New Zealand Bans Software Patents

Nerdfest writes with news that New Zealand has, after going back and forth a couple of times, finally banned software patents. From the article: "New Zealand has finally passed a new Patents Bill that will effectively outlaw software patents after five years of debate, delay, and intense lobbying from multinational software vendors. Aptly-named Commerce Minister Craig Foss welcomed the modernization of patents law, saying it marked a 'significant step towards driving innovation in New Zealand'. An IITP poll of members at the time showed 94% of those with a view were in favor of banning software patents."

Comments

actually, no

[i_hate_robots]

article title, and summary for that matter, are not exactly accurate. here's why (in great detail). http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/08/new-zealand-parliament-adopts-uk.html

Re:actually, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? You link to Florian Mueller and Fosspatents.com... okay you've lost me as he's well know for being a bought and paid for shill of the software patent industry and patent trolls. I wouldn't believe ANYTHING he writes as it's normally 100% WRONG!

Re:actually, no

[oh_my_080980980]

You mean this text, Part 2 - Patentable inventions: "We recommend amending clause 15 to include computer programs among inventions that may not be patented."

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2008/0235/14.0/whole.html

Yeah reading is a real bitch.

Important because it's the first example

[ciaran_o_riordan]

This is really important because it's the first time that a country has explicitly banned software patents, with knowledge of what it's doing.

Other jurisdictions have legislation which says software can't be patentable, like the European Patent Convention, but because it was written before software patents became a problem there are debates about the intention of the text.

Thanks to New Zealand, we'll have an example of a developed economy banning software patents, so there will be proof that it doesn't make an economy collapse etc.

More background here:
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Patents_Bill_235
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/New_Zealand

That version is three years old

[raymorris]

You're looking at the 2010 version. The version that passed replaces that line with saying that it;s not patentable if the only thing new about it is "on a computer".
As passed, new inventions are new inventions - whether computers are involved or not.

Sorry, read it and weep, they're history

[almechist]

For crying out loud, they did indeed ban software patents, and if you don't believe me you can read all about it in that bastion of liberal OSS-using freethinkers, Forbes. Here's the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2013/05/08/new-zealand-government-announces-that-software-will-no-longer-be-patentable/ The critical part of the law is not the subsection everyone is arguing over, but what comes before it, which seems to me unequivocal about what is no longer allowed:

"(1) A computer program is not an invention and not a manner of manufacture for the purposes of this Act."

This guy Florian Mueller who may or may not be a corporate shill has got everyone confused by focusing on the legal subtleties of a subsection, but the fact remains that computer programs by themselves are no longer patentable, because the law states they are not considered to be inventions! Don't believe the FUD.