EU Rapporteur Publishes Software Patent

Sanity writes "Michel Rocard, economist and former French prime minister, has just published a report on the European Software Patents Directive. He is the European Parliament's draftsperson or "rapporteur" on the directive, and so it is likely that his views will be taken very seriously. The anti-software patent lobby group FFII like the report, saying that it "contains all the necessary ingredients for a directive that achieves what most member state governments say they want to achieve: to exclude computer programs from patentability while allowing computer-controlled technical inventions to be patented." The Directive will have its second reading on July 6th."

Comments

Re:so which is it ?

[gowen]

They should be more clear otherwise it sounds like a recipe for disaster.

They are. In fact, much of it is legalese to make precisely the distinction you're making. Never assume the ambivalence and poor writing in a slashdot summary is an accurate representation of the original source.

Don't count your chickens!

[Anonymous Coward]

He is the European Parliament's draftsperson or "rapporteur" on the directive, and so it is likely that his views will be taken very seriously.

Since when did the European Commission take the European Parliament seriously? Can't see this making much difference myself, so I won't be getting my hopes up just yet.

Re:Turning out to be..

[meringuoid]

And more important, when the US will repent?

After Patent Apocalypse sends the American software industry back to year zero.

It's only a matter of time before a major corporation with a massive patent portfolio starts failing, and looks like going out of business. Doesn't really matter who. But they'll have an option open: give up producing software and pursue patent litigation. Become SCO writ large.

What happens to the industry in the USA when that happens? What if it goes further - what if there's a full-scale patent war between the big players?

Answer: total havoc. Everything infringes on someone's patent. When the entire industry in the USA grinds to a halt, but all is well in Europe, that's when the US will repent.

Re:Pro-patent response from EICTA

[Sanity]

EICTA has published a pro-swpat counter-response to Rocard's paper, here, in advance of today's crucial meeting of the European Parliament's legal affairs committee (JURI).

Thanks for the link, this is interesting but predictable. From EICTA's paper:

While it is acknowledged that there may be room for further improving the definition of "technical contribution" as it stands in the Common Position, any definition or test based on "controllable forces of nature" or "physical forces" would exclude patents for intangible inventions, e.g. speech coding, communication protocols, radio signal handling, error correction, data compression etc., all of which are currently patentable and traditionally have been patentable for decades.

Firstly, all of these things are software patents, and these have not been patentable for decades, even in the US software patenting didn't really begin until about 1992.

Groups like the EICTA claim not to want software patents, but then they go on to provide such a narrow definition of "software patent" that it really doesn't apply to anything.

The broad conclusion from these workshops was that while definitions based on "physical forces" and "controllable forces of nature" may be more legally certain than the current definition, they are also (very) expansive, and would render almost all CII inventions unpatentable.

Correct, because "computer implemented inventions" are software patents! "Computer Implemented Inventions" is a term specifically invented by the pro-software patent lobby so that they could push for software patents without claiming that they are pushing for software patents. This is the level of honesty of the pro-software patent lobby in the EU.

May not be a distinction with a difference . . .

[werdna]

In the United States, before the State Street Bank case articulated the modern "tangible result" test, our jurisprudence excluded "pure" software as well, but it was a distinction without a difference. Under the test in Alapatt and other cases, so long as you articulated the program in technical terms, you had patentable subject matter. Thus, while you might not have been able to claim:

I claim a method for instructing a computer to perform the steps of A, B and C.

You could claim instead:

I claim a computer system including a general purpose computing component (and possibly other apparatus) and a stored program instructing the general purpose computing element to perform the steps of A, B and C.

or

I claim a medium for storing and retreiving information in electronic form, configured to permit retreival of instructions for a computer system (and possibly other apparatus) to perform the steps of of A, B and C.

While such legal niceties are interesting, they --and tests like them-- are mostly a distinction without a difference.

Re:Guess they forgot to buy him out :-)

[ThinWhiteDuke]

Look, I don't share most of Rocard's ideas (he's a socialist). But I think he's one of the most honest French politicians. I know that this does not say much, yet I really believe in his integrity. It probably cost him his career in the 80's when he was killed politically by President Mitterrand (also a socialist) who rightly saw Rocard as a competitor.

Since he lost all hope of ever becoming president, Rocard has been one of the very few reliable French politicians. This freed himself from demagoguery. He's been a lonely voice of wisdom on many controversial topics (pensions, health care etc...) Software patents are just the kind of causes he likes to get involved in : important long-term consequences, not much to gain politically, yet somebody's gotta do it.

Michel Rocard's involvement in software patents is a Good Thing (TM).