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.'"
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
The buisness people can and will pass any law they want on demand. The EU is still new.
Hmm, but all its members have a very long history, and that history weighs on the entire union. It's not like the US, where the country was really made anew, since the settlers decided to break away from the British rule and decided to quietly forgot about the natives' existence when the constitution was made (not counting the French influence).
Besides, look at the russian federation: it too is very new in a sense, much newer than the EU in fact, yet it's corrupt all the way to Putin, and businesses do whatever the hell they want provided they have money and don't step on the prez' toes.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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.
I still don't understand much of these laws. They seem stupid and dumb to me, designed to protect the rich corporations, not people.
Problem #1. What if there is an idea that everyone would have, but someone out there patents it first? Does that mean that everyone else can not use that idea for their own benifit or profit? For example, the way something is sold on the internet.
Problem #2. What when this patent creates a monopoly. Does that mean everyone is stuck with having to pay extremely high prices, prices the market would never allow if there was competition?
And an interesting question. Why can anyone make a tire? Nobody will sue Joe Blow because he starts a tire company. Now what if Ford decided to patent tires. Can anyone imgaine how much a tire would cost if nobody else could make them? I would bet the cost would be double.
Here is the lawsuit I am waiting for. Say, for example, Ford patents a new rubber compound that will not burst. They use this rubber to make a safer tire. Everyone figures out all Ford did was add sand to their rubber mix, or something easy and stupid. Company B wants to make these tires, as a very cheap alternative to Fords premium "keep the family safe" tires. Ford sues this company, and wins. There is only one "safe" tire. Now the Smith family is a poor inner city black family. They need tires, but they can't afford the $400 per tire Fords. So they buy the non-safe $50 per tire generics. One day, on the way back from church, a tire blows on the highway and the car rolls, killing one of their children. Now, if the generic company could have made those tires, the Smiths would be alive because they could have purchased a generic "safe" tire for non-Ford prices. I would like to see someone like this sue Ford for the death of their family member.
Capitalism has its abuses. Patents are one of them. I can understand protecting a persons idea if it is so new and complex that nobody else would think of it, and the only way someone could have it is by theift. Patents should not be a mad rush to see who can fill out an application first, or for ideas that are unlikely to be had by one person only. Even if the idea is very complex, and unlikely that another person will have it, the patent should only last so long so that person can have a chance at enterting the marketplace without having large companies crush him. Patents should not harm society as a whole to make one person rich.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
It depends. Suppose a European firm tries to sell a product in the US that violates some US software patent. Then the firm can be sued in the US. Or, if a European firm has a subsidiary in the US which produces software that violates a US software patent, even if the product is meant for the European market. Again, the firm can be sued in the US. However, as long as the firm is located outside the US, and does not export to the US, it is basically safe (except maybe for a "nukular" threat, but I suppose not even W will go that far).
The funny thing is that a European firm that develops a "new" software concept might get it patented in the US. The net result, without software patents in Europe, is that in Europe many competing businesses might create products based on this "idea", while in the US there will be only one firm that is allowed to sell this product. Imagine what will happen to the price and quality of such a product. I expect that US citizens will get mightly jealous of the great software Europeans are allowed to use for little money, while the US is stuck with one piece of expensive crap. Maybe then the US will get rid of its software patents.
"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.
The EU commission has promised not to bring the issue back up, but like you I think we'll see it again in 2 years or something.
However, for that matter, time is 100% on our side. First of all, we already convinced a lot of people that cannot be convinced of the inverse because they have the facts. Then, a new parliament usually has an interest to "continue the prior work", so if we have two rejection of the directive in the parliament, it's very unlikely that a third parliament is going to accept full patentability, thereby ruining the work of two entire legislative generations.
The pro-patent parties like EPP and ALDE now want the directive dead because they're afraid of Rocard ammendment 21, and because they're aware like everyone else that a compromise directive on this matter would most likely be pure garbage which causes major harm to everyone. They're not evil pumpkins after all who want to control the world, they're just people who heard the wrong arguments. They want to do something good for the EU, and thus rejecting the directive is the best way out for them.
Of course, a properly ammended directive would be the best for us, but this aim is very unlikely at the time, so we should deal with what we can get: a majority for rejection.
Tonnerre
The pro-patent MEPs and especially the lobbyists have lost a great deal of credibility in this second reading. The EU commission and especially the council of ministers has lost a significant amount of authority in trying to push this directive through without discussion and proper conciliation. They have put quite a lot of political risk trying to push this directive through. It's going to be very hard for them to try and push a third radical approach.
If we get this directive rejected in second reading, we have a much better leg to stand on in a second reading, given the EU commission breaks its promise not to bring it back up, also because we already had two parliaments reject it, and for a third generation of parlamentarians accepting the directive would mean ruining the work of the first two. Parliaments aren't fond of ruining their work.
Believe me, in a third reading we'd have a much better situation. The EU is currently losing a great deal of their power, especially because of the rejections of the constitution. The media is paying attention. The patent directive even made it into more broad media, and the amount of people claiming that anti-patent means anti-american and anti-business, claiming that we're all evil communists, has dropped.
A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of the mistrust of the people against not democratically legitimated governments. And they can't ignore it.
Tonnerre