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Major Blow to Opponents of Software Patents in EU
Sanity writes "According to a FFII report, and a Financial Times article, proponents of software patents have just won a significant victory against smaller software companies and open source software proponents as the EU's legal affairs committee rejected most of the effective amendments that were proposed to the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, which is widely perceived to usher-in U.S.-style software patents in the EU. All is not yet lost as the rejected amendments can be re-tabled when the entire European Parliament has the opportunity to vote next month. If you value the freedom to code without worrying about getting sued, and you live in the EU, now is the time to take effective action." And JasonFleischer writes "Richard Stallman has a piece in The Guardian which does a nice job of explaining the problems with the EU patent directive that will be voted on next month (and for that matter software patents in general), using literary examples."
Score 1 more for the giant faceless monster! Canada gets the DMCA, super-secret last minute sneak in of the broadcast flag in the USA, and now this..
Lets hear it for Goliath!
air and light and time and space
With the introduction of DMCA legislation in Canada yesterday, and now this in the EU, it brought to my mind a realization that the battle to keep software free, and the right to copy media we own is going to be a lifelong battle. If we win one battle, we haven't won the war, and if we lose a battle like this in the EU it doesn't mean we've lost completely, it just means we have to work even harder to overcome it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If people stopped consuming protected media, including songs from iTunes, it would make a difference.
In fact, businesses looking for a niche market in the entertainment business could get in and make it big by selling non-protected media, and marketing it as such.
It's more than that now. A democratically elected body has rejected it, an appointed body is enforcing it. It's now about more than just code. more than software patents. It's now about the primacy of elected bodies.
Cheers,
Ian
(UK - yes, I'll be writing but not merely on 'just' the software patent point)
What if we made a gargantuan database of prior art?
Not just actual prior art, but new art? We could use some sort of generator to make millions or billions of inventions. It should be possible to cover almost all obvious inventions this way.
Kim0
I get the impression they don't understand the legislation. I don't see how else they can think its a good idea.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
...to explicitely forbid the use of GPL'ed software for public institutions in countries where software patents are enforced.
Better still, let's patent the process for secretly distributing currency under a desk-like structure, for the purpose of influencing votes.
Then we sue the pants off these lazy and no-good politicians who are in the pocket of big-sleazy-business like the RIAA.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Personally, I'd like to see the copyright system not be applied to software. The kind of argument Stallman makes about patents not being a good fit for literature can also be made for why copyright is not a good fit for automobiles or planes.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I heard two women talking about programming on the train the other day. I was following their conversation for about 30 seconds before I realised they were child care workers. They have to make a programme so their children get the necessary amount of exercise and educational activities. What the difference between a programme and a schedule is I'll never know. Maybe child care workers will be applying for patents next.
How we know is more important than what we know.
OTOH, it might be more accessible if he'd used a more accessible example. The example appeals more to the French and francophiles, and fans of great literature. I'd apply it to sandwiches. Imagine if every sandwich shop had to pay the Earl of Sandwich $1 for every sandwich they sold (and then had to pass that cost on to the consumer in the form of higher prices). Then EoS sues McDonalds, as a hamburger is actually a hamburger sandwich, and since he's getting $1 a sandwich from Akbar's Gas n' Munch on 135th Street, he's suing McDonalds for $100 billion.
But the guy who patented combining cheese and meat is suing McDonalds. And so is the guy who patented the extending sandwich flavor by adding condiments. And so is the guy who patented the idea of conveying french fries to customers in a cardboard container. And so is the guy who patented a method of conveying liquid from a distributing nozzle to the customer by means of a cyllindrical shaped device open at only one end (i.e. a freakin' CUP). And yes, the cup, and mayonnaise, and cheeseburgers, and fries in a cardboard carton all seem like obvious inventions with lots of prior art. But we've seen such silliness get through the patent office in America.
Don't think the government is going to put the money in place to keep some overworked, underpaid patent examiner from approving a patent on cheeseburgers! And once the patent is granted, getting it revoked or dismissed is so expensive that every little burger stand will pay the guy who got the cheeseburger patent $10,000 a year because they don't have the $10,000,000 to fund the challenge.
When granted for truly original inventions within a certain limited scope, patents are a wonderful thing that encourage innovation. But that's in theory. In practice, they're something else entirely.
Don't let the patent lawyers and the politicians they lease paint rosy pictures of theory over the cesspit of practice. Don't let software patents pass in Europe.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
It costs very little to be innovative in Software.
The same cannot be said of innovation in pharmaceuticals.
From the article:
"They (those in favour of Software Patents) argue that intellectual property rights provide incentives for companies to innovate and invest in research and development."
What i'm saying is, that in my opinion, this argument is void because it is possible to innovate in Software without any considerable investment in anything other than your own time.
I was looking for slow transformation to be a musician and record producer (at least no one can patent certain sounds), but this will quicken my farevell. Guess what...another industry killed by greedy corporations. Yeah, money it is all that matters. Who cares about healthy, free market? Fuck it.
Sorry about my rant, it is just really sad.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I'm not sure that we should have hoped for anything different happening here. This was a chance for the JURI to amend the directive ahead of it's vote in July. As they have chosen not to amend it (well, not in a significant way), then there is still a reason for the MEPs to put the effort into turning up to reject/amend it in July. If they had amended it enough to make it look like it was better (without actually changing the fundamental problem with it), then some MEPs might have been placated enough to not bother to vote against it.
I for one hope some enterprising freedom fighters destroy the USA entirely, before it can further contaminate the actual free world with the next round of infectious pure insanity. If we can't disassemble corporate personhood, maybe we should disassemble the populace? Viva la fucking insanity.
---- death to all fanatics
I've found the right e-mail address to all of them except one, if you want to tell them what you think, here's the addresses:
e u.int, cfjellner@europarl.eu.int,o m, anna.hedh@telia.com,. int, nlundgren@europarl.eu.int,u .int, carl.schlyter@mp.se,. int, anders@wijkman.nu, lars.wohlin@telia.com,n .se, maria@liberal.se
jandersson@europarl.eu.int, charlotte.cederschiold@moderat.se,
lek@europarl.
helene.goudin@telia.c
ehedkvist@europarl.eu.int, ghokmark@europarl.eu.int,
aibrisagic@europarl.eu
cmalmstrom@europarl.e
jsjostedt@europarl.eu.int, e-b.svensson@bredband.net,
awestlund@europarl.eu
inger.segelstrom@riksdage
However the inger.segelstrom@riksdagen.se wasn't valid longer, I tried with inger.segelstrom@europarl.eu.int but that failed aswell. If anyone know the right address please let me know.
and instead arguing your point?
Of course it's possible that the grandparent is afraid of change, so? Does that invalidade his concerns? Is this an argument in favor of software patents?
"Just to get this straight, you think that those of us in Australia and the Unitied States are not free to write software?"
No, he's thinking, and rightly so, that people living in nations where software patents exist, are not free to write software without being threatened by software patents. If you take a look at the many lawsuits about software patents in the US, you might get an idea where the problem might be.
And while I'm at it, I also had the displeasure to read your other posts and here are some answers:
"Have you considered the possibility that the people who want software patents make really good arguments and the people who don't want software patents make really stupid ones?"
If you think there are good arguments, spill them out, but don't use the kind of strawman argument you are making.
"That's a blatantly dumb argument as, for a start, it's the software business that is calling for software patents to be granted in the EU.. "
No, it isn't. It's some software companies calling for them, while others (and if you can believe any of the recent polls, the vast majority) are totally against them.
"That argument is dumb too cause there's amature radio enthusiests. There's amature car enthusiests. There's amature plane enthusiests. All these industries are restricted by international patents."
Sigh, since when exactly did amateur plane enthusiast work on something being in direct competition to the offerings of boing and aribus? Oh, they don't, your analogy is meaningless, stupid and misleading. Not even a nice try.
"Yes, we won't have the 3.6 million bullshit little software companies that we have now, but hey, that's a small price to pay for maturing an industry into something actually reliable."
Yes, monopolies have a great track record when it comes to making something reliable and of high quality. Screw competition.
Btw., did you even notice, that with your last paragraph you essentially agreed to all the arguments of the oponents of software patents you had been arguing against all the time?
Something that is "simple" is both "obvious" and not "novel".
If you choose to define simple as being obvious and not novel then that would be true. However, if you check the dictionary, simple is more traditionally defined as being easy or uncomplicated.
Of course you may disagree, but then the issue is what "is" an "obvious" invention ? At the moment professionals around the world think that what is "not obvious" for the patent office is instead quite "obvious" to them.
This would also be a common misunderstanding of patent law. The test is not whether something this is "obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art" as is so often talked about here(assuming we are discussing US patent law, EU law is similar). The question is whether something is "obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art". While you can read most of the issued patents and say that they are obvious after reading them, the question is whether they were obvious at the time they were invented/filed. While it is easy to say that they would be, actually proving that they were obvious is an entirely different ball game. Thus far I have yet to get any slashdotter to take up that challenge and even come close to succeeding on any of the patent stories posted here.
The problem is: Give user graphic feedback on background tasks.
Solution: Something that grows over time and is visually representable. Can be anything, from a growing baloon to a growing bar. Is any of the peculiar implementation a "novelty" ?
I do get the point, however you are ignoring many other possible solutions which would solve the same problem. For example, a colored block could be presented which would transistion from black to white (or red to violet) as the taks completes, or a text box which displays a percentage of task completion, or a audible tone which increases in frequency as the task nears completion. How exactly is a progress bar which grows as the task nears completion the one and only solution that any person skilled in the art would think of when presented with the problem?
On the other hand, the courts have ruled that if something has provided a solution to a long-felt need in the art, that it actually lends credibility to the solution being non-obvious. See MPEP 716.04. Take this as you will, but to some extent it does make sense.
Why should you stop providing your "own" solution ? You didn't COPY it ! You didnt even know it existed !
Granted this is a problem, but it is also the reason why penalties are smaller in this situation than when someone knowningly infringes.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
I'm looking for existing EU patents that show up the system. In his article RMS mentions patents on progress bars and accpeting payment by credit card... are there any other popular choices, or better still a page with lists of them?
Recently I've come up against one that, while I haven't read the actual text of, seems to cover downloading a file from a central authority that lists rates for several currencies, and using these rates to convert a price from a local currency to a foreign one.
Wow. I wish I'd thought of that.
NoimsThis is not the greatest sig in the world. This is just a tribute.
My .sig says it all -- please contact your MEP and stop this madness!
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
While you are on your billion rant, the "correct" way is to use commas, not apostrophes, to separate the groups of three digits. :-)
I'm with you on the fact that the British system is more systematic in that it counts the power of one million (bi- = 1e6 ^ 2; tri- = 1e6 ^ 3; quadri = 1e6 ^ 4 etc.) whereas the American system counts the power of one thousand, less one (bi- = 1e3 ^ (2+1); tri- = 1e3 ^ (3+1) etc.). And I mourn the loss of "milliard" from British usage. However, given that even the UK government now uses the American standard, I fear that the war is lost.
However, both systems are really French in origin, and there's no overwhelming historical justification for choosing one over the other.
On the subject of the word "program(me)", I believe that the overwhelming British preference is for -mme in all cases except that of computing, where -m is almost ubiquitous. To me, seeing -mme used in print is usually an indicator that the author (or editor) is less than entirely au courant with computing matters. But that is just an opinion. I must say, though, that the parent post's erratic spelling and grammar do not give the impression that the writer is an authority on orthographical matters!
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
If your hardware invention can be completely converted to software then it is not a hardware invention at all, it is in fact a software invention disguised as a hardware invention; one of the few loop holes in the new patent laws RMS talks about.
Copyright would have covered this blatent copying though, even if it is a hardware to software conversion; copyright still protects literary works if they are converted to an audio CD too.
As for "clear and technical"; do you realize that currently, patents do not need to be implemented at all and thus "clear and technical" is limited to the idea, not the implementation.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
SME's are the hardest hit here, but as the FFII organisers suggest, SME's need to make direct contact with MEP's, ideally in Brussels itself.
Fat yet hungry wolves like Apple and Microsoft et al http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1
http://wiki.ffii.org/Bsa050609En
It's not just that there is much to lose from unbridled software patenting, so much as there is arguably much to gain from disallowing them altogether.
Personally I would have thought the moment US mega-corps become involved, would be glaring reason for MEP's to become anxious over the interests of the directive, but as they say "follow the money".. in this case off a cliff.
If the US patent regulation is so bad and constitutes a threat to Linux:
could please someone tell me what has happened to Linux in the US since then? Why is it still there?
In fact, almost everywhere politicians have dared to give people the vote instead of just waving it through the vote has gone against the European institutions, and in many places a vote will not even be chanced because of overwhelming popular opposition
3 votes have been held. Spain voted massively for YES (77%), France and Netherlands (less) massively for NO (respectively 55% and 61%) but with a higher turnaround. Besides, the vote was not for or against European Institutions, it was for or against the European Charter.
Rubbish like ignoring a parliament to enact the will of civil servants will certainly not be helping.
You don't seem to understand how the European decision process goes. The EU is NOT a federal country. It has very little power over member states. The parliament has a consultative function but no real authority over member states. The Commission is just an administrative body and has no real power either. The EU Council has the power, it's basically a board room where EU countries negociate stuff. States are represented in the Council by the Heads of States not by anonymous European civil servants as you imply. It works pretty much like the UN. Each country has a representant in the Security Council who negociates and makes decisions in the best interest of his country.
I'll drive a parallel with the US. Donald Rumsfeld or Condi Rice are unelected officials. Yet they have been granted power by President Bush, who was elected (I won't get into the argument here). Within the bounds of theses powers, they can decide stuff independantly of the opinion of the Senate or Congress, which are elected bodies.
Maybe a better analogy : the EU is like the US would be if the Federal government had no power at all. The elected Senate would vote, but could only make recommandations since it would not have any power. The President of the US would not exist, the position would have no point. The real decisions would be made by direct negociations between State Governors, a broad equivalent of the EU Council.
but the point remains that these institutions have little to no popular support
This is ironic because the only European institution is the elected European parliament. Its powers would have been expanded in the EU constitution. It is misleading to present the EU constitution as a vote about giving power to elected or unelected bodies. The question is about transferring power from elected nationals to an elected European body. Do we want to go toward a federal European elected goverment with real powers over member states (like in the US) or do we want to keep all the power in the elected government of member states?
Prefering one way or the other is perfectly legitimate but please, don't claim that one is more democratic.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
Q: What does the EU & the USA have in common.
A: They are both wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Business.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
The Financial Times summarizes the event as a major victory for the bad guys (to make it short). Still, the summary given on FFII's page states that the definition of field of technology as the field of applied natural sciences (and not exact sciences) excludes clearly software patents.
Also, Rocard's phrasing was to characterize what is patentable vs. what is not by considering if it requires or not the use of natural forces. All the good guys (to make it short) seem to agree with that characterization.
Can someone explain why it is a "major blow" ? And more precisely what is patentable with natural sciences which is not with natural forces ?
Cheers,--
Go Debian!
Perhaps you should read up a little on the subject before you start declaring your views as absolute truths.
And yes, patents do cover ideas. That's the whole point with them. As opposed to copyright, which covers the expression of ideas.
Please feel free to Google for more background information before making you next post. Perhaps you will want to start with something that Dr. Stallman has written. He appears to be considerably more well informed on the subject than you.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
How about this for a change? Instead of sitting behind our computers arguing this issue on the internet, how about getting up and doing something about it? If we really want to accomplish something, sitting here on the internet arguing out it's petty points isn't going to solve a thing, and I think that's the MAIN reason things like the DMCA will never go away.
Sure, we're are angry enough, that much is easily visible, but where's the passion to get anything done to stop it? Circumventing it and putting in all that effort to work around it could be channeled into something much more effective (i.e. creating some change), and could make life much easier for everyone...
Just a thought.
The real issue here is that there are so many people that are vocally against patents on the internet but realistically how many of those are actually consulting with their Members of the European Parliment. I have recently asked how many people had actually contacted my MEP in the UK and the response was very few. If we want to make our point of view heard you will need to make it public WRITE a letter and post it to your MEP, Email them, and bombard the local news papers with information otherwise whats the point if nobody actually hears about the battle?.
Fuck you. You guys take great pleasure in mocking us, and now your little Utopian EU is turning into a spectacular clusterfuck.
Nah, first you help *us* bring democracy back to the U.S.A., *then* we'll help you. Quid Pro Quo.
No, not many small companies have done that. The BSA (yes, the Business Software Allience) recently ordered a study trying to prove your point, but it resulted in proving exactly the reverse.
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Donate free food here
Well, to bad I'm just an ordinary guy and not some flashy rich EU-politican which can travel to Brussels just for the joy talking to the people which are more or less employed by me.
No, but they {amateurs} do spark innovation. Is every car being sold painted black?
Yes, amateurs ARE important. But when they start posing a threat for the heavyweights, they try to crush them.
And they usually succeed. Software patents is just another weapon for them.
I'll give an example: Have you heard of the Tucker, a car way ahead of its time?
From the website The Tucker Club: Preston Tucker was a car-crazy kid who hung around auto speedways and grew up to create an automobile--the Tucker--that was years ahead of its time.
I don't need a signature.
Now would be a good time to remember that Microsoft and Apple are working together to fight against the open-source community on this.
(Thanks to Leoxx for the linkage.)