Slashdot Mirror
EU Closer To Rejecting Software Patents
niekko writes "BusinessWeek is reporting on the hot subject of European software patent directive. 'The European Parliament moved Tuesday toward rejecting a proposed law creating a single way of patenting software across the European Union, officials said -- a move that would effectively kill the legislation since lawmakers do not plan to set forth a new version.'"
This is the best news since hackingthemainframe.com!!
If only this would happen... I have written to many of the MEP's involved. Most don't even respond. Others appear to be either blonde or bought... Let's all keep our fingers crossed that common sense prevails.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
..but to be sure, we'll have to wait (and hope) 'till tomorrow.
Let's hope they get it right this time.
Still, there has to be a new law for this kind of stuff. Right now, the EPA will patent software anyway, for there is no rule to follow.
But still; it is hope.
...from those of us living where government was too stupid to know the difference between copyrights and patents and has ignited a building war over what Intellectual Property should mean or be.
Our prayers go with you.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
are available over at Groklaw.
...but hope dies last. Let's see how it will end.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I thought this was the 2nd or 3rd time that software patent directive has come up. How do anyone know that there won't be another version for us to talk about months from now?
Killing this directive is very dangerous since pro-patent lobbyists have already stated on record, that they want the directive in current shape or not at all.
If the directive doesn't pass, they can still lobby individual governments.
If the directive passes in castrated form with provisions preventing pure software and business method patents, member countries won't be able to enact legislation permitting it.
So, what we, Europeans, really want is for the directive to pass in a form that once and for all prevents this abomination called software patents to be reborn.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
I'm kinda interested in who the big backers of this initiative are. Europe is a big player in OSS development, but their commercial software ecosphere seems somewhat lacking. Will large software houses be more likely to do business in europe with their 6 weeks paid vacation and no software patents?
More importantly will this help raise awareness for alternatives (GNU/Linux & Apple)?
The EU is still new. They have members voting on ideals, and what is best for the people. That will change.
The USA is forcing its' system of government everywhere in the world. Soon, the "people" will elect thier new representatives. And the rich and wealthy businessmen will use their money to advertise candidates who are most favorable to their interests.
As long as money = speech, the people are the ones who will keep getting screwed.
As soon as money is taken out of politics, then people can debate which policy best fits their needs. But as long as 7 million dollars is spent on advterising about how the candidate is an asshole or fear, we are screwed. Can anyone in the USA honestly believe the pharmasutical companies advertising that drugs in Canada are dangerous for consumption in the USA? All the pharmasutical companies want to do is sell the exact same drugs in the USA at much higher prices. But when it comes to politics, there is no requirement that the truth is told.
What will happen in the EU is the powerful and rich will get people into positions of power. It is like the MAFIA. For a long run, they worked the system. They took low level thugs and got them jobs in the police force. They paid for the education of lawyers, and got some elected as judges. Before you knew it, the MAFIA could sell drugs, even if there was a police officer watching. If some good and ethical cop arrested someone the MAFIA wanted to protect, there was a good chance they would get a judge which would throw out the charges.
That is what the rich are doing. They are buying political offices. This will destroy the world, most will be forced in factories, into a slave like exsistance.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
NI! NI!
Your proposed law was a hamster, and software patents smell of elderberries. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second taah-me.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
These days I'm proud to be an European...
I feel sorry for the MEP's as the well-connected call them on the phone in the wee hours of the morning to try and persuade them not to vote against the bill.
If this is rejected then I have a paraphrase from Star Wars Eposode IV: "Don't underestimate the lobbyists, they'll be back and in greater numbers"
if eu rejects this, i'm relocating my business to europe.
6 new jobs over there is a pittance, but an eu WITHOUT software patents is where i want to do business.
adios corporate america.
On one hand it is a good thing, but on the other if there's not gonna be a new revised legislation that prohibits software patents, that still leaves the door open for each country to _allow_ software patents.
So MEPs, try harder!
Tristan.
So assuming that the European Union adopts a more "lenient" patent law, what will happen when American companies start suing europeans because they are "violating" their god like patents?
/by the way, did not RTFA.
We all know that Americans are not liable on international courts but they can sure drag anyone they wish to their courts so they can get "justice" done.
The only solution is for foreign firms to license their technology/services to whatever bully is enforcing the most patents. Look at the current situation with RIM and their blackberry.
I'm in America, where we don't have to deal with our government trying to implement software patents... er..wait a minute... damnit.
The laws of probability forbid it!
Now seriously.. Allowing software patents in the EU will be a bad move.
It will take freedom of people to freely distribute their own software only due to an element of it beïng "patented".
This will seriously hamper the opensource community, something I have serious respect for.
What would be rejected is the proposed EU directive harmonizing the national laws on software patents. Even without such a law, thousands of software patents have been granted by the European Patent Office, by bending the exclusion of the patentability of "software as such". Judges are likely to interpret the law similarly.
Software patents do exist in Europe and the only way to make them invalid is a directive that effectively excludes software from patentability. So the rejection of the proposed (pro-softpat) text does not really solve the problem.
When you wrote to the MEPs involved, you obviously forgot to include the number of the well-funded Swiss account that you should have set up for them.
When you're forced to buy $1000 worth of software belonging to a single company (because there's no competition due to patents), you WILL care. But oh, then it will be too late!
That I have patented the concept of oxygen-to-carbon dioxide conversion, and also the concept of human lifespan limitation and the entropy that comes along with it. Though I am not Germany, I wish to allow you all to know that you have all violated my patents and copyrights and unless you pay me royalties, I will sue you. :D
No such thing. As long as someone has an incentive to keep turning the rocks and not leave the issue alone, it will always be a vigilent struggle.
Manifesto on the directive of "computer implemented inventions"
Dear MEP,
As you are probably well aware, soon the EU parliament will have a 'second reading' of the directive for allowing patents on "computer implemented inventions", which, as I will show below, actually amount to allowing software patents (swpat), though this is heavily disputed and denied by the proponents of the directive, including the European Commission (EC).
The way in which this directive has gone through the EU Council of ministers is mind boggling and shows exactly how much the EU has a democratic deficit. Despite the fact there was no real majority for the draft any more (the change in vote-weight after the enlargement alone accomplished that, apart from a lot of change of minds of some other countries), despite the fact that stringent motions of national parliaments were passed to oblige the national ministers to redraw the proposal as an A-item so that it may be further discussed, despite the fact that the EU parliament and their JURY-commission asked for a new first (re)reading with almost unanimity, the EC chose to ignore and disregard all this, while giving no explanation, apart from "for institutional reasons as to not create a precedent". In other words, the "common position" had to be followed, even though there was no common position any more, because, apparently, the form is more important then the facts.
This is a stupefying prime example of absurd bureaucratic reasoning and mentality; to give more importance to formality, and to place appearances before the changing facts. Bureaucracy abhors changes, even to the detriment of real democratic values. But then again, maybe this shouldn't surprise us, as the EC is exactly that: bureaucrats, whom were never voted into the position they occupy, yet create laws that could potentially influence millions of EU citizens (to which they do not have to answer to). The EU constitution leaves this democratic deficit as it is, alas. And as seen by the handling of this directive, the deficit is pretty huge.[1]
I will not go further into the procedural mess and the apparent disrespect of the EC for the EU parliament, but rather concentrate on the different aspects of the directive itself (content). I will do this by stating, and then debunking, the rather dubious claims and arguments made by the pro-directive camp, which, alas, also include some misguided MEPs - though I haste myself to say the large majority of the EU parliament is well aware of the facts, as can be readily seen by the amendments made in the first reading.
The following statements for why it is necessary to have the (current) directive is as follows:
1)It is necessary for the stimulation and development of new software, so that IT-companies can be innovative to the fullest of their potential.
2)It is necessary for the stimulation of EU software business, so we can effectively compete on the world-market.
3)It is needed for the harmonisation of the internal market, and to retain the status quo. (Similar as the "we do not change the current practise" or the "it will avoid drifting towards US-style patentability" -argument).
I will now debunk all these arguments (sources mentioned at the end of the document) in a rational and clear way, instead of all the FUD currently being made by many of the softwarepatents (swpat) proponents.
1)It is necessary for the stimulation and development of new software, so that IT-companies can be innovative to the fullest of their potential.
First of all, we have to ask ourselves, what, exactly, a patent is. A lot of pro-swpat advocates use terms as Intellectual Property (IP) rights, while those encompass a lot of different concepts, such as copyright (which is already used for software). We can find the following definition:
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or applicant for a limited amount of time (normally 20 years from the filing date)... Per the word'
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
...if this legislation fails they'll come with another one where they exchange "Software Patents" just with "We-Fsck-You Patents" and there will be again a generated inflation of new, newer and latest petitions distorting peoples opinions and everything will start from the beginning with my european-lobbywhore-union while everyone outsources Software development to China - Land of the free developer.
Is it by pure chance that the vote takes place the same day as the G8, when people have other things on their mind?
Reject software patents, or soon all websites on Earth will have bright yellow backgrounds with large blue text! Do not resist, or we will burn out your eyes!! Bwa ha ha!!!
...as it quickly degenerates. Capitalism seems to me to be an intermediate state between anarchy and oligarchy.
Just as the distribution of particles in a chemical suspension will not remain uniform without constant agitation, the distribution of economic power will not remain disbursed throughout the population without constant antitrust enforcement.
It seems that we are seeing the tail end of this now.
"Two other European legislators from Germany who have favored stronger software-patent protections also have industry ties. One works with another top patent-law firm, and another sits on the board of U.S. software giant Veritas Software Corp. and holds options to buy 85,416 shares of Veritas stock, according to U.S. securities filings."
How on earth do we end up with a legislator that not only has outside interests, but outside American interests?
Keep up the pressure, Euros. If you keep intellectual assets clear of the antiquated shackles of American-style Intellectual Property, more inventors will work in your more-favorable environment. That could provide Americans leverage to reform our broken system. If you fail, it's another nail in everyone's coffin. Yep, I said "pressure".
--
make install -not war
Ask yourself: do you benefit from software patents?
I know I don't, especially in light of the quality of the latest "innovations" that are really just a reworded version of the same junk. Software patents have only been a hindrance to me. They're only a bane and a bother to 99.9999% of the population. Why should almost everyone's time be wasted with increasingly ridiculous nonsense that benefits almost no one, stifles technology use and acceptance and doesn't really succeed in identifying and rewarding all of the innovators? Even the officially sanctioned innovators don't receive that much in return once all of the lawyers and filings and other administrative overhead eat up the profits. So, it benefits only a few people and the rest of us bear the costs in the form of wastes of time, service interruptions, higher product and service costs, responding to legal claims, etc.
Does an art museum interrupt and charge a painter for each brushstroke that resembles someone else's painting? It's not worth their time. Similarly, software patents are not worth our time at the level they want to enforce them. Instead it just costs us an environment in which to innovate freely.
As you already learnt, Ireland nowadays is part of the EU. Here's lesson #2. :) The only western-european countries that aren't part of the EU are Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, and some lilliput nations - Lichtenstein, San Marino, the Vatican, Monaco, Andorra? (at least Andorra is more or less half-spanish, half-french, not so sure about then nor the other lilliput ones - they aren't official members, but could be members anyway somehow - a lot of them have connections to the countries around them). Also, IIRC, there is some special status for Greenland (which technically is a part of Denmark, but with its own Parliament yadda yadda yadda). I think they aren't part of the EU somehow, even though Denmark is.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
I'm sure you could have picked a better analogy. For instance, you could have said "Ford makes a tire that LASTS longer."
But the point remains. While I don't believe patents are bad, the original timeframes for them were created at a time when invention and technology development was a lot slower. Now, 15 years is an eternity.
But even if the 15 years remains, the patents they grant now aren't any good. They allow patents for non-specific ideas.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Troll? I think not.
But note that the EU is not a democracy. If it was the parliament would have killed this bill long ago.
it is the big business/pro sw patent interests that are now acting to defeat the bill. they are doing this because it suits them better to game the individual nations' patent systems then to accept a watered-down proposal. they want it all, now.
this is not the end of sw patents in europe, it's just a continuation of business as normal...
sum.zero
Don't feel too safe! My guess is that a large number of patent lobbyists run amok tonight in Strassburgh...
I will believe the rejection of the directive when I see it - not a single moment before.
Ack. The EU is an economic union, however if the EU is not going to be subject to democratic principles, it needs dismantling. Let those who believe the EU will be allowed continued existance as anything other than a democratic institution go and live elsewhere under their chosen system of governance.
Anybody know of any totalitarian countries in need of a commision?
Since Ireland has very low corporation taxes Microsoft is handling a very big chunk of their sales to Europe from Ireland thereby saving taxes elsewhere and spending a little in Ireland. It is really no wounder, that Eire MEPs are pro software patents. I was told, that this leads to statistics like this one: IT professionals in Ireland are generating a sales volume *per head* 10 (ten!) times higher than in countries like Germany. Same should go for pharmaceuticals. (Sorry, no source. Please post, if you find one.)
Rejecting the bill isn't enough. There now needs to be a major push for a bill to permanently keep software patents from ever becoming law.
" "We'd miss a golden opportunity if the bill got rejected," said Marc MacGann, director general of EICTA"
Golden opportunity indeed - to rob every small developer there is!
But, to be a bit more elaborate:
;-)
;-).
"Oh, please. As if this site didn't already post enough anti software patent propaganda"
Not really. At least in my opinion. But that is higly subjective, since 'enough' is in the eye of the beholder. And so is 'propaganda'.
"(real actual arguments are scarce)"
Only if you refuse to acknowledge them as arguments.
", now you had to do it, too."
Indeed.
"Cut this copy-pasting out, okay?"
Nope. I don't even see why I should. It's my text, I wrote it, so I can copy/paste it as much as I like. And since I set it under the creative commons, so can anyone else.
"Noone will never read these long comments anyway."
You are mistaken. I know of at least 6 people who already read it completely. And knowing slashdot, I'm sure there are myriads that do so without me knowing it. Of course, many may not, but that's not the point. If people think they can do better, I invite them to post their better, shorter versions. *I* have no problem with it.
"Or if you really have to do it, then at least have the decency to either name your source or slip a clever troll somewhere in the middle of the text."
Actually, I have appendix a and b, full with sources and references. They are several pages long, however, and not not suited for a slashdot-post (besides, you *already* complain it's too long, btw
But feel free to email me, and I'll send you the appendixes.
"Is it a deal?"
I've just made the only deal I'm going to offer, frankly. Whatever you're gripes are, they're wasted on me if they go beyond that.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
China.
.. "without constant antitrust enforcement."...or nasty bloody revolution, whichever comes first.
..just a hunch, hope I am wrong of course.
My prediction: the US will become a *very interesting place* within two years or so now. Watch what happens socially once the housing bubble pops and petroleum cracks 100$/barrel.....
about 4 hours left until the EU council decides wether european programmers will have the right to program without paying a license fee for each instruction they use. it's so senseless. if people will be able to patent telling a CPU what to do is like patenting to tell someone to do something. i can't really see any real uses for it but a lot of ways to exploit it. if it will get codified, probably the last continent where people are free will be lost... my websites have joined the web demonstration before yesterday. let's just hope intelligence will win over the self-enslaving corporate bullshit coming from america. (offtopic) "Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!" rofl. :D
[SHOW SOME LENIENCY TOWARDS
As an independant developper I just want to be able to write code (without looking at other's code) and not to be afraid of legal pursuit.
I just want to do what I like to do in peace. I don't have the resources to fight anything in the tribunals.
I hope that the big guy will not win. Please !!!!
The bill is not being defeated, it is just made to look
that way so that the opensource crowd does not keep
up the lobbying. Look at the publication and the people they
interviewed. Keep up the effort.
American businesses may have a tougher time in Europe over the next few years than they were expecting.
If so, chances are that it won't be because the EU, through some kind idealism, manages to thwart the evil of software patents.
Nor will it be because some anti-globalisation lobby finally convinces the politicians not to sell out to Big Business.
Nor will it be because of some political falling-out over Iraq or Israel (even though almost all EU governments have dissenting views on some aspect or other of American policy in the Middle East). It's possible that a dispute will be portrayed as such; recent examples of contrived disputes are the current France/Britain farm subsidy vs rebate row and the whole "Freedom Fries" thing a couple of years ago.
Let's be clear on something: statesmen in Europe were corrupt long before there were any statesmen in America to corrupt! There is a long history of state involvement in business ventures, a notable example being the colonisation of America. There is currently a row between the EU and America over state subsidisation of jet manufacturing companies.
Some European politicians may see the value of owning their own IT infrastructure, as China currently does and Russia learned to their cost in the 1980s. Doing this would free the EU from some economic pressures from the USA and reduce opportunities for industrial espionage. This does not mean that software patents will not be introduced, just that American businesses may not get the compatability with the American system that they are lobbying for.
However, I think the primary reason for a lack of cooperation between the EU and the USA in the future will come down to pure economics: the USA has a massive debt and ongoing expenses that are threatening the value of the Dollar. By reducing dependence on American business, Europe can safeguard its own interests. There are plenty of emerging markets in the world and the EU needs to ensure that it can compete aginst the emerging economic forces in Asia without being tied to the fate of the USA. Also, a software patent system that allows US businesses to take a cut of EU profits is not a very sound competitive strategy!
The EU is already in the pocket of Big Business - European Big Business...
... The bill on software patents has been definitely rejected this morning.
I've just read the AFP wire on Le Monde's homepage
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
It is very likely that some schemes are going on. At the same time, when words are uttered they will work. Thus, even if it is meant to be made to look that way it is the first steps towards a defeat.
But that defeat will only happen if the Open Source advocates maintain their informational activity.
Another bill will rear its head, although I don't know how much it will differ from the now rejected one. Read more at Reuters
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
The patent directive was rejected! 640 votes for rejection, 18 against rejection!
Trolling is a art!
Europe Parliament Nixes Software Patent Law by a 648-14 vote with 18 abstentions. \0/
I've read too much anecdotal and heard too much from insiders to discount the possibility. And the economic news is right there in the open, it's like people need even bigger clues?? heh. My own nephew walked away from an Army career a few years ago because he didn't want to be used domestically, and he said they were being trained for that eventuality, and it wasn't "foreigners" they were emphasizing according to what he told me. This is appropriate, if you follow their labeling of a lot of things as "terrorist" and read the fine print in the Patriot act, Modern states health powers emergency act,etc.
According to largest Polish information web site the patent directive was rejected by ca 648 out of 680 member of EU parliment. Seems the battle of Endor was lost by Empire Dark Forces. No it is time to destroy the Micro$hit Death Star.
software patent rejected !
Just to round of the thread, the actual vote against software patents was 648-14 with 18 abstentions. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006& sid=a.QckuA8V3H8&refer=home
``We buried a bad law and did so without flowers,'' Eva Lichtenberger, a member of the parliament from Austria's Green party, told reporters.