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German High Court Declares All Software Patentable
FlorianMueller writes "Long gone are the times when Europe was that bastion of resistance against software patents and patents on such things as file systems were ruled invalid. In a decision published today, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany upheld a patent on the automatic generation of structured documents (such as XML/HTML) in a client-server setting. The ruling lays out general principles that go beyond the patent at stake: they tear down all barriers to software patentability in the largest EU member state, even though a European patent treaty has been adopted that was intended to exclude software from the scope of patentable subject matter. EU patent examiners recently warned against a drift toward software patents. Software patent critics in Europe fear this will spark more litigation on their continent and increasingly call for defensive measures."
There goes the possibility for small innovative company to develop in a safe legal framework. Let me phrase my sentiment, on behalf of all my European colleagues, and in the immortal words of Spider Jerusalem : FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Just you wait...
A recipe is just another form of algorithm.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Time for a bunch of web sites to close up shop for a day to remind how this will affect things on the web.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
So that means if I sell software, without any hardware with it, then I'm not infringing on _any_ software patents, right?
The users might be, if they run said software on "a hardware appliance, comprising of a CPU, blahblah", but not the developer.
But then, why do pure software developers get sued, huh?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
when intellectual property law was meant to protect the solitary inventor from the predatory conglomerate. now the predatory conglomerate just preemptively carpet bombs their intellectual property territory and backs it up with a legion of lawyers. the solitary inventor doesn't stand a chance
intellectual property law is defunct. it is philosophically bankrupt and must be replaced wholesale, ignored, or at least radically revamped. this applies to trademark, copyright, and patents: the whole lot of it is rotten to the core and betrays any noble principles it was ever meant to uphold
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Start including a disclaimer in all license agreements, something to the effect of "This software may be in violation of German patent law and is therefore not available for use in that country"
Refuse to sell or license any software to anyone in that country who is not willing to sign a disclosure stating that they are fully aware of the implications of German patent law and are responsible for any violations that may occur.
Provide information for how to contact any German political organization that opposes software patents
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
That's pretty shocking news to me as a German, because (naive as I am) I always considered the German High Court is halfway reasonable.
Could we perhaps fight software patents by getting completely ridiculous and untenable patents accepted and afterwards make this public? -- This could have the desired effect but is probably never going to happen, because the whole patenting process is a bit expensive. :(
In my opinion the whole idea that someone could dictate me what computational methods I use and sell is totally ridiculous. A lot of my work involves formal logic and methodology and I can't wait for the day when I'll publish a scientific paper that unbeknown to me infringes on some patent and then get sued for it. If this software patent idiocy continues, it will be impossible to teach any higher mathematics at university in 200 years from now without violating someone's patents, but I'm sure some companies already have licensing plans in the drawer for this scenario. Crazy...
What a disaster. The stupidity of the US patent system has now spread like the virus it is here.
by that logic, I could get a patent for my novel by describing its contents and adding "a hardware appliance consisting of a bound book with paper pages printed on with ink". Then I could sue anyone who made a book using the themes of my patented invention. Wow, I'm gonna get rich! I sure hope nobody else has patented this idea already! (Note to self: remember to file a parallel patent describing how my book would be displayed on a eReader)
As cbiltcliffe points out above, software patents are presented and enforced as "process" patents. A software patent is not for the invention of a machine, it's a generic "way of doing" something on a machine.
That some patent lawyers attempt to shoehorn a process patent into a hardware patent by appending a generic description of a computer just shows that they acknowledge that, without such machinations, a software process would not qualify for patent protection.
Computers are designed to run generic code, that's their function and core value. To claim that running your patent-pending software on a machine that's designed to run generic software is somehow an improvement of that machine is ludicrous.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
People need to understand that in most western countries, the judiciary is a kind of priesthood utterly divorced from reality or common sense. What matters to lawyers and judges are not concepts like "justice", "equity" or "reason". What matters to them is the written rule of the law, and how it is best spun into ways that benefit both the priesthood and its patrons--the wealthy and powerful. The courts have no interest in the effects of their judgements. They have interest only in which lawyers arguments were more pleasing in the eyes of legal dogma.
This is a very, very serious problem which has only gotten worse in recent decades. The fact that most politicians are drawn from this clique has only accelerated the utter divorce of the courts from reality. Decisions like these are symptomatic of a judicial system that has broken down at a basic level. There are more across the legal spectrum: lenient corporate fines, excessive tort compensation, stringent libel fines, patents in general, children being convicted of child sex abuse, the rollback of habeas corpus, excess cost of legal defence, battery, etc, etc. The court system is entirely broken.
We live in an age of the misrule of law. If things get any worse, we'll be better off with no legal system at all.
May the Maths Be with you!
Well, "Hello World" happens to be one of the very first programs ever made and has plenty of prior art.
That's never stopped patent offices from awarding a patent anyway.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!