Software Patent Debate Over in Europe For Now?

Anonymous EPA writes "The website of the European Patent Office is running a story about a recent agreement not to revive the debate on software patents in Europe nor to promote new legislation. To quote: 'All speakers welcomed unequivocally the opportunity to discuss the issue at a high level and made clear that a new CII (computer-implemented inventions) debate followed by legal modifications was neither necessary nor desirable.'"

Comments

Europe ???

[wideglide]

Looks like a small bit of sanity is left in this universe ... Go EU !

Re:Europe ???

[trenien]

More like, the bastards tested the water to see if yet another attempt could be successful this time and saw they didn't have a whisper.

The current European Parliament members have learned what soft patents mean, and know their consequences.

Hence these guys are going to crawl back under their rock and try to make themselves forgotten until after the next elections.

Ulterior motives - a risk of a total ban

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the reasons for this is quite likely that patent owners are afraid of a total ban. As it is now, they can work within national systems and get some patents. If there was an open debate, the evidence from last time is that the anti-patent lobby has by far the better arguments and might end up winning Europe wide anti-patent legislation.

The solution? We just have to work to establish more and more GPLv3 software, written in patent free countries, which uses whatever is the best technique for the job. Eventually patent based countries will not be able to compete effectively.

Ouch

[palemantle]

This, from one of the MEPs:
The US grants too many patents and of too low quality which are cheaper to obtain and often quite trivial.

Is there a chance that the US is stung and works on a quick overhaul of its broken patent system? I, for one, am not holding my breath.

Re:Ouch

[kripkenstein]

This, from one of the MEPs:

The US grants too many patents and of too low quality which are cheaper to obtain and often quite trivial.

Continuing your quote,

The Chinese Patent Office is fully funding patents of SMEs and thereby fostering speedy innovation. Thus, the European system is under threat.

The EU parliament members stated fairly clearly how they see the current global competition among the major ecomomies (US, EU, China): The US grants trivial patents cheaply, while the Chinese system even funds patents, making them much easier to obtain.

One interpretation is that the EU is therefore worried that if software patents were legal, a torrent of cheap and trivial patents from the rest of the world might stifle EU productivity. Therefore by not allowing such patents they hope to stimulate their economy.

In this interpretation, it doesn't matter how patent law helps businesses within your economy compete internally with others, it matters how it helps your entire economy (comprised of businesses) compete with other economies. That is, the decision to not allow software patents isn't because the EU 'gets it' (in the geek sense), but rather a response to the US patent strategy, a counter to it. For example, if the US didn't allow software patents, the EU might have thought to do the opposite, if they thought it might give them an edge (as the US currently does).

Re:Why can they still file unenforceable patents?

[lpontiac]

Maybe the US laws need to be harmonized with those in the EU.

Re:Patents aren't bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are horribly wrong. For these reasons:

-You are arguing based on a nationalistic view. Yes this way you capture US based minds, but you loose everyone else. "No patents = Bad for USA, Good for Europe" is an argument for the USA to abolish software patents, not for Europe to adopt them.

-You believe that the main reason for technological evolution is patents. No my friend the main reason for evolution is need. There would be no H264 codec if there was no need for it. If there is a need for it, then it will be done. And it is better if it will be done by a consortium (in a standardized way), so as for all to benefit. At the beginning MPEG, JPEG were NOT patented. Why? Because everyone needed it in order to sell more hardware. Same is with H264. They need it so as to have a way to transmit video to small devices with little bandwidth available to them.

An example of your delusion is where you say this:
"
Consider the alternatives. If software patents didn't exist in the US, the only option would be to sell a closed-source codec, and keeping the format a trade secret. This would be very, very bad. Everyone would be limited to a few supported platforms, with a poor performing codec, and no opportunity to modify or improve it. Things would be like the bad old days of RealPlayer and 4DTV.
"

From this i guess that you are either too young or too misinformed:

-What about PNG, why develop it so as to be sure that NO patent applies to it?

-What about JPEG, why did the JPEG committee investigated the patent claims in 2002 and were of the opinion that they were invalidated by prior art?. If the committee liked patents as much as you claim they are, why did they try to invalidate them?

Patents are not a silver bullet. There was major technological evolution some thousand years before them too.
What is a silver bullet is a need, and someone to recognize it and find a way to monetarize it. And with patents the second part is getting more and more difficult every day.