, religion, color, sex or creed. It's a gift.
*pulls hair out* I've already given up hope, lets start a military coup and take over equatorial guinea
Europe will adopt these patents but first they have to force its population to adopt its corporation-helping constitution as any change will require 100% of its countries to vote for. :(
I'm afraid we're stuck.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Preventing the directive going ahead now is probably impossible. It would make more sense to get out of it by leaving the EU. If two countries were to leave, the whole edifice would probably collapse.
"Incredible," said the kzin. "If the Patriarchy tried to force such a law on kzinti, we would exterminate the Patriarchy for its insolence."
- Ringworld (Larry Niven)
It's good to know that European beaurocrats are every bit as ineffective and corrupt as our own here in the states.
Let's hear it for consistency!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Linux runs everywhere, and it works ! Let no-one say (in the future) that they invented some part of it, claim it's novel, and encumber it with a patent.
Torrents available here http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/torrents /
FTA: "If more programmers and SMEs approach their MEPs and go beyond the single letter, we may yet win."
But how do we as IT people explain the general public this would be a disaster to European economy? What could start some emotion going for this issue? The customer is also going to be victimised! Low quality and low security software galore probably. But do they know?
Somehow I know this concerns everybody, not only people in the industry. Because democracy is being ignored for something a lot of people don't understand doesn't mean they can get away with it.
I know a considerable amount (for a programmer) about patent law, and I've read a fair number of patents.
I do not, however, know how one can clearly distinguish between software and non-software patents.
It is not as easy as one might think. Many things we call "software patents" do not mention software or even computers. This didn't use to be the case. They used to insist that an example hardware system be described in the patent, perhaps as a "preferred embodiment". Now many patents simply describe an algorithm. Whether that algorithm is carried out by computer, sliderule, abacus, or pencil and paper is often not explained.
A further complication arises when software is a part of an invention that also has hardware components. There are many such inventions today.
Unfortunately, "I know a software patent when I see one" probably wouldn't cut it in the courts. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I could comment on this problem.
If this isn't the case, how are the people who patent stuff in the EU that's already been patented in the U.S. going to have a leg to stand on?
I'd be really interested to know if the people pushing for software patents had any connections with U.S. based corporations... I smell somethin fishy...
I just had this discussion with a co-worker yesterday.
Now, to be clear, I'm not a fan of software patents. A lot of these patents that I see enforced, are for trivial things that shouldn't have been patented in the first place, like "one click" shopping. And what about general things like sorting algorithms, if bubble sort was patented, it would have done serious harm to just even teaching the profession.
Having said that, I see that most people on slashdot want to get rid of software patents, but what I'm wondering is, why only software? I think you are either for patents or against, and that computer scientists basically "disarming" themselves is not a good idea.
Unless I'm missing something, it seems people value physical inventions more than software ones, and that doesn't make sense to me. Sometimes the software "inventions" are even more complex and influencial than your physical ones. If you say, get rid of the software patents, we're saying our work doesn't deserve the same protection as work from other fields? Just because our work is software? That doesn't make sense to me.
Maybe we should raise the bar on software patents, maybe we shouldn't let "business processes" be patented (one click for example), but I don't think it's consistent to say CS work is less deserving than work from other fields.
- sigs are for wimps.
Why not simply shorten the lifespan of patents to say 2 years? 20 is certainly too long. And yes, I know it would have to get past the corporations who are trying to protect their (short term) interests. But from a realistic standpoint, 2 years is a long time to have a monopoly on an idea or concept. You can get a tremendous head start, and if the patented idea is a good one, a pretty damn good market share. But the competition still has an opportunity to use the ideas and generate innovation advancement after that time period.
I know corperations in America tend to be short sighted, but if I can see that China and other countries are simply going to ignore the (software) patents and hammer ahead with technological innovation, why can't the higher ups see it?
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
The whole thing with software patents is funny to me, because it means the EU is squandering its opportunity to become the next superpower (in competition with China maybe) in a few decades when the US's technological dominance has faded completely. Software patents might cause the EU to sink just as far the US will, in technological terms at least.
Am I right in thinking that this will cause US patents to become valid in Europe and vice versa?
Obviously open source development methods are trampled on since this doesn't make politicians enough money.
Quite weird actually, the supposedly pro-business right-wingers listening to their voters and actually doing something for the small guys while the anti-business socialists are very much pro-patents and don't even want to hear the other side of the issue.
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!
If the directive is approved, it will make it clear that any software patent granted up until now was unlawful and is therefore null and void. This will mean that patent holders will be forced to re-apply for their patents as soon as the directive is made law!
Meanwhile, anything that would have violated one of the unlawful patents is now legitimate prior art for blocking the re-application.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"I've got to agree. If everyone is pissing sideways because they can't get their way and feel like they're getting manhandled, then how about actually complaining to your government to leave. The US is a farse anyway, made simply as an organized trade guild of sorts. Once they can solidify their control on industry (or the internet for that matter), then let's see how happy-go-lucky Americans are then."
The reason is that you patent an invention, not speech, and software is speech. Software, like the written word in other forms of speech, is already protected by copyright. Patent protection on top of that is redundant and problematic in its own right, for how can you patent speech?
So, if some croporation decides to sue for patent infringement the makers of a particular piece of OSS, who do they sue? Every single developper? How are they going to round them all up and corral them into a courtroom? How are they gonna prove the actual degree of involvement of each and everyone of them?
Or are they going to sue the end-users? How could they ferret-out all the end-users of a particular piece of software?
If the going gets though, the ongoing OSS efforts will simply go underground with a vengeance, as they won't have any scruples in blatantly siphonning-off actual patents. And with easy encription and free-net to distribute information, any effort to counter OSS is doomed to failure. And any "examples" brought out by courts at the request of croporations will simply strengthen the resolve to break the vicious IP cartels. Once the idea that IP is theft enters the public's mind, no amount of repression will be able to curtail the demise of IP "industries".
Having said that, I see that most people on slashdot want to get rid of software patents, but what I'm wondering is, why only software?
I believe that the problem is not software vs. non-software patents, but the general quailty of software patents vs. the quality of non-software patents. It's not that software shouldn't be patentable, but that a great deal of the worst offenders are not patents on specific inventions, but entire ideas. In some cases, they're patenting the problem, instead of the solution.
One example is from the FFII wewbsite: A patent on trapping viruses. After a brief glance through the description and the abstract, it seems reasonable. Except when we look at the claims, this patent attempts to claim all virtual environments used to capture viruses. If you were asked to implement this 'invention', the patent wouldn't help much, as the difficulty of the implmentation is in figuring out how to make it work, and this patent is more of an overall design.
Examples could be given for good and not-to-broad software patents, but the general feeling is SW patents are usually too broad and too easily infringed. While not allowing any SW patents might be a bit extreme, but it's better than letting them in now and letting them to cause further harm to the software industry.
Think about it. Without patents, we would end up with a sort of a innovative cold war.
The funny thing is patents are there to allow innovators to get their money back. But shouln't a good invention pay for itself?
Don't these directives require implementing legislation in each individual country? If all the country's elected representatives have been against it, I'd expect it to just not be implemented.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
how can you patent speech?
4 26256&tid=155&tid=109
You might be on to something there.
Last century we thought you couldn't patent life.
Then someone did (Havard U, "Harvard mouse", I think)
Let's invent a word and patent it.
-If it's declined then M$'s ISNOT patent must also be declined
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/19/1
-If it's accepted then it shows how stupid this whole "patent anything" rage really is.
What do you guys think?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
That's why there still are a strong EU-critical movement atleast in sweden. I personally firmly believe that a democracy cease to function when it ges too large, USA shows it today, EU will show it tomorrow, when the politicians get too far from the people, people lose interest, just compare the last national election's participation (81%) to EU election's particpation (38%).
I had to mention it, as I am quoted in the article as: "Tom Grek, an IT specialist working with Bristows, a London-based technology law firm". I am an electronic engineer and longtime Slashdot reader now working in law (not quite - yet - a qualified lawyer).
I don't oppose software patents but I oppose how they have been implemented. Software is an area of rapid development, and what the patent office considers patentable often is in fact 'obvious' to even a moderately competent programmer. The gap between actually obvious and what has been designated as 'patently obvious' means that a great deal a large number of ideas that are frequently and easily created independently are patented.
So, if patents for software were related to its requirement for extensive R&D and were truly non-obvious then I wouldn't have a problem with them.
The reason this isn't as much an issue in other industries (although it is a problem with biotech also) is that they are already mature and thus creating something patentable is quite a bit more difficult and usually does imply a high degree of non obviousness.
LetterRip
For one thing, there's already a perfectly good mechanism for protecting actual software and source code: copyright.
And for another, the bar to entry is much, much lower with software. You don't need all the resources for mass production, manufacturing, duplication, marketing, or anything other than a web site.
AIUI, the raison d'être of patents is to protect the inventor: to stop a big company coming along, copying his or her invention, and using their much bigger resources to develop and mass produce the product and lock him or her out. But that's not a problem for software; the big company can't copy the software directly, and they don't have much of an advantage in mass production either. So why have them?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
To: All pro-software patent lawyers inc. Carl Oppedahl
Dear Patent Lawyer,
You have claimed, based on your experience as a patent lawyer, that software patents can help even small commercial enterprises. Could you please explain why software patents are not harmful both to society and to freedom of expression given the case of an open-source developer who, as a result of working unpaid on his/her project as a hobby giving his/her inventions away freely for the benefit of society, i.e. without any project income, without any corporate project sponsor to pay legal fees, without sufficient personal savings or income to pay for even a brief consultation with a "cheap" patent lawyer, and without a patent lawyer prepared to work pro bono, is threatened with a patent lawsuit by a corporation demanding he/she removes the allegedly infringing software from the project's website, leaving the impoverished developer with no real choice but to comply with the demand and close the project?
One recent unresolved case, which is not unique, is that of the German mathematician and open-source software developer Helmut Dersch who had no financial choice but to remove his software from his project website. He had no money to pay for a patent application at the time of his own invention, which pre-dates the patent application of the IPX company.
Here is a summary of the case history.
I hope you will take the time to reply at moderate length for the sake of explaining to the open-source developer community why software patents are not a threat to completely unfunded open-source projects.
Thank you for reading this.
Last posted here without a reply.
There are several reasons I'm against software patents but not other patents:
1) Software patents tend to be applied for on individual ideas, rather than a single invention. Take a look at Photoshop's splash screen. How many patent numbers are there for that one single program? Not only that, there are dozens, if not hundreds of "ideas" that are embodied in every program. Sorting, for instance: whether you sort emails or high scores, if your program isn't a highschool assignment, it probably uses a sort. Or online help, the concept of which has been around for decades now, yet a company in Japan was just crushed with a patent on it.
2) The software lifecycle is shorter than the hardware lifecycle. How long have we been using combustion engines now? Fundamentally the basic engine hasn't changed in decades, but people have invented improvements. Have you seen improvements for the Commodore 64's GEOWrite program lately? Does it really need 20 years worth of protection?
3) Enforcability. Because honestly, the majority of software out there is closed source proprietary stuff, the only way to find out if infringement is actually occurring with a software patent is to sue the victim and force them to show you the source. If I patent an engine design and you start selling it, all I need to do is take apart your engine. If you have a patent on "doing X using A,B,C" and your competitor does X with 1,2,3 you have no way of knowing if they infringe on your patent or not except to sue them and let the courts sort it out. This is what leads to the huge messes like SCO demanding IBM's source, and probably why most companies settle even if they have a strong case: they don't want to give up their source to their competitor. In the end if you're sued and it turns out you're not infringing, the plaintiff gets off with an "oops my bad".
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
There also were odd problems with the sound: "Someone doesn't want me to speak and switches me off!"
Council050307 recordings
Patents don't work for software for the same reason they don't work for literature. A computer program, like a novel, is a collection of a great many ideas taken from all over the place. The value isn't in any specific solution, but rather in the way the whole package is combined.
Imagine if a novelist had to look up every metaphore or interesting sentence structure in a patent database somewhere. On top of that, the database would be organized in such a way that the novelist could never really be sure that he'd found all the relevent patents. If you compare something to an apple, does the patent that mentions comparisons to oranges apply? They're both fruit, after all. The only way to gain reasonable assurance that a given sentence doesn't infringe would be to ask a lawyer, and even the lawyer could only give an opinion - with the final decision to be made by a court.
If novelists had to work that way, only large companies with defensive patent portfolios of their own could write books. Individuals could never afford the legal staff needed to make sure their work wasn't infringing.
Software works much the same way. You encounter a problem and you try to solve it. Every time you solve something, even the smallest issue, you might be infringing on somebody's patent. Anybody with a patent portfolio and a lot of lawyers can put you out of business.
The patent system was meant to encourage people to publish scientific discoveries rather than keeping them as trade secrets. But most software problems are such that the effort to find the patented solution in a database is more than would be required to just solve the problem yourself. There are a few rare exceptions (RSA, for example), but there's no way the handful of gems can outweigh the harm done by patents.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Second, I see a computer as a tool that can be shaped (programmed) to do anything, much like clay can be shaped to be any form creating a work of art.
Now imagine if someone tried to patent the notion of forming clay to produce a physical form. Most artists would suddendly become criminals that infringe on a patent.
Apply the same thing for writing a book; imaging someone patenting a kind of story line; suddenly writers need a licence to write a specific kind of story. And seeing how the monkeys at the PTO stamp everything that is as vague as possible, that would mean anything.
Now, obviously there's plenty of prior art for both of these.... but my point is that patenting software is like patenting a type of story or photograph or type of art - is hardly promotes creativity or innovation
AC comments get piped to
That is another boilerplate template letter. How do they hope to manage these aims?
* don't allow patents and require the EPO to refund european costs of filing the illicit patents
* state categorically what patents are supposed to do and what the limit on what you get a patent on is
* software cannot infringe any patent in any manner
* any software patent must be licensed for use under the GPL in addition to the normal licensing
* bring in SLAPP for patents
* limit spending on patent litigation to the cost of the poorest party.
None of them are in the proposals in the UK...
..., Mr Durão Barroso, dismissed the discussion on the issue. He's Portuguese. I am Portuguese. I'm apologize to you all, but we portuguese had to get rid of him somehow... The European Comission was just a lucky coincidence.
I wrote to my MEP about the subject (A Liberal Democrat). While I was surprised to find the Liberal Democrats in favour of patents (being 'lefty' they usually are agianst big business screwing people over) she did send me an intereasting document on the matter which I'll list:
----------
Start of Document
----------
European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services
Statement to the European Parliament on Computer Implemented Inventions
European Parliament Plenary Session
Strasbourg, 8 March 2005
President,
the Commission is grateful for this opportunity to make a statement on the proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. I already had the opportunity to debate the proposal with the Committee on Legal Affairs on 2nd February and to discuss it with the Conference of Presidents on 3rd March. I took very careful note on both occasions of the views of the European Parliament. I noted that the Parliament considers, in general, that its views were not given sufficient weight in the first reading. From the debate in the Legal Affairs Committee, I noted that there are differing views on the substance of the proposal, in particular on its content and purpose.
The Commission gave the EP's request of 24 February, which was submitted under Article 55 of the Parliament's internal rules of procedure, careful consideration. But the Commission concluded that, at that stage, regrettably, it could not submit a new proposal, as the Parliament requested. Not because the Commission wished to persist stubbornly with the proposal, but because the Council was on the point of adopting a common position.
As I explained to the Conference of Presidents, the Council reached a political agreement in May 2004 in first reading. The Council has been on the verge of confirming the political agreement in the form of a common position since December 2004. The Commission had supported the political agreement of May 2004. The Commission could, therefore, not go back on its word when the Council was in the process of confirming its common position.
The Council has now made up its mind and adopted its common position. It did so yesterday at the Competitiveness Council. Jeannot Krecké, Chair of the Competitiveness Council, already explained to the Legal Affairs Committee, the reasons behind the Council's stance. It confirmed its common position, primarily for institutional reasons. The Council wanted to avoid a precedent whereby Member States would be seen to be backing away from a deal they had signed up to in May 2004. The Council confirmed its position to show that a deal is a deal and that it was not creating a log-jam on this dossier, in an area which is key for innovation. Jeannot Krecké noted yesterday, when the Council took its decision, that some Member States had concerns on the substance of the text and that these would be addressed in the second reading.
The ball is now very clearly in the European Parliament's court. It's for you to decide how you want to play it. I don't have to remind you of the Parliament's rights: we discussed this in the Conference of Presidents. You can, of course, reject or substantially amend the proposal. If the Parliament decides to reject it, then the Commission will respect your wishes. I will not propose a new directive.
Should you decide to propose amendments, the Commission will give them due consideration. No doubt, there are improvements that can be made. You will understand of course that I cannot speak on behalf of the Council and I would urge the Parliament to engage constructively with the Council in the future on this dossier. I am ready to help in any way.
Before concluding, I would like to say a few words on the substance of the proposal since the European Parliament will now need to turn its attention to this. The Commission proposed to clarify the legal rules on patentability for software-related inventions. This does not include computer programmes or other softwar
Software really doesn't change that quickly. Most businesses are still using Windows 2k or NT 4. Features may be added from time to time but they are nothing revolutionary that couldn't have just as easily been added at release time. Most software releases are nothing more than bug fixes for problems which shouldn't be there in the first place, but since the quality standards are so ridiculously low nobody seems to care.
There may been a rapid release cycle compared to other industries, but those releases aren't innovative by any means. If software companies were held to any real quality standards they could slow down their release cycle and and actually release a worthwhile product that wouldn't have to be updated every few months.
Exactly!
Copyright is for speech, patents are for inventions. Software is not an invention! Software is an expression of mathematical theory. Let's look at a concrete example.
Let's say that I am a contractor and my client wants me to build a bridge across a river. I say sure I know how to do that - no problem. I don't have to worry about patent infringement when building a bridge because the concept of creating a "material object to span open space or water" is not patentable (IANAL and there are some who would make an argument that the concept of a bridge IS patentable but I think that concept is ludicrous. Perhaps someone more familiar with Patent law could let us know whether or not the concept of a bridge is indeed patentable - excluding prior art).
Building software is like building a bridge (or a building for that matter).
Let's look at this from the speech perspective. Imagine if you were writing a term paper for school or doing a research project. You need to be able to express the ideas found in your research material but wait....oh I can't say THAT since THOSE words express AN idea that has been patented. You wouldn't be able paraphrase anything. Paraphrasing in term papers or building upon prior research is exactly what we as software developers do every day. I need a way to ingest configuration information into my program so that I can dynamically effect the programs behavior at startup or runtime so I build software to do that so I build something that will do just that (or more likely I use commons-digester or some other OS library that has already solved this problem). So if someone had a patent for "a method for ingesting configuration information into a program that alters behavior dynamically at startup or runtime" then I would be unable to write MY software. It wouldn't matter that I outlined the problem, I examined the technology available, and I produced MY OWN solution to the problem since any solution would fall underneath this patent and thus be infringing. It is ridiculous. Copying someone else's solution verbatim would be wrong and violate copyright...protection exists (ie I can't solve the problem using the same words/code that you did, but I can use my own words).
Say it with me: software is speech , software is speech, SOFTWARE IS SPEECH
I'm sure that in the time it took to write this rant the argument has moved on but hey it's my first post, I'll savor it anyway.
Oh by the way you all owe me big money since I own the following patent:
Patent 1,678,976,543: "A method for conveying a grouping of words and/or characters in such a way that it forms a witticism, quip, jibe or other similarly or dissimilarly classed phrase at the end of an email, letter, newsgroup posting, or any other form of communication (physical or electronic)"
This sig has been licensed by above for use in accordance with Patent: 1,678,976,543.
I emailed my representative, but they propably don't care anyway. The next election is still too far away.
Now Sun is for patents?!? Say it aint so!
(Notice that this means a published works may not be speech and yet may still be copyrighted. That's absolutely true.)
It was certainly "speech" in the legal sense when Daniel Berstein released the source to his encryption routine, because the code itself was primarily intended to convey a message to other people.
It's probably speech when Linus Torvalds releases 2.6.43, because his intent is for people to compile that kernel source to make their own kernels. It's certainly publication, in the sense of copyright, but the code itself is only secondarily intended to inform other people.
It's almost certainly not "speech" when a Microsoft employee commits a source file to any of the Windows Depots. It might be publication, in the sense of copyright, but that distribution of source code is in no sense intended to inform people directly; it's purely intended to transfer information from one machine to another. (Don't jump to the conclusion that the Microsoft licenses aren't valid. The copyright on the compiled code is absolutely sound, but that distribution is only protected speech in the weakest sense of the word.)
Software patents are for mathematical truths and thoughts. Those two should not be patented. (Most countries' laws say that mathematical truths can't be patented.) Of course software "inventions" can be better than "real" inventions, but that's not the point. Patenting a software invention is comparable to patenting x + x = 2x.
Why not simply shorten the lifespan of patents to say 2 years?
Because the lifespans are going to be extended with little debate, I think. (The patent lifespans were rather short from the beginning.)
And because 2 years is a long time in the software field.
And because you never know whenever some submarine patent is going to come up to bite you.
I'm certainly for rewarding innovators -- yes even big corporations. The problem is that the patent and copyright system has been subverted in small pieces at a time. One extension after another, and one frivolous application after another.
In my view this is more about creating byzantine and insane rules that keep lawyers at work, than it now is about encouraging innovation and publishing.
I think one could also present an argument that this is hurting business, especially Small and Medium-sized Businesses. Just like the tax code and tort law needs a reality check now and then, so does intellectual property law. It's just a matter of showing people how it adversely affects them.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I wouldn't mind very much if Microsoft owned exclusive rights to the .asf format, as long as we have MPEG, QTime, Real etc, Ogg Vorbis or whatever it's called. I would mind very much if they could patent the idea of streaming video.
I don't mind very much if the fine people at Valve don't want you to sell your own levels people can play on the engine they bough with HL-2. I would mind very much if they could patent the concept of a 3d shooter engine.
Sounds interesting enough. So is the process started? Should a consortium be formed for this word to keep things on slightly more level ground (I'm thinking it's easier for an orginization to recieve a patent of this type than a single person, but I could be wrong)? On the other hand, maybe some larger orginization that is not fond of the idea of software patents would be keen on this sort of thing.
One easy solution could be to declare that a pure software product cannot infringe on patents.
Perhaps people are trying to tackle the whole thing from the wrong end.
It's been shown that, where an item relies on ishort-time incrmental improvements, patents distort and hinder innovation. Software is a classic example of short-time incrmental improvements.
Did he inhale?
When you think about it. The usual behaviour of supposed "right wing" politicians--particularly in the US--is what seems weird to me.
In the US, Republicans have done a lot to bring about new ways to expand government intrusion into our personal lives and expand protectionism and corporate welfare. I was under the impression that right-wing politicians--should they advocate any change at all--were supposed to be about LIMITING government power, socialist/nanny-state policies and such (whether they be to artificially prop up business or individuals).
The Finnish politicians you mention are actually behaving consistently for a change. Socialism by and large isn't supposed to be about "the little guy" any more than it is supposed to be about "pro-business". Socialism is about "society"--everyone is to be taken care of the same way so nobody gets left behind, but at the same time it is difficult to impossible for anyone to get ahead.
Patents can be a very socialist idea in that sense. The socialist MEPs are probably thinkging along the line of "we have to protect 'inventors' of software from copycat products". Lobbyists from big business have told them if there are no patents to protect their software that it could end up causing the layoff of hundreds or thousands of programmers. The very idea of that happening would make a socialist cringe--we have to "protect programmers jobs", and the thought process never goes past that to the impact on innovation.
OTOH, the "pro-business right-wingers" are cooperative with the little guys in the battle against patents for the very reason that they are "pro-business":
* Software patents are protectionist--as they exist in the US they are used as a government-backed way to shut out competion. Neo-conservatives tend to dislike such excessive regulation
* The "little guy" happens to BE what most businesses are, so backing them is being "pro-business". Protecting big business would be the domain of socialists (the ideal would be government-owned industry, however a privately-owned but heavily regulated monopoly would work for socialists as well--a socialist would view this as "guaranteed jobs for society").
While I do expect right-wing politicians to resist legislation mandating or favouring the use of open source, I do think their opposition to software patents is consistent with their ideology.
Well I'm not sure whether they are corrupt or just monumentally stupid. Anyhow, there is European Anti-Software Patent Bribe Pledge Drive running at the wery moment. An interesting approach indeed, at the very least it could raise some eyebrows if enough money is pledged so consider donating. I've done my share.
Both points are plain wrong, the poster has NO IDEA WHATSOEVER how patents work.
That's what consumer organisations do. If we can get them to understand that copyright is enough to protect innovation and that patents only make the consumer pay higher prices, they may well want to make a lot of noise. And coming from a consumer organisation, the message is more likely to be believed by the general public than when it comes from a bunch of techies.
The EU proposal for Software Patents has absolutely no democratic legitimacy. Any government that is supporting this proposal is doing so against the will of the majority of its people, and against the interests of its own economy. Free software has great potential to reduce IT costs for business in Western Europe, and introducing laws that have the potential to harm the development of free software is counterproductive - only supporting big business. As a pro-European, I would be devestated if my representatives in Europe were corrupt enough to be pushed into supporting this law, and as a consequence, I would campaign against any further integration of my country (the UK) with the EU. I would also campaign for UK withdrawl from the EU if this law were passed.
I believe that patent law in general needs massive reform. How can people sensible patent aspects of the human genome? for example. This is nonsense, and amounts to little more than a law that allows for blatent profiteering at the expense of the common good. Large companies often use patents as an anti-competitive weapon. Patents are often awarded on the most shaky of grounds, and amount to little more than anti-competitive devices.
Software is inherently unpatentable. It is an expression of ideas, in the same way that a book is an expression of ideas. Books can be copyrighted, as can software. I don't see how patents help to secure the 'Intellectual Property' of commercial organisations.
The leverage applied by large American companies to EU officials is unacceptable. American business should not be interfering in the internal affairs of the EU, particularly when their Patent system is in such a mess.
Bill Gates wrote, in his Challenges and Strategy memo of May 16, 1991, that "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can." Microsoft has since filed thousands of patents both in the European Union and in the U.S. ... so are you, or aren't you, against patents? The first half of your lipflapping says you're against patents since you think they are destroying the industry. The second half of your waste of breath says that you're patenting everything in sight.
So which is it, fuckface? You can't have it both ways.
i am a soviet space shuttle
I think it would actually have done good. It would also help if Visual Basic would be patented too.
How else could you explain the US having different spellings - they'd be infringing the patent otherwise! ....I'll get my coat....
Good point. The thing that worries me specifically about software patents is that programmers (and their managers) may fear accidentally violating one, given the fud about patents on simple algorithms.
But to be honest I am opposed to patents in any form. They were not invented to protect inventors, but as an instrument for bankrupt kings to deal out monopolies. It is also not a suitable instrument for subsidizing research effort. Tax breaks are more suitable, more transparent, and interfere less with the market.
BTW My employer, the University of Amsterdam, won a number of nobel prizes for science over the last century, but it never collected any patents on the things it invented.
Totally worth it. As an earlier post pointed out, the EP is actually highly aggravated by the actions of the Council of Ministers in approving the Directive without their amendments. Groklaw has the EP's press release on the subject and it's clear the EP is mad as hell - the language borders on the undiplomatic, which for Europe is very unusual.
The reason this upsets the EP is that if the decision is allowed to stand it sets a precedent for binding legislation to be created in Council without any recourse for elected assemblies - if the EP doesn't manage to get all MEPs in the room to vote it down now, the thing will pass unaltered and all EU states will be compelled to implement it as law.
So, for the first time, we can really make a difference by writing to MEPs and ensuring they are aware that this is a big deal for their constituents. The political trap is set, it's up to us to spring it. Personally I have already gone to WriteToThem and written to my MEPs, it was very easy.
There's a thread started over at O'Reilley, it's a rebuttal to the original article. It has all the usual counter-arguments.
I can't post there (not registered, no time). Could somebody take a couple of minutes to calmly tear his arguments apart, please?
In particular, I'd like to ask him how much it costs to obtain a patent...
I'm much more encouraged by those views. Let's just hope they translate into actions.
You have no reason for being encouraged by his views. I have heard most of them before - from politicians who actually think that the CIID in its current form is in accordance with those views.
So the question you should be asking him now is:
"Do you think that the CIID in its current form conflicts with your views".
Prepare yourself to be disappointed when you receive his response.
I've mailed to my MEPs as soon as I've found the bad news.
In Italy the parties that mostly adverse this directive are the Communists and the Greens. I am a Green voter and I've been told by the Italian Green's leader Pecoraro Scanio to contact the MEP Monica Frassoni mfrassoni@europarl.eu.int from the Italian Greens or to contact the MEP Daniel Cohn Bendit dcohnbendit@europarl.eu.int from the German Green Party. They both deal with this matter at the European Parliament level.
The answer is that they are still fighting for it and they will make a lot of noise about it. The only problem is that here in Italy we have zero media coverage about this problem. So email your MEPs! Do something about it!
Hope this helps,
giandrea
Yes he can have it both ways. He is fully aware that software patents are bad, and he intends to take advantage of the badness to further his aims.
This is the mark of an evil person. He understand he's doing damage and does it anyway because he can benefit from it.
Well, the first thing to do is for everyone who might be interested to choose a day to write a letter to your newspaper of choice and mail it in. Today is March 9, so, let's see, maybe have it ready to mail by the 14th. Choose whatever argument you like, and write a well-thought-out letter. If you're writing on behalf of your business, be sure and use letterhead.
With luck, what will happen is that your newspaper's editorial board will see these letters arriving en masse and decide to assign a reporter to investigate further. This could result in an article being written, and, with enough of those, some momentum may begin to build up. If nothing else, there will be a few letters published, and that will get people's attention.
Remember, whatever argument you use, it has to connect with people. Unless they're a programmer, they probably won't care how this will affect software, but they will care how this will affect them personally. Make it relevant to the reader.
And firing off a letter to your local MP, in addition to your MEP, would also be helpful.
The whole thing with software patents is funny to me, because it means the EU is squandering its opportunity to become the next superpower (in competition with China maybe) in a few decades when the US's technological dominance has faded completely. Software patents might cause the EU to sink just as far the US will, in technological terms at least.
That is why the US Government is pushing so hard for European Software patents, and for patents on both software and business methods at the WTO/WIPO level.
If we can isolate China (we already have India on board, as they passed software patents this year) we can either coerce them to go along, or treat them as the "Russia" of the 21st century (the enemy of western capitalist society). Either outcome would be fine for the current right-wing extremists running the US.
It hasn't occurred to them, I don't think, that China's economy is now so big that isolating China will in fact mean isolating the US, not the other way around, and that the Europeans will probably balk if their software industry is wiped out while China remains firm and theirs flourishes. India's outsourced call centers will likely be unaffected, as they continue to use Officially Sanctioned(tm) Microsoft products.
China it seems recognizes its national intersts quite clearly, and wisely doesn't seem the least bit inclined toward implimenting software or business method patents. This may actually be enough of an advantage over the west to offset the stultifying effects of their other lack of freedoms (no free speech means less feedback means less improvements on dysfunctional aspects of society means a less competative society, but this is probably more than offset if we hamstring ourselves with software patents and other innovation-chilling and draconian IP laws), which would result in the interesting situation in which the most competative economy and the country with the most freedom to innovate is also a country with the least amount of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Though I think with the current administration, the US wins on all those counts, and China is a distant second, but that's another issue entirely.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Damn, that was good.
[There are no doubt numerous errors and ommissions in the text below. Please mod any corrections and additions up.]
:-) Europe is made up of lots of countries, two of which, simply for example, are the United Kingdom (aka Britain) and Germany. We've banded together under the banner of the European Union (EU), each as sovereign nations, delegating some roles and responsibilities to the EU where it is in our interests to co-operate. One such example is monetary union - a number of EU countries abolished their currencies and now share the same currency.
A primer for those of you that aren't in Europe and also for those of you who are in Europe who find the whole thing confusing...
Europe is a place to the East of the USA, across the big bit of ocean.
One of the chief issues that the central bodies take care of is 'harmonisation'. Harmonisation is about creating a level playing field across Europe, chiefly in legal and economic senses. A main tool for this is the Directive. The central body consults, then draws up a Directive which outlines a part of law, then the Directive is implemented as law in each of the EU countries, and thus the laws in each country come to some sort of standard.
The current argument concerns a draft Directive.
To understand how a Directive is agreed, you need to know who the players are...
The EU has 5 central bodies of which 3 are of immediate concern with respect to the Directive. The Commission, the Council and the Parliament. The Commission is chiefly to manage things European. The leaders of the Commission (Commissioners) are nominated by national governments and have portfolios. The Parliament is directly elected by the people of Europe in a using a proportional representation system (is this true across all of Europe? It is in the UK.) The role of Parliament is to scrutinise legislation. The Council is composed of representatives of the national governments, and as the Council web page says, this is the main decision-making body, and where the power lies - in national governments making decisions together.
So what's the process involved in agreeing a Directive and where are we in the process?
There are numerous arcane rules concerning the process by which Directives comes into being, and it depends on what the legislation covers. For the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, a draft directive was prepared by the Commission and ratified by the Council (someone - is this right?) and then put before the various committees of the Parliament for comment and voting. Then it went before a Parliamentary plenary sitting, who voted for numerous changes of the original Council version. The legislation then went before the Council once more. They decided to ignore the Parliamentary ammendments and the requests of various parliaments of various countries to restart the whole process, and have decided to send the original Directive (with minor changes?) back to Parliament for the next stage in the process. Parliament has yet to vote.
The rules for the first and second plenary vote of Parliament are different. The second round has a much higher barrier to introducing changes - an absolute majority is required (someone?) - and if the barrier is not passed then Parliament is assumed to have no objection to the legislation, and it will become a Directive.
Understand from all of the above that it is the national governments that are driving this legislation forward.
Is there a need for a Directive at all?
The need for harmonisation has arisen because different European countries have different standards for judging the allowability of patents involving software, which means that the same patent has been allowed in some countries and not in others. Often the figure of 30,000 European software patents is quoted. (Does anyone know were this comes from?)
It's easy to see some examples of the sort of thing that has been granted - the European patent office is on
The fact that software is so immensely complex is actually one of the resons patents on software don't protect the developer. Each idea you get, you would have to go through an expensive and time-consuming process only to discover that your program depends on even more ideas than you can claim.
Compare this to a technical invention. A new brake system may depend on a few patents, which can be sorted out. A car may depend on many patents, but individual inventors don't have the resources to make them. Thus, the inventor has can claim licenses from the car manufacturers without worrying about licensing of the other patents. (When you can make CPUs in your living room, we may have to reconsider the patent system for some technologies, as well.)
The analogy to software would be that individual software developers only discover the algorithms, but never actually writes the full applications. We know that this is not the case. In software, individuals, groups, and small companies create the final products. But due to the complexity of their software, they are bound to infringe on hundreds of patents in countries where software patents are valid.
In other words the situation is turned around. Patents may favour the inventor of the brake, but software patents strongly disfavours small entities from writing software, because of the complexity involved and the fact that they make a final product.
This is exactly the situation that the big software houses wants. First, they don't have to worry about patents, because they have an arsenal of them to defend themselves. On the other hand, this intellectual "property" is useful to get rid of the small companies and commercially employed open source, so that professional software developer will have to work for them in order to legalise their activities.
The intellectual "property" of software patents is in its final consequence the ownership of the "right" to make software, the ownership of the work market, the "right" to decide what programmers shall do, and what the general public shall use in their living rooms and offices.
"Without patents, one would have to continually innovate to stay ahead of the competition.
[...]
The funny thing is patents are there to allow innovators to get their money back."
The funny thing is that that is not true. Patents are there to stimulate innovation. Now go back and see what you wrote in your first sentence.
eugh, doesn't anyone read the posts they reply to, it sure as hell doesn't look like it.
Of cause an american corp could apply for a patent in EU, that's why they've got such a vested interest in getting them passed. BUT, what the original AC poster was saying was that existing US patents would automatically apply and 'override' EU patents, which is totally untrue, they would have to apply for patents like everybody else (and they will)
-2A
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Some of the replies expose the problem which you point out. Some posters say, in effect, "Then just don't allow any algorithms to be patented." But in this context, an algorithm is just anything that has a set of steps. (Pure algorithms are allegedly unpatentable anyway.) Any method claim could be considered an "algorithm." But we certainly don't want to prevent all methods from being patented, half or more of all patents are methods.
"If it can be done on a computer, you can't patent it." The problem with this one is that, as you point out, many inventions include both software and hardware components. You may need both to carry out the patented invention. Again, this could be an overbroad restriction on patentable subject matter.
Many here, perhaps rightly so, gripe about attorneys making a killing off patents. But if you want to see lawyers making money, just draft an unclear law and watch the dollars flow into litigators' pockets as lawyers argue over a law that the legislators should have done a better job of drafting.
The first paragraph in the danish patent law clearly states that the patent owner has the sole right to a "commercial use" of the invention. The wording for commercial use hints, that there is nothing wrong in using the patent internally.
Any free software can use all the patents it wants, as patents do not protect against competition from free stuff.
I see that most people on slashdot want to get rid of software patents
Correction - trying to block patents from being EXPANDED to software. At least in the EU.
In the US it is an issue of RETURNING to good patent law that properly and consistantly said that software was not an invention and was not patentable. A mid-level US court decided to run off on it's own in contradiction to established Supreme Court law and REVERSE the rules and EXPAND patents to software. The Supreme Court stated that algorithms (and thus all possible software) not to be treated as novel or nonobvious for patent purposes.
You cannot invent a 100 digit number. It may be a novel 100 digit number that no one ever thought of before, it may be a nonobvious 100 digit number, it may even be an extremely useful 100 digit number, BUT A NUMBER IS NOT AN INVENTION. An equation is not an invention. Logic is not an invention. A sequence of mental steps is not an invention. A mathematical algorithm is not an invention. Math is not an invention. Software is not an invention.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
doublethink
Yes, we really do want to get rid of software patents. The parent /. post is IMHO absolutely correct. I would actually take it one step further, however.
A parallel can be drawn between software "patents" and "religion", in the following manner:
(1) PRO software patent ~~ "Creationism"
Every business process ("click?") and every algorithm ("formula?") was created in a vacuum,
by the inspired touch of the hand of God. And since God isn't in business, the programmer/corporation has every right to protect this "Inspired Property" from God, with a patent.
(2) CON software patent ~~ "Evolution"
Every business process and every algorithm was created from 250,000 years worth of social and mental development, including spoken and written language. Collaboration and the inspiration to make incremental improvements, in life as well as business, has formed what and who we are today. This includes business processes, languages, algorithms and mathematical formulas, and our software. As such, any programmer/corporation cannot lay claim to any incrimental improvement without recognising, acknowledging, and assigning a portion of credit to every person who came before. Therefore, software patents are a mythical invention of those who would steal from society in order to unfairly profit, with the connivance of corrupt government. (Actually, this same argument can also be applied to most hardware patents as well...)
Of course, the USA has already fully embraced software patents, just as the regime in power has also been forcing "creationist" religion on its population. At the same time that this "creationist" pigopolist world view has taken hold in the USA, the individual rights of its citizens and the rights of that society as a democracy have fallen away in favor of "corporatism", aka Corporate National Socialism.
Do the MEPs of the EU truly believe that adopting "corporatism" themselves will somehow protect them from the tenticles of "corporatism" branching out across the Atlantic Ocean like a metastasizing cancer? Apparently, some do.
Wow! Your ramblings are some of the most stupid I've ever seen. Perhaps you believe that spreading anti-creationism propaganda is good in some way, but why don't you instead actually get a clue?
thanks, I'm going to :o)
"software that is part of hardware" in patentese means any software that is stored in a computer or on a disk or anything computer-readable that is also a physical object. There are already software patents being granted in many EU countries under this loophole.
One of the important battles over the EU text is to force them to define the word "technical"...
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4175555.html is a patent on a set of screw threads. Patented fasteners are quite common. However, most people use the non-patented fasteners so this problem doesn't arise.
The difference with software is we've had a chance to see just how innovation flourishes in a non-patentable environment, and don't want to go to an environment where you have to wait 25 years for someone else's patent to expire before you can make an incremental improvement to it.
I know people who have worked in politician's offices, and the tide of mail is apparently astounding and relentless. However it does shape what appears on a politician's radar, even if you do not get a reply. One or two people is not going to make them sit up and take notice, but the more people write, the greater the profile for an issue. Your MEPs will assume that people do not care unless people keep telling them otherwise.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Hopefully these points will assist anyone who wants to write to you politicians.
1. Keep it to ONE page only - any more than that and it won't get read.
2. Stick to the point, do not indulge yourself by expressing emotion, your letter will not be as effective.
3. Illustrate why it is a problem - politicians need only be educated about the fact to realise that they will be causing problems for their constituents and likely raise the ire of the public.
4. Be respectful, address the Member by thier proper title.
5. Use a dead tree snail mail first, fax second, email last - most politicians ignore email.
6. Give the politician oppotunity to get political mileage from your suggestions - if they look good and can be seen to be doing good it is more likely they will adopt your position(human nature - whats in it for me).
7. Use mailmerge but sign each letter personally. You can use the same letter to address all politicians on all sides of politics in your country, or in the case of the EU, other MEPs - it will just demonstrate the level of concern for this issue. You may consider changing the letter in some way to deliberatly target politicians who DON'T agree with your position, they may change thier mind.
8. Start immediatley, these things move quickly and other "entities" will be lobbying as well, before you know it it becomes law.
9. If you are really concerned READ the proposed act AND suggest changes. I have done this and it has worked.
10. THINK about your position, WHAT reasons are there for the member to adopt your position eg. the economy will suffer because small business will be locked into monopoly offerings.
The bottom line is Politicians are people to and they need to be educated regarding the issues. The good thing about this is one letter from Joe Bloggs == One letter from M$. A corporation maybe able to get direct access to the politician but if thier office is full of letters from people with a dissimilar position it wont be all that effective.
You can be effective, Do it now
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"(Dis)Claimer": I am a professional programmer, and have been such for the past five years.
GPL'ed programs can and often are sold. Sometimes authors release their programs under different licenses. It's quite complicated. Software patents will make it illegal to sell almost any software written all by yourself, under almost any license.
> (1) PRO software patent ~~ "Creationism"
Every business process ("click?") and every algorithm ("formula?") was created in a vacuum,
by the inspired touch of the hand of God. And since God isn't in business, the programmer/corporation has every right to protect this "Inspired Property" from God, with a patent.
Whoa, wait a second, I don't see how you can make that comparision at all.
Non software patents are not created in a vacum, science doesn't develop in a vacum, you depend on rules and discoveries from other people.
You could come up with an entirely unique algorithm or program that does something in a new way, but of course you're going to be using ideas that already exist, just like you would do with a physical invention.
- sigs are for wimps.
Bravo!
Hats off to your University. And you too!
Cheers!