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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."
all move^Woutsource ourselves to india now!
No one ever says, 'I can't read that ASCII E-mail you sent me.'
But also our president has openly suggested to our schools, universities, defence and government organizations to switch to open source. He's one president I really admire. A very learned and very humble man.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Can companies move their bussiness their to avoid patents in the own country?
We have begun the process of outsourcing your freedom! The stormtroopers will be by shortly to collect any remaining freedoms, so we can send them to a foreign country where it will be cheaper to maintain them. In the meantime, sit tight, don't go anywhere, and please refrain from speaking with other citizens or posting to the Interweb with those blog thingies. Don't like it? Maybe you should have spoken up before the process began, like they did in India. Have a nice day.
Thanks,
The Government
Free yourself. Everything else will follow.
I've spoken with government official in my country (New Zealand) about software patents and they just don't care! They just fold to the big companys.
I want to move to India! I love Indian food and culture already, and now they get to be free of software patents! Not fair.
When will governments in the western world start doing what the people want, and not what only the rich and powerful want!
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.
If software patents aren't legal in India, would a company over there be able to fearlessly provide web services/applications that infringe on US patents?
e.g. could a company over there build a search engine using Google's patented page rank algorithm with out having to pay an licensing fee?
If so, it would seem that India would be an ideal place for most such companies, as they can operate over there with out fear of patent litigation. Also, hopefully something like this would put pressure on the US to reform our current system in order for local companies to be more competitive.
The government was required by the WTO to adopt a new patent regime in the pharmaceutical sector. There was plenty of opposition to this, mainly from the left, though leaving the WTO is simply not an option and everyone realises that.
So what the government does is have a temporary ordinance, not ratified by the parliament, that's somewhat more draconian that it needs to be. I think the software patents thing was one of those items that the government was always willing to chop. There were also lots of safeguards in the pharma sector itself (regarding making of generic drugs in the national interest), allowed by the WTO, that the government omitted from the ordinance. Even the New York Times had a strong editorial criticising the Indian Government for its unnecessarily restrictive ordinance.
When the time comes to pass it through parliament, voila, the government "accommodates" the left parties by introducing these safeguards and removing things like software patents. The left, in return, supports the bill. And everyone's happy.
Mod the parent DOWN.
It only shows he knows nothing of the Indian President. Here are some facts so people can see for themselves:
Some of his speeches
A description of a personal encounter
His own website describing his aspirations
A few of his accomplishments
Finally, for those REALLY interested, here's his auto-biography
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
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.
Great news, I needed a bit cheering up. Just yesterday I read that Ericsson has started to threaten the Swedish government that research and development will be moved out of Europe to countries that "respect software patents" (the spokesman mentions Japan and the US).
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
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.
Yes but usage is not really under the juristiction of copyright, distribution does. So long as your copy was legally distributed (and it is) there is nothing illegal about using it in ways that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the limited privs granted by copyright law to content providers.
Do not mistake the terms in EULAs for laws. Copyright does not grant the content provider the right to the restrictions they require in EULAs, that is why they need you to sign them over in a contract. For it to be a legal contract they must give you something of value in turn (purchasing gave you the right to use the material however you please without a contract), Microsoft gives you $5 worth of data loss protection IF you can successfully sue them for it. Aren't they swell?
You have it backwards. This means software patents granted in other nations are NOT enforceable in India. It does not mean software developed in India can not be patented and enforced in nations where software patents are legal.
>> 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...
One of the great ironies of the current patent scope expansion (and copyright extension) wars is that the proponents of ever stronger and broader Government protection invariably portray themselves as capitalists and free marketeers. This further irony of having to rely on the support of traditional Communists to counter the enormous political pressure towards an Orwellian style oligarchical collectivism (corporate Communism) is almost too much to bear.
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?
Richard Stallman had explained this very nicely in a speech against software patents:
In other words, software patents today mostly protect big companies, so it's no surprise that they are the ones who support them the most.
The transcript of the speech can be found here. Despite the odd transcription error, it's a great read.
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
Way to go folks, let the communists with that wonderfully successful system of the past, adopt the FSF. Ah well, the communists are going to be taking every tech job in the western world into India and China anyway, so I guess its good that they can rob and steal our intellectual property as well.
So I guess you wouldn't even consider the possibility that our various IP laws themselves are hampering our ability to compete?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The sad part is: India didnt reject swpats because it thought it was the right thing to do - it rejected them because not doing so would have caused the left to get difficult, which would have caused the bill to stall.
In short, it wasn't because the government was convinced that swpats were bad, but because they found that the remaining stuff that they needed to push through was more important to them.
Sadly, despite all the good press, the mentality remains unchanged, and I am certain there will be more attempts very soon.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
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.
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.