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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.'"
are available over at Groklaw.
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
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
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.
A more likely eventual route to "harmonisation" allowing software patents could be through decisions of a proposed Community-wide Patent Court, if the EU ever manages to agree to set the thing up.
The CPC has been a long-standing goal of the EU system for a long time.
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!
"I always thought this measure was just like the US one that allows the crazy patents."
It is. The trouble is that the pro-SW patent lobbyist claim to not want SW patents, as saying they want them would make their position hopeless. The major proponents have been linked time after time with organisations that have _no_ interest outside software or business method patents.
So instead they claim they dont want software patents, then turn around and lobby against any changes that would ban software patents. If, at any time, they're confronted on this inconsistency they ignore, avoid the question or divert the subject.
"Can someone tell me if I'm missing something?"
Indeed, yes, you are.
"If so, maybe it is time to say that this measure is okay."
And there you have the reason. The exact target response the obfuscation is intended to create.
It's hard to tell the difference, even for people who've followed the debate for years on end, so it's no wonder that people fall for it.
Actually, I think the best thing would be for the directive to be passed with the 21 cross-party amendments (read more about the Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments here: http://wiki.ffii.org/AmPlenPr050701En and here: http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/amends05 /komprom0506.en.pdf)
Failing that we want a rejection of course...
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.
Then it shouldn't be granted a patent; one of the requirements is non-obviousness. This is why things like Amazon's "one click" patent are so frowned upon; they should never have been granted in the first place.
Erm... yes. That's the point. If you put in the time and money for the R&D, then the patent system is supposed to grant you a major competitive advantage (a short term monopoly) so that you can take advantage of your invention. If it's good enough that people want it straight away, they'll pay your price; if it's not, they can wait a while until the patent expires, and you won't make any money. Hence you have to charge a reasonable price.
The problem, once again, isn't the principle of patents per se, it's that the period for which the monopoly is granted is excessive in a business as fast-moving as IT (and indeed several others). It doesn't take a decade to capitalise on a great technology idea in this day and age, it takes months.
Ford can't patent tyres; another requirement for granting a patent is the lack of "prior art", i.e., that no-one else has done it before.
The answer to your tyre example, once again, is that Ford shouldn't be granted the patent for a change that is "simple and easy". And if Ford really do invest a large amount of time and money to develop a safer tyre, the patent scheme is there precisely to stop some rip-off merchant cloning the thing cheaply, since he doesn't have to recoup his investment from the profits he makes in manufacturing.
What you're missing in saying that everyone should have access to those tyres at the cheap rate is that without the patent protection, they might never have been invented in the first place. The little guy certainly doesn't have the huge R&D resources Ford does, and if Ford doesn't see any competitive advantage from bringing its weight to bear on the problem, why would it do so?
Of course there are ethical dilemmas where the industry concerned makes products related to health and safety. This happens with pharma companies all the time when it comes to places like Africa, who couldn't possibly afford the going rate in the US or Europe. The solution to this is simply to charge a realistic rate everywhere, which might not be the same rate everywhere. But even in this case, again you have to remember that not many people would invest in pharamceuticals if there was no scope for a reasonable ROI, and patents are the guarantee that when significant discoveries are made, that ROI will be forthcoming. Without the catalyst, you risk losing the whole process.
In short, the principle of patents is fine. What's wrong is that they're routinely granted with inadequate checking for obviousness and prior art, they last too long for many industries, once an obvious patent is granted it can be absurdly difficult to get it thrown out, and the costs of patent lawsuits (like any other) are ludicrously prohibitive in some jurisdictions, meaning the little guy can't enforce his own patents, or defend against unjustified patent infringement claims by the big guy. Fix the system so it works properly, and the underlying principle is fine.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.