Letter To Abolish Software Patents In Australia

Ben Sturmfels writes "Over 500 members of the Australian software industry have have signed an open letter urging their government to abolish software patents. Signatories include free software luminaries Andrew Tridgell and Jonathan Oxer. In 2008 the Australian government began a Review of Patentable Subject Matter. While we missed the 2009 public consultation period, we hope to influence the government's response to the Review, due in February 2011. The letter will be presented to Minister Kim Carr in early August."

Comments

Re:I don't understand this..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because software patents really break the patent system. Maybe you just want to watch the FSFs Patent Absurdity movie. I'm tired to explain everything again here, and the movie makes the point pretty clear.

NZ was smart enough to do this...

[DiSKiLLeR]

NZ was smart enough to do this... lets hope AU will, too!

Disclaimer: I'm an Aussie living in NZ.

Re:I don't understand this..

[king neckbeard]

The US became the dominant world force in copyright when it had significantly weaker copyright laws than basically all of Europe. We still lack things like 'moral rights' and have some of the most expansive fair use rights in the world (at least before the DMCA, anyway). As for software, there are several issues. The first is that the functional element and the written element are virtually the same. Variable names, outputs strings, and source code comments are about the only non-functional elements. If you had a specific patent claim held to the same degree of scrutiny as say a pharmaceutical, it would have hundreds of claims for even an elementary program or portion thereof. However, most patents are very broad, and thus prevent alternatives that function in a largely different way, but are similar enough to fall into the patent. Another issue is that compatibility is incredibly important in software, and patents get in the way of compatibility. You can have software that is technically superior to your competitor, but if your competitor's product is already in widespread usage and your product isn't compatible, you will probably lose. A final issue is that the field of software has a lot of problems with competition, and software patents give an even bigger advantage to billion dollar companies over startups. Also, you seem to not understand the nature of copyright and patent laws in the US. The constitution clause that allows for patents states that

The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Not only do patents and copyright exist for the benefit of the public, they are simply a means to the end, not an ends to themselves. If we can conclude that some other incentive already in place does the job well enough, we could just end our patent and copyright systems. International treaties make it a bit more complicated than that, but it's not as if the US has a problem with acting unilaterally. As for why Australia would want to do that, they generally don't really have large, established firms, so Australian software companies (and users) are going to be on the losing end of the system with software patents in place.