Talking Software Patents with a Politician?

agent dero asks: "I'm currently trying to land an hour or two of my local representative to the House of Representatives so I can talk about software patents, amongst other things. I'm looking for the best way to describe the pitfalls of Software Patents to somebody who hasn't the slightest clue what Open Source is, let alone how software patents will hurt it. How can a computer geek relate the evil in patenting algorithms to a non-computer geek to where it will have an effective impact?"

Comments

The basics...

[tekiegreg]

Congrats you managed (or will manage) to get some face time with a big guy in govt. Just remember the following points:

1) The guy is a busy man with lots in his mind, keep it brief and to the point at all times, in fact if you have an hour of time, present for 30 minutes and give the rest for him to either ask questions or politely take leave as he needs, prepare to present to not just your rep, but maybe his staff and other reps that might choose to join in (it's possible).

2) Impassioned emotional pleas are no good here, construct a good well founded argument and you will do awesome. Do your homework throughly before going in. Also if you happen to know a lawyer that's willing to help you, ask him to help draft your statements before going in (better still ask if he can join you in presenting to the rep).

3) Prepare oral arguments (the old fashioned Powerpoints or whatever your favorite pesentation software is will do here), as well as a brief (no more than 5 page) written argument to leave with him.

Having little knowledge in particular about open source software patents in particular other than what's on Slashdot, I'll leave the rest to you to reasearch and form up.

Try this and you might just be amazed at your reponse. I look forward to seeing your arguments drafted into a floor bill at the House :-)

Re:The basics...

[anticypher]

I get to talk to elected and non-elected officials on a regular basis. They have a tremendous number of people talking at them all the time, with so many opposing points of view they can never keep up. The only bits that stick are the well presented ones, carefully crafted and without repetitions or ambiguities.

I've seen some of the FFII supporters talking to Parliamentarians, and frankly it was embarrassing watching a few of them. They had the nugget of an idea, but couldn't present it clearly and concisely. They would start a beautifully thought out thread, then before getting to a conclusion lose the train of thought and end up talking about something completely different, often repeating ideas already presented. Very annoying for all those very familiar with the issue, and certainly annoying and confusing for the intended audience.

The guy is a busy man ... present for 30 minutes and give the rest for him to either ask questions

Not that you will have time to hone your presenting skills, but the best lobbyists present each idea in one to three minutes, then engage the politico with questions where they have to actually think about the issue. The guys who make the biggest money are schooled in the tradition of rhetoric, where every thought is presented as a series of conflicting questions (with spin) and as if...then statements. This requires the politician to make a concious decision on the spot on which way to think about a subject, and this forced thinking will most likely be the way they will vote later.

There is a whole debate on the best way to word the if...then statements, first, second or third person, singular or plural. Compare and contrast "if you support long term growth in rapidly changing fields, then are you prepared to oppose entrenched laws?" with "if our objectives are to protect ideas of individuals from the oppressive threat of corporate lawsuits, can we obtain a balance...". (N.B. there is no right way) Forcing immediate responses from an audience is orders of magnitude more effective in creating lasting impressions. Even more effective is to word the if...then statements so the politician comes to conclusions on his own, thus becoming his ideas.

Impassioned emotional pleas are no good here, construct a good well founded argument

Precisely. The issue of patents, copyright, and ideas having value goes back thousands of years, and is a very complicated area. Narrow down your arguments to a very limited discussion of a single domain, and be prepared to place it within the larger and global (historical) scope of the battle. The emotion should be evident by the fact you have taken the time to become politically active to protect what you believe in.

Do your homework throughly before going in

This is the most important idea in the post, buried right in the middle. Not only do your homework, but practice the presentation as well. Out loud, on real humans, several times. If you have a lawyer friend, ask them to hear your presentation and offer criticism (then listen to them and correct yourself). Lawyers who practice in front of courts have to be skilled at presenting clear and linear ideas. Even if you don't know any lawyers, just try out your presentation on a few people and ask for feedback. By the third or fourth time you will notice a huge improvement in which ideas get presented, and which ones you drop because they are not needed. Try videotaping your presentation and then review it later with friends, watch where you say "ummm..." or where you repeat yourself.

For material to study, browse the websites of the EFF and the FFII, and read this speech by Alan Greenspan. If you have an entire hour, you can effectively present four to six points with a limited background and context. Limit yourself to only these, avoid digression and monologing.

the AC

The main issue

[drspliff]

is not just with 'Open Source' or other trendy keywords, but it just happens to be one of the worst hit by it (as most open source projects have no commercial backing to help with legal issues or licensing etc.)

Ok, so i'll try and explain it in ways that your average local politition will be able to understand (mr g.w.bush comes to mind as an exception though..).

The main goals behind patents are to protect an inventors hard work, research and ideas from exploitation by restricting other peoples rights to duplicate/copy/rip/etc the idea.

For most industries the research process which is needed to create the idea is usually costly (both in time and money), in this context you can think of patents as allowing the inventor(s) to recouperate that initial investment and to control revenue from the invention while it's still considered 'new'.

In todays scociety the software industry is a completely different beast compared to what I would consider as the 'old stle' industry (think of the industrial revolution etc.). Thinking of ideas new software inventions isn't very hard, thousands of new products are designed every day due to the low cost of researching and designing software inventions.

Basicly the two industries are reversed, so the actual hard work and investment is in developing the product and getting it to market.

The first point that I was trying to demonstrate is that somebody could think up 10 product ideas every week and patent them (al la Microsoft & IBM), but they may not even have the technical expertise or money to create it.. generally all software ideas are useless until they have been developed.

So by patenting ideas in an invention-per-second industry, you are restricting the rest of the industry from making a product of it.. bad karma.

My personal gripe (and I'm sure most of you share the same opinion) is the US patent offices reluctance or inability to check if the patent breaks one of the simple rules set out: 'No bussiness methods or mathematical algorithms', 'Must be non-obvious to a professional from within that industry' and 'There must be no prior art' (i'm sure theres another one.. cant be assed to think of it right now).

So this means that I could for example patent a really simple theory, such as 'transfering memory from one computer to another via analogue signals across a distributed network'... and the patent office would probably approve it if it had not been patented before and the wording was sufficiently obfuscated so that only non-technical lawyers and civil servants can understand it..

So given those two pieces i've brought up, you can think of thousands of different 'inventions' in an industry where inventions alone are fairly worthless, and apply for patents with them.. and a lot of them would probably get approved due the lax standards at the patent office.

So given that our industry moves at such a fast pace (compared to something like the petroleum extraction business) and the length of the patent is relatively very long it restricts the actual development of new software (e.g. developers and companies are probably going to be scared of getting sued, or having unreasonable licensing terms pushed upon them).

Anyway.. try and extract as much drunk ranting gibberish out of it as possible, and hopefully you can use some of the arguments i've brought up.

Jus my £0.02

Here's how I would put the argument

[Tom7]

Here's how I would put it.

Patents exist only in order to encourage innovation. This much is essentially in the Constitution, because the right for congress to create patent and copyright laws is preceded by "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts..."

The way that patents encourage innovation is to provide an incentive to expend resources to create an invention. The incentive is the exclusive right to use that invention. Many inventions take millions of dollars to create, so the patent plays an important role for those inventions, at least with the way our society currently operates.

Here's the rub: most software inventions do not take millions of dollars to create, since the resources involved are almost always simply a guy and a computer (or pencil and paper). We've seen this many times, as fairly obvious ideas are re-invented, or old, overly generic patents are applied to unrelated inventions years later. Here, patents stifle innovation instead of promoting it. There already exists an incentive to invent, and since it is so easy to do so, patents just provide an unnecessary friction.

There are also many specific problems with software patents. The term is too long considering the pace at which the field moves. The patent office is woefully underequipped to evaluate software patent applications. Patents are often incompatible with free software, which has shown to provide a huge amount of value (for the Progress of Science and the useful Arts!), probably more than software patents ever have.

Few other points

[lilmouse]

Software patents are getting really absurd because they try to patent ideas. It's like patenting brushing your teeth instead of patenting a single toothbrush. In the software world, there is no reason to patent a toothbrush - the software toothbrush is already covered by copyright, which gives more control than patents anyway.

If you allow someone to patent brushing teeth, then you actually end up stifling innovation (no power toothbrushes, no water piks, no...you get the idea), and the People (e.g., voters) get hurt. On the other hand, if a company can only patent a toothbrush (or is it a process of producing toothbrushes - patents were supposed to protect factories and such?), then other companies are free to innovate, more jobs are created, and the People both have more work and better teeth.

If the software world, 10 different companies can have the same idea and implement it 10 different ways (one will write 20 lines of C, one 2 unreadable lines of perl, one 200 lines of basic, whatever). The old idea of patents would only apply to the 20 lines of C, not to the idea - 20 lines that are already covered (as I said) by copyright.

As an extreme example of bad patents, how's "Using a computer to do work." Heh.

Anyway, good luck!

Add a layer of abstraction

[booch]

Don't concentrate on Open Source. Concentrate on creativity.

Start by talking about how everything idea is built upon the ideas of others. As Isaac Newton said, I can see further because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. Tell him how the whole ideas of patents and copyrights were designed to ENCOURAGE creativity and new ideas, but they've been coopted to do the opposite. Explain to him the logical conclusion of what will happen if we don't fix that -- the US will quickly lose its leading role in technology, art, and entertainment.

You should only mention Open Source, in the context that people are creating computer programs and sharing them for free, in order to build up their own creative pool of work, in order to work around the laws that are mostly preventing such collaborative efforts. Mention that these folks are forsaking some amount of money in order to build these things and return to the model of building on the works of others, and wanting others to build upon their work. Restricting them from doing this doesn't make sense. Also mention that every large enterptrise is using this Open Source software, so promoting it helps all companies.

Concentrate on the reasoning behind the Constitution's patent/copyright clause. Explain how it requires balance, and that not only is it currently off balance, but large corporations have enough money and clout to successfully lobby for even more restrictive laws. Mention the Mickey Mouse extensions. Talk about how small companies are where most of the creativity in the world happen, but the laws are increasingly preventing them from creating.

Basically, summarize the larger issues. Read up on Lawrence Lessig's work and other such material. Try to get in as much of the larger issues so your rep can see the Big Picture.