Slashdot Mirror
EU Court Adviser Says Software Ideas Can't Be Copyrighted
bhagwad writes "The EU continues to ooze common sense as a court insists that software functions themselves cannot be copyrighted. Drawing a box or moving cursor are examples. To quote: 'If it were accepted that a functionality of a computer program can be protected as such, that would amount to making it possible to monopolize ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development.'" Note that this is a "non-binding opinion by Yves Bot, an advocate-general at the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice,"
and that the court "will rule on the case next year."
Can you point out to those folks on the other side of the Atlantic that software patents stiffle invention and innovation.
Thanks.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
Rectangles with rounded corners are still safe.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So drawing a box or moving a cursor *on a PC* should be applicable to copyright?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
" software functions themselves cannot be copyrighted"
When it says "software functions", it doesn't mean functions, it means features, eg. click button to update the table. It's basically confirming that copyright can't be used in the same way as patents, that's why we have patents in the first place [as brain-damaged as they may be].
I think you're thinking about patenting software. Copyright is a different thing. Generally you patent a device. Copyright is for protecting written information.
There are so many lawsuits flying around over patents, copyrights and wishful thinking that it's no wonder we are in recession. It doesn't matter what you want to do, you are going to get sued by someone. So why bother? People don't.
My opinion.
Company A should not be able to use Company B's sourcecode should they decompile it (or steal it).
However if Company B creates software that moves widgets around a screen depending on buttons you press on a keyboard. Or causes widgets to do tasks- they should not be able to prevent Company A mimicing their software.
Certainly, things like corporate logos should be protected- but what the software does functionally shoudln't.
If one company can independantly write source that acts the same as another company- they have derived it seperately and fairly.
I'm of the same feelings of patents too. If company A can make a machine to do the same as company B- they should be allowed.
They shouldn't be allowed to mould their parts on the other company and build their own machine that way- but if they can build an equivalent machine that does the same thing- that shouldn't be illegal.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Channel Steve Jobs much?
When you copyright your software, you copyright your specific implementation of the code. If someone comes along and writes software that performs the same function but without infringing on your copyright, you are facing competition.
SAS asserted that they were the subject of copyright violation, and attempted to shut down a competitor that created an independent implementation.
The EU already doesn't allow software patents anyway (and those it has allowed are unenforceable).
Yes, it does. Or rather, it does in the same exact way as the US allows software patents... and US counterparts for the ones that are unenforceable are also unenforceable here.
In both Europe and the US, software on its own (or 'per se') is unpatentable, but a machine that executes software is patent eligible. Similarly, a method performed by a machine executing software is also patent eligible. Basically, the EPO had a parallel decision to the Bilski decision here, with the same result - software is still patentable, provided it's tied to a machine.
There are Packers fans in Europe?
He's not saying that functions like
are not copyrightable. He's saying that the function, aka the generic software method, of drawing a box is not copyrightable. Nobody copied the CODE, which would be a copyright violation. They reimplemented the idea. This is just the equivalent of saying that you can still write books about kid wizards even though JK Rowling already did it. You can have spells that petrify people (that's would be a function, right?), but if you go as far as lifting entire passages (copying the actual code that comprises the function), THEN you're talking about a copyright violation.
Does the box have rounded corners?
You can't copyright a recipe but you can copyright a cookbook. Likewise you shouldn't be able to copyright a software design/function but you should be able to copyright a software implementation of that design/function.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
"Copyright is for protecting written information."
Copyright is for controlling the distribution of information. The only protection for information is duplication and distrubition.
Great Intellect...
Very good. You mind if I use that?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Friend, the corporations we have to worry about are not the "US corporations" or the "British corporations" or the "French corporations".
The ones that are destroying our societies on both sides of the Atlantic (and Pacific) are the transnational corporations who strive for a position of power above mere nations.
It's not yet too late to put these out-of-control entities back in their place, but it will take a long hard fight. The good news is that the fight has begun, apparently all around the world.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No it doesn't. You are comparing two different systems and claiming that they are the same; one system where software can be patented, and another where hardware can be patented, but the hardware can contain firmware. Those are two different things. In the E.U. you can't patent pure software, or to use your terminology "software not tied to a machine". This is not the same as the U.S. - in the U.S. software is patentable. You don't have to put it inside a machine and patent that - you can literally patent pure software.
Sorry, that's simply not true. Rather than going to some European lobbyist group for what US law is, I'll quote the USPTO's own manual for patent examination procedure:
Descriptive material can be characterized as either "functional descriptive material" or "nonfunctional descriptive material." In this context, "functional descriptive material" consists of data structures and computer programs which impart functionality when employed as a computer component... Both types of "descriptive material" are nonstatutory when claimed as descriptive material per se, 33 F.3d at 1360, 31 USPQ2d at 1759.
See? Same thing as under the EPC. Computer programs per se are not patentable.
Even your link notes this:
"The EPO has meanwhile granted more than 30,000 pure software patents in anticipation of the new legislation, and the number has recently been rising at a rate of 3,000 per year... the European Patent Organisation, i.e. the intergovernmental organisation that runs the European Patent Office, attempted to delete all the exclusions listed under Art 52 of the European Patent Convention. Due to public resistance which they apparently did not anticipate, this effort failed."
Bolded for emphasis. A "pure" software patent is not allowed in either Europe or the US. Patents to software executed by a machine, however, are allowed in both.