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NZ Draft Bill Rules Out Software Patents
Korgan writes "In what must be a first in the face of ACTA and US trade negotiations pressure, a Parliamentary select committee has released a draft bill that explicitly declares that software will no longer be patentable in New Zealand. FTA: 'Open source software champions have been influential in excluding software from the scope of patents in the new Patents Bill. Clause 15 of the draft Bill, as reported back from the Commerce Select Committee, lists a number of classes of invention which should not be patentable and includes the sub-clause "a computer program is not a patentable invention."'"
I say we patent this type of solution and then release it under a [insert name of least controversial open source license here] license so it can spread like Gonorrhea throughout other governments.
It's still only a draft.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
a computer program is not a patentable invention
OK, but what about a software concept? Can someone still patent "A method for preventing unauthorised access to files and system features through the use of a personal identification and verification system", as long as they don't have a single piece of software for this idea?
That imaginary patent was about password protection in case anyone missed it...
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I'm so used to loading slashdot and reading bad news. It's a breath of fresh air to read something like this. Good job everyone from New Zealand.
Hope some of that common sense washes over to Aussie shores
Software patents have never been allowed in Europe, and the UK like to make a big stand against such patents.
http://eupat.ffii.org/log/intro/
It's really only the Americas that have software patents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent
I can't see it passing the second reading. It was probably just included in the draft to make the idea more public.
From the Draft Bill: "(...) as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position." Why am I not living in NZ, yet ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Are you sure? I thought we had the stupid situation where companies were being granted patents in the UK in spite of the fact that Europe had banned them. IIRC one politician (who had obvious corporate connections) said it was only "right" and "fair" that they should be allowed more protection!
Maybe I'm just interpreting it wrong, but that is how I read it.
That's how it is. The push to codify software patents has failed, however there hasn't been a successful counter-push to have software declared unpatentable. Right now it's a grey zone where software is patentable but the patents are theoretically unenforcable as they have no legal ground to stand on.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I've never really followed the arguments behind why everyone hates software patents. I'm not trolling here, please help me understand.
As I understand it, the idea behind a patent is to encourage an inventor to invest resources in R&D and then to share their new techniology with society, in return for a time-limited monopoly on exploiting that new technology. This is arguably a bit broken at the moment -- largely because patents seem to be overly broad and to last too long -- but the basic idea seems sound.
If I invent a new physical device -- an array of levers and cogs to build something, or a new chemical process to manufacture something -- I can patent it. I've put loads of time and effort into finding a new way to manipulate physical objects to either perform a new process on them, or to peform a new function. If it's useful and novel,.I can submit my plans and society grants me a patent.
However, if I invent a new algorithm or piece of software, society isn't willing to make the same deal with me. I see these as analogous to inventing a new machine part or a new device for someone's home. My invention is manipulating information instead of physical objects, but it's still useful and novel, and it's still improving a process or performing a new function. It's also still the result of considerable investment of time and resources.
I've seen the argument that information isn't patentable because it's easily copied; This doesn't work because it's the plans that are patented, and the blueprints for a machine part are as easiliy copied as a new algorithm or search routine. I've also seen the argument that patenting an algorithm harms companies that need to use that algorithm in their products, but I don't understand that either: obviously a really broad patent for e.g. "using subroutines" shouldn't be awarded any more than one for "using levers" in a physical device. However, a new technique for manipulating information with a specific and narrowly-defined purpose seems more analogous to patenting the coaxial escapement, an innovative improvement to the efficiency of a machine part with wide application. That seems pretty reasonable to me. Finally, I've seen the argument that the field of software development moves too quickly for patents to have a net benefit effect; this may be true, but seems like an argument to shorten patent life rather than abolish them entirely. All the other arguments I've seen are basically along the lines that the system is poorly administered and should therefore be removed entirely; why not push for a better-administered system, instead of pushing the baby out with the bathwater?
So I don't really see many advantages to destroying the current system, but for improving it instead. Conversely, there do seem to be advatages to keeping software patents. For example, let's say that tonight a radical new process for handling search results comes to you in a dream. You could put in time and effort to research it, hone it, prove that it works, and prepare your product. In a world with a functioning software patent system, you can then sell your IP to Google and live out your days on a private island populated entirely by scantily-clad people of whatever gender floats your boat. Without patents, you could put in all that time and effort, but the only way you could benefit from it is by starting your own google competitor (good luck) and praying that no-one else ever works out or steals your algorithm to immediately copy it (again, good luck).
The software patent system may be in need of repair, but is it really worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
I've been curious about the degree to which software patents help or hinder software / computer science innovation. (My money is on 'hinder'.)
However, some people measure innovation via the number of patents issued. NZ's bill might make their developers / computer scientists more productive, while ironically making it harder to convince people of that fact.
In the US, software isn't patentable directly, either. If you claim "a program which causes a processor to perform the steps of...", then you get yourself a rejection under 35 USC 101, because a program isn't a process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter.
One way that lawyers get around this is by claiming "a computer-readable storage medium storing a program which, when executed, causes a processor to perform the steps of...." A computer-readable storage medium (e.g., a hard drive) is generally considered to be an article of manufacture. This almost got tested in court several years ago, in In re Beauregard, but the USPTO decided to withdraw its rejection and issue the patent before the court got a chance to weigh in on it, and nobody has brought up the topic in litigation since then.
Let the lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over the remains of USA's Tech industries the rest of the world will go their own free way.
No, it isn't. There's nothing about a non obvious algorithm that demands or deserves patent protection. How to implement that efficiently on an ISIC, YES, but as a mathematical statement (which its implementation in software IS), NO.
That's right, rather like domain squatting, people have been randomly patenting stuff in the hope that they might have something valuable once software patents are allowed in the UK.
Fortunately (from my point of view, anyway, as an independent developer) software patents in Europe have been knocked on the head and these things will remain worthless for a few more years at least.
This is a DRAFT of a bill. It's not even a bill yet. And while some are speculating that this is intended to get more public attention, I think it may be intended to get more private (funds) attention. With all the high pressure lobbying [read "involves a lot of money"] I imagine NZ's government may be feeling they aren't getting their share of attention from those in support of software patentability. The inclusion of this may only be there to rattle some cages.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent
"Europe
Main article: Software patents under the European Patent Convention
Within European Union member states, the EPO and other national patent offices have issued many patents for inventions involving software since the European Patent Convention (EPC) came into force in the late 1970s. Article 52 EPC excludes "programs for computers" from patentability (Art. 52(2)) to the extent that a patent application relates to a computer program "as such" (Art. 52(3)). This has been interpreted to mean that any invention which makes a non-obvious "technical contribution" or solves a "technical problem" in a non-obvious way is patentable even if that technical problem is solved by running a computer program.[12]
Computer-implemented inventions which only solve a business problem using a computer, rather than a technical problem, are considered unpatentable as lacking an inventive step (see T 258/03). Nevertheless, the fact that an invention is useful in business does not mean it is not patentable if it also solves a technical problem."
Software patents have never been allowed in Europe
But if New Zealand is joining us only now on that point, how is that a "first" in the face of ongoing ACTA negotiations? The European Union is involved in ACTA too, and I have seen no hint that software patentability (or even patents in general) would be an important factor in ACTA.
I mean, if customs officers can't tell the difference between a fake Rolex and a genuine one, how are they going to tell whether the software in a truckload of laptops is covered by a patent or not? Will they cross-check shipping manifests with the actual contents of individual executable binaries (possibly reverse-engineering them first)?
So, a bit like the big Tech companies threaten, we're currently all at risk under some ominous black cloud, but that cloud might end up not really being problematic in the long term? Well done lawmakers!
Draft bill. Not final. Not to worry. An army of lobbyists is already on a flight to NZ to "correct" the situation before it passes.
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Lawyers are always trying to hollow out the non-obviousness test, TSM basically removes the expert opinion from obviousness. US supreme court bitch slapped the lower courts for going along with lawyers ... but they are already trying to find loopholes in the supreme court decision.
Documentation of this has been ongoing for a few months now:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/New_Zealand
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Broken URL syntax in the previous post brought to you by my favorite Fireflog plug-in Make Link. Which is why Boomtango has the slow horse in this race.
or "fist" in the face?
There is a brief commentary from Baldwins, a NZ-based law firm, at http://www.baldwins.com/select-committee-reports-on-new-patents-bill-in-new-zealand/
The fact the Patent Office previously granted patents for non-meritorious inventions is not surprising. Historically examiners have only been able to rely on publications in New Zealand for novelty of the application. The Patent Office did not consider the ground of inventive step in examination. However, this is the case for all forms of technology in New Zealand, not just software, under the existing Act.
The previous version of the Bill addressed these failings by introducing absolute novelty, examination for inventive step and no longer giving applicants the benefit of the doubt. It is not clear why the Committee put in an exclusion of software or why the Committee treated software differently to other forms of technology. This is in clear conflict with the review performed earlier in 2005.
Rules are not being enforced in the right way is a bit like the -No Income, No Job, (and) no Assets loanNo Income, No Job, (and) no Assets loan" math of the banking world.
As long as a MS can keep you buying the "shrink wrapped" innovation its win win win.
A win for the USA, a win for MS and a win for the lobby/lawyer/political side.
Does the US gov see "US software" as too big to fail?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The second thing, that I learned at University, and I can't remember the exact term, but the patent must be put to use by the owner of the patent, or else they lose it.
IIRC That's trademarks, not patents.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Also Japan, which is why their system software market tanked in the 90s and they're mostly doing embedded and entertainment stuff.
Hey, not the Americas, just the US.
Brazil and most of South America have no concept of software patents.
In Brazil specifically, the law says that mechanism to protect software is the same as literary works, i.e. copyright. Business methods are also not patentable in Brazil.
Mexican law also states that software (computer programs) are not inventions and thus, not subject to patents.
In 2009 Canada also rejected software and business methods patents. As far as I know, this has not changed. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
-- SouNerd.com
As someone deeply involved in the Patents Act process in NZ (I wrote my thesis on it ;-) http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/1027?show=full
And presented to Parliament on the Act; I can tell you that the Select Committee report is the final stages before the Bill is either passed in Parlimentary Session or thrown out for another full round (considering the current Draft on the Table started in 2002 I doubt that will happen).
AEnertia
Witty, tag line goes here
I think you are confusing patent protection with copyright protection. Software is still covered by copyright law, and the licensing agreements you choose to put on your software product is still what defines how people can use your software product, and what their access to that software is.
If I write a program and release it under a license that does not allow access to the source code, and does not allow users to distribute it further, that is still perfectly valid. But if someone decides that they want to write their own software that does the same thing, as long as they do not use anything from my product, they are well within their rights to do so.
UNIX platforms have been around for 50 years and the model they use has become essentially a standard. But until recently, UNIX was costly and the licensing was rather prohibitive. So in the 1980s, this man decided that he'd like to write his own version of a UNIX-like platform, and release it freely and openly for everyone to use. That platform was GNU and the man that started it was Richard Stallman. GNU is now one of the most widely used platforms on the market. Even some UNIX vendors use some of the GNU utilities themselves. It also became the system that sits on top of the Linux kernel.
But while GNU replicates a lot of the functionality from UNIX utilities, it uses absolutely none of the code from UNIX. It was written independently to ensure that it was freely available to everyone.
That hasn't stopped UNIX platforms from continuing to be sold, or continuing to be innovative. But it has pushed UNIX vendor to improve their platform significantly to differentiate themselves from the free platforms.
Software Patents would not have allowed GNU to exist at all. Software patents are, without exception, patenting ideas rather than implementation. This means that if one entity holds a patent for an idea, no other entity can come up with an alternate way of achieving the same/similar end result. This gives the patent holder an extended monopoly on an idea and stifles innovation in the software industry.
Software copyrights allow you to release and protect your software from blatant copying, while still allowing people to improve upon and innovate beyond your original idea. Software patents do not.
The best thing to come out of New Zealand since Brett and Jermaine!
It just isn't a good Slashdot discussion without the old appeal to authority fallacy.
/did/ make an argument that itself is not fallacious. You have circumvented Knuth's argument by focusing on the appeal aspect, but not on the arguments of the authority.
Although the GP made an appeal to authority, that authority
So instead of responding to one fallacy with another, perhaps it would be instructive to demonstrate why Knuth is wrong.
Exactly why do you think you know better than Knuth? What is your response to Knuth's arguments that demonstrate that you know better?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
116th Post... from Invercargill!!!
I think there should be a Godwin-type law for patent discussions: ""As an online discussion about patents grow longer, the probability of confusion with copyrights, and/or a comparison to (RI|MP)AA approaches 1." Corollary: As an online discussion of copyrights grows longer, the probability of confusion with trademarks approaches 1.
I don't think they've completely outlawed software patents. The way I read it is that anything tied to a business model is not allowed (hence Amazon's silly 1-click being tossed.) It appears you can still patent a computer-implemented process, but not the program itself.
From what I've read, Canada generally will not allow a patent on software unless it's been tied to hardware in some way. Almost all software patents currently in the US would be ruled as business methods here and thrown out as a result.
Sources: Source 1 and Source 2.
But... if it finally does pass, Welcome To The Club, NZ!
South Africa's IP law explicitly states that software is unpatentable. Not that this stops the like of MS trying anyway... This leads to some bizarre circumstances... about 10 years ago I spent several months doing development work in Switzerland for a South African client, all because the Swiss Canton I was required to work in has (had?) particular laws around software patents that were evidently favourable to the legal prick running the company. And I was not permitted to do any of the work anywhere else. In fact I was not allowed to carry any of the laptops outside the jursidiction of this one particular Canton, and specifically forbidden from carrying any of the code, documentation or anything back home to South Africa with me. Weird shit!
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
Basically - it's all obvious.
I've ended up homeless and unable to get a job on multiple occasions because there were -threats- that the stuff I was doing might be patented. I had no way to know and no way to find out - and everything I was doing was mathematically obvious. After all is said and done - the patents I -have- seen paperwork for - are all obvious processes. I haven't seen a patent for anything that wasn't obvious for a mathematically-able diligent mind.
To sort of expound my feelings on this: software patents create thoughtcrimes. It makes into criminals those who think and the gedunken (computer software) that is working these thoughts out. I know this is an emotional response.
"a computer program is not a patentable invention."
That's a useless declaration. What we need is a clear statement that "an algorithm is not a patentable invention."
We need to make sure thing like RSA cannot be patented. Banning specific crypto stack implementations from
being patentable is crap.
From what I've read, Canada generally will not allow a patent on software unless it's been tied to hardware in some way.
If it's tied to hardware, it's not really a software patent anymore, though. It's a device, part of which (perhaps most, in fact) is software. But if the basic claim of the patent references any hardware, there's no way you can infringe it simply by writing code - which is what we care about in the end, right?
Originally to be granted a patent in the US a working model had to be submitted to the patent office, so no a concept wasn't patentable. Only specific implementations were.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Then again, any patent on UNIX would have expired decades ago...
... the 19th century attempts of the Indiana legislature to pass a law that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is exactly 3, not approximately 3.1416.
While I have not researched this myself, I hear that the Pi=3 legislation was a rider which was attached to another bill in an attempt by some of the legislators to both ridicule and kill that bill.
Essentially it was a way to say that passing the original bill was equivalent to passing a law regulating the timing and height of tides or specifying that the sun not come up until noon on particular days. It also opened anyone who voted for the bill to ridicule come next campaign season. "This guy is so dumb he voted to make pi equal to 3."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've never really followed the arguments behind why everyone hates software patents. I'm not trolling here, please help me understand.
Building and marketing a hardware product ("an arrangement of matter") requires a large investment and considerable time. Cost recovery takes a while once it comes to market and second-movers already making similar things have a major advantage: They can quickly clone the improvement represented by the invention, come to market, and suck out the profit needed by the inventor and his supporters. Good for the consumer - for THIS invention. Bad for the consumer because this means nobody does much inventing because there's no money in it. And inventions in matter arrangement tend to have a long time before obsolescence. So granting a limited-time monopoly to the inventor in return for general availability of the invention's technique once the patent expires is believed to do more general good by incentiveizing than it does harm by restricting and impeding other designers.
Software has a much faster timescale and much lower production and distribution costs. It's already (more than) adequately protected against straightforward cloning by copyright: A potential competitor must redesign or clean-room reverse engineer rather than copying the distribution medium. This typically takes months - enough time for a good software product to pay off the investment with a huge profit and establish a long-term market presence. This provides more than adequate incentive to build new and better software inventions without government invention.
By the time a patent on software expires the original products are mostly long obsolete. Meanwhile, many generations of software must be written avoiding this patented technique - and every OTHER patented technique. This quickly creates an impassible "MINE field" where anyone writing new software will unavoidably infringe a large number of patents and be chased by patent holders yelling "MINE!". Most software construction consists of combining existing techniques in useful new ways with perhaps a small amount of new ideas incorporated.
So not only are software patents unnecessary, they retard progress far more by blocking new uses of existing ideas than they encourage development and release of new ideas that wouldn't be pursued without them. They're an economic disaster for the people of any country that is suckered into granting them.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This has to be patentable... I mean a WHOLE committee of reasonably intelligent politicians. There is certainly novelty in this!