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Software Patents Stopped in India
piyushranjan writes "Indian parliament deleted the section from the patents bill regrading the software patents as left parties prevailed over the Government on the issue. This may be a major victory for free software foundation(fsf) which has been lobbying hard against the bill."
They have nothing to gain from adopting software patents.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
I'm an Indian.
As much as I hate these left parties (they're real dumbasses), for once they have done the right thing here.
Left parties doing something actually GOOD for economy. Who knew...
Like it or not as an American coder, the code coming from India is getting better. Sorry, but that's what happens with practice fellas....
Couple that with healty dose of the encouragement of innovation, and we just took one right on the chin.
Here's the interesting thing about patents and, if you are a patent expert, I realize you already know this, but I think most people don't see the true irony of patents.
The irony is: they were designed to protect the small guy from the big guy. That's right. I shall repeat. They were designed to protect the small guy from the big guy.
They did this to encourage innovation.
You see, some guy in his garage could invent the television, a big company could come along and copy it, and make billions because he has a bigger operating budget. With patents, the guy could protect his invention, and the big guys couldn't steal his idea. All of a sudden, people want to invent because they can protect their ideas.
But now the patent system has turned on its head. It essentially protects the big guys from the small guys. Probably if we looked at patents in their stricted sense, a kid in their garage could write a text editor and infringe on hundreds of patents. I realize this doesn't usually result in a lawsuit, but the system is so convoluted that the only way to understand it is to hire expensive lawyers, which small guys tend not to be able to afford. So in many cases, the small guy gives up when faced with serious opposition (think RIAA).
Okay, I will freely admit that this post is a little inflamatory and that usually lawsuits are not launched even when a patent is owned for things like using key-combinations on a keyboard. But that's not the point.
The point is this: The patent system no longer does what it was supposed to do which is encourage the creation of new ideas. If a system no longer does what it was designed to do, THAT is the definition of broken.
Sunny
Be my Friend
They can still patent it anywhere else where software patents are allowed. Protecting an innovation usually amounts to patenting it on major markets, not just your domestic market.
I think there are a lot of people who for one reason or another think that competition from other countries is a bad thing.
They seem to think that it is somehow 'unfair' that people in other contries can make product X cheaper. I don't know how many times I've heard the 'rush to the bottom' argument from people who obviously have no grasp of basic economics.
If you are one of those people please read this:
http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/pdg.pl?fcd=dsp&ter
The reason competition is good in this particular case is because the US government is clearly not acting in its citizens best interest in regards to software patents.
The contries that have a more rational intelectual property policy will obviously benefit. This will do one of two things:
1. Businesses and citizens who create software will be forced to move to these 'enlightened' contries if they aren't there already. Basically the US will find itself locking itself out of the software market because producing software in the US will become too expensive or in some instances maybe even impossible.
2. Because of pressure from 1. the US will be forced to adopt better laws.
Basically if you can squash competition by making everyone obey your rules then you can force through productivity and creativity limiting laws such as software patents.
However in a free marketplace countries that have chosen not to incorporate such laws will naturally do better than countries that have. I'm assuming here of course that software patents stifle creativity and productivity but I think this is a pretty safe assumtption.
If you don't understand why software patents are bad please read this:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index
In short this is good for everyone because it will garantee that consumers of software will continue to benefit from the explosion of creativity and productivity in the software industry. Also for those of us who produce software this helps by putting real pressure on our government to change its tune in regards to software patents.
I read the article with great interest and I also was disappointed. Not in the facts, but in the journalist that fell for Ericssons tactical play. What the article fails to mention (because the journalist failed to realize it) is that any company with world headquarters in Sweden can patent what ever software they feel like in the US and in Japan regardless of their ability to do it locally. This is just a tactical play, it would make no difference what so ever to their ability to patent software abroad if they move out or not. The patent situation in Sweden is the same as it is in the rest of EU, and it is the EU rules they want to change. They see an opening for doing so by playing the local Swedish government, they know that if Sweden changes then it may have an impact on the rest of the EU. I really hope the Swedish government does not fall for this tactical play, I hope they see through it and see it for what it is: A simple tactical empty threat.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
This sounds like pure bullying. Ericsson has NOTHING to gain in the area of protecting their software by moving to the US or Japan. You have to apply for patents in countries where you wish to RELEASE your product, not where you DEVELOP your products. So if Ericsson wishes to release products in both the US and Sweden, they have to apply for patents in both places, whether they have their factory located in the US or in Sweden. Actually, they run a higher risk in the US, because in the US a competitor might attempt to close them down because they are (alledgedly) infringing on one of the competitor's patents, while, without software patents in Sweden, in Sweden they wouldn't run any risk at all. That is aside the fact that rebuilding a factory and rehiring personnel in a very expensive country like the US would probably not be profitable. So, methinks this is a lot of hot air from Ericsson.
>> Most patents are in the U.S., most (current) innovation and technology growth is in India.
>> They have nothing to gain from adopting software patents.
Your "smart move" response offers the defence of smartness to both sides --- smart of India to bar software patents because they have nothing to gain, and smartness by the US to uphold software patents because they do have something to gain.
Unfortunately the last part of that is only true under the extraordinarily myopic worldview that most innnovations are in the past, and that therefore it is worth protecting the greater old at the expense of harming the lesser new.
Well that's stunningly short-sighted. The future is pretty much infinite, whereas technological progress of the patentable type has been around for a couple of centuries at most, and software patents even less, so the inventions of the past represent effectively zero percent of the body of technical development.
There could hardly be a greater condemnation of the inability of the supporters of patents to see beyond the ends of their noses.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
that keeps the superpowers on top. Technologcial power is temporary, the only way to keep it is to ensure that your very best minds have every opportunity to discover new technologies.
This should be even more important to the US, as with our smaller population we have a smaller total pool of potential talent, so it should be even more important that we make sure every American has a chance (and is encouraged) to maximize their talents.
We're not doing enough in this area any more, the public looks at Higher Ed. more as a way for an individual to make money than as a public good, so public funding of education has been drying up. If we want to keep our 'place' we'll need to start seeing education as a public good again, and get back to funding it that way...
My guess is they will stand firm. Standing firm against pressure related to siftware patents is NOTHING compared to trade bans and technology export bans which India has had to endure due to it's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Basically, they did not give a flying fuck about any american pressure and went ahead and developed nukes anyway. What makes you think they will even listen to a random american diplomat pushing the agenda of american big-business?
Seriously, explain what link there is between software patents and outsourcing?
There isn't one, and trying to make one up won't work. The reason for outsourcing is to drive down labour costs, not to escape software patents.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
But original applications should at least have a chance to make some money in the free market...
You aren't arguing for making money in the free market, you're arguing for a government granting you a monopoly so there is no free market.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Whilst I'd like to believe that this was a decision made on moral grounds, with a belief that a patent-free software world would be a more innovative one, I struggle to accept that this is anything more than a good economic strategy - including embracing open source software.
Do Indian companies really invest in patents on a scale similar to American or European companies? I doubt it. By eliminating software patents, India paves the way to preventing foreign companies from exploiting their software-related patents.
And open source software can be better rooted and supported in India. Why give the money to foreign companies for large volumes of license fees when you can be paying your own people to implement solutions that already exist. Short of an Indian company developing an operating systems, open source software is the best choice for keeping software-related expenditure within the Indian economy.
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But that is the new intention: It is like finding a hammer on the sidewalk - originally intended to construct shelters, we now see that it would make a perfect tool to bludgeon people over the head to take their money.
Basically, we've discovered a new, profitable use for an old tool!
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.