The problem is: on the international level treatys are established, so patent law may bcome unreversible what I think is very dangerous. We need civil society support.
And of course a strong pressure may improve the situation on the long run. The fTC report about the software patent system was very intresting. In the USA the lawyers talk about Europe's patents and the other way around. We know it is a conspiracy of the legal community, a hostile takeover. We can make a lot of media fuzz. Publicity is the death of king.
Well, we already won in the EU parliament. We won in 2000. When there is a problem with the law it has to be fixed or enforced. That is what the lawmaker is for.
Ceterum censeo software patent law esse delendam..
Just a matter of time, we got rid of the almighty soviet union. We can stop the patent attorneys that exploit the legal system for their own benefit. I don't see software developers or software comapnies in favour of patent law.
There is a structural problem in patent system, that is safeguarded by parasistic lawyers, but shall we give up? If the law was for us then we have to let the system work for us and wipe the lawyers out.
F.A. von Hayek was aware of the problemthat emerges with your criticism. intellectual property is a propaganda term that may let you think of your 'property'. A patent is a monopoly grant by a goverment, ie. an interference into the freedom of the market. The difference to copyright is that you can easily "reinvent" the patent without even knowing about it.
Hayek Quote:
I am thinking here of the extension of the concept of property to such rights and privileges as patents for inventions, copyright, trade-marks, and the like. It seems to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work. In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have seriously to examine whether the award of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of risk-bearing which investment in scientific research involves.
But we talk about statutory law. Lawyers do not understand software. Only parliament has legislative powers and can express the will of the people. Lawyers may not reverse the meaning of the law they can oly adopt it. And when they reverse the meaning of it, they have to be stopped by a clarified law. Yes, the patent courts are influenced by the patent attorney industry that is intrested in widening the scope of patent law so that everything under the moon can become patentable whether it is economically justified or not, whether it harms the economy or not. When law has cancer we need to cure it.
I don't want my grandmother to buy me a shirt. I don't want to understand the crap misinterpretations of patent attorneys. Read a few patents, dig further into the law and get yourself informed. So when the lawyers fail then we have to clarify and defend the law.
And old Frisian proverb says "Wer nicht deichen will muss weichen" Who does'nt want to dike will have to leave the land!
Lawyers - the vampires of information society.
----------
you misunderstood mean: you can patent an algorithm as embodied in a software program,
--> a "computer-implemented invention"
but you cannot patent the algorithm itself
--> in some parts of the world, you cannot make a real distinction. Usually algorithms or complicated stuff is not patented but the pretty obvious.
Just read a few software patents, for instance Sun's shopping cart ( it's a long description of simple applied web design every php programmer does without even thinking of inventions), Expace net Shoppingcart patent Sun's claims:'1. A computer-executable process, embedded in a computer-useable medium, for supplying items on a network (46), the network having at least one computer-server (20) for communicating with users employing a browser program on a terminal/computer (35) at a location remote from said computer-server, said embedded process comprising the steps of:
receiving (152), at the computer-server, a transmitted command from said browser program for a shopping page (40); in response to said transmitted command, generating (154) a shopping page file and transmitting (156) the shopping page file to said browser program; receiving (168), at the computer-server, at least one user selected item from the shopping page received (158) by the browser program; creating (174) a list at the computer server; at the computer server, adding (178) to the list each user selected item received by said receiving step; returning (184) from the computer server the list of items in an entry of a shopping page file to said browser program; and continuing user selection (200), receiving (168) data strings, adding (178) items to said list and returning (184) said list until termination by the user. [and so on] '
Or take a look at this graphic http://plone.ffii.org/prmat/EP1278133a2/i mage_view
Yes, there are software patents in Europe, most of them trivial and x-applied by non-Europeans. For me the question is not how to improve their legal securtiy (EU-Commission), but how to get rid of them.
Stalman is an idiot that does not help us when he is talking about the isssue. He can learn a lot from Georg Greve (FSF Europe) and the work in Europe.
Stallman saying anything against patent attorneys only throws us back. He is a lobbying autist.
1. There are international treaties that clearly state what shall be patentable and what not.
2. the lawyer, i.e. case-law modified the law by decisions that perverted the meaning of the law.
3. The EU Commission wants to codify this in order to decrease the legal incertainty created by the misinterpretation. That is legalising a landgrab. The EU Parl reconfirmec the original rules.
'If I invent a new compression algorithm that is patentable, sure I want to _have the choice_ to either (a) patent it and make money from the patent, (b) dedicate it to the public domain for all to use.'
This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law.
'If FFII had their choice, then my freedom for (a) would be removed, for some "specious" allegation that software patents are hindering innovation, when, in fact, the swathe of open source software and internet protocols/technology are evidence that software patents have not done anything to hinder innovation.'
Patents are a govermental granted monopoly priviledge that is justified by the idea to promote innovation. When this 'encourage innovation'-condition is not met the whole interference into the free market is wrong.
Patent law is an instrument of economic policy and shall not be applied in fields where it is not designed for.
There are many many projects that had trouble because of patents.
BTW: FFII is no FL/OSS organisation but a developers association. Many supporters write commercial software and everybody knows that this slow bureaucratic patent law does not work in the field of software.
To 1)
Yes, but currently there is a way in Europe to delete illegally granted patents.
Patents don't play a role in European software development business. Most developers have never seen a patent. Most software patents are granted to non-software developing companys from outside Europe because of the weak patent office standards that circumvent the law.
What of these patents that wetre already granted are worth to get a patent? Which of these cover real innovation?
The only group that benefits from software patent law are patent attorneys.
There is no economic justification or evidence, it is a pure legalistic move with no economic foundation. We won the debate.
Liberal Economists, SME, Programmers are against software patent law. Patent law is no felxible instrument that causes benefit in the area of software.
Only lawyers associations and the Business Software Allicance.
It a common prejudice by those you don't understand the reality of patent law.
There is still the lack of a strong corresponding US movement. However US citizens can help us. Mirror http://demo.ffii.org or the other sites, report the event to the media. Write articles, participate in the next WIPO round. Put pressure on your legal department.
And of course you can also organize events in your part of the world, demonstrations at the USPTO or DoJ.
Nobody software professional ever requested that bad old old bureaucratic patent law, the patent lawyers like to sell us. It is not the big against the small ones, it's a patent attorney's conspiracy!
There was no democratic decision ever about software patents in the States.
The European Commission's competition procedings against Microsoft have led to a verdict which gives a big boost to Microsoft's monopoly position in the OS market and helps Microsoft expand this position to other markets. While the Commission may have earned substantial revenues for itself by imposing a one-time fine of 1% of Microsoft's liquid cash reserves, the smallprint of the verdict gives Microsoft green light to kill its main competitors in the operating systems market. This smallprint was simultaneously reinforced through backroom deals in the Council's Patent Policy working party, of which copies have been leaked to FFII. Immediately after the announcments the stock value of MSFT rose by 3%.
KDE is no Linux desktop, i is a *nix desktop. And of course you should'nt believe the Ximian propaganda company. I think bashing of alternative platforms shows the substancial weekness of Ximian. I would rather like to see less FUD in the Free Software World.
My personal impression is that qt is the best documented and structured qui toolset.
KDE app does not mean it is a qt app!
Re:Spatial is a step backwards
on
GNOME 2.6 Reviewed
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
What I particularly found ugly was the Nautilus was started with the Gnome desktop from KDE. Not a fault of KDe but from Gnome. Some Gnome developers are zelots that are an interoperability risk.
Well, Suse is a good choice, my favorite distro. And HP will make sure that their notebooks support Suse Linux. That means they will have to invest in Kernel development.
I would rather suggest to sue SCO. Or report the offence to the police so that managers of the SCO Group will be helt accountable in Australia and everywhere else.
When somebody sells licenses about something he does not own its fraud, when you send wrong signals to the finacial market it is financial fraud. The aussies shall report it to the police.
BTW.: Werent there lawsuits or injunctions against SCO in Australia?
Quote: 'The company also argued it could not have known its behaviour would infringe EU law and therefore it should not be fined at all.'
Microsoft's chief European lawyer, Horacio Gutierrez said according to New Scotsman(quote2):'We believe it's unprecedented and inappropriate for the commission to impose a fine on a company's US operations when those operations are already regulated by the US government,'
Not really, this is a Novell blabla statement. They have to explain their shareholders why they bought Ximian and thois has little influence on SuSes comittment to KDE. I hope that the ximian marketing guerilla will have no impact on Novell and SuSe. KDE is the desktop of choice of SuSE and Gnome products have to be better integrated. Last year a lot of efforts were taken to bridge the gap. And KDE now has mono bindings.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is: on the international level treatys are established, so patent law may bcome unreversible what I think is very dangerous. We need civil society support. And of course a strong pressure may improve the situation on the long run. The fTC report about the software patent system was very intresting. In the USA the lawyers talk about Europe's patents and the other way around. We know it is a conspiracy of the legal community, a hostile takeover. We can make a lot of media fuzz. Publicity is the death of king.
Well, we already won in the EU parliament. We won in 2000. When there is a problem with the law it has to be fixed or enforced. That is what the lawmaker is for.
Ceterum censeo software patent law esse delendam..
Just a matter of time, we got rid of the almighty soviet union. We can stop the patent attorneys that exploit the legal system for their own benefit. I don't see software developers or software comapnies in favour of patent law.
There is a structural problem in patent system, that is safeguarded by parasistic lawyers, but shall we give up? If the law was for us then we have to let the system work for us and wipe the lawyers out.
the LZW patent will expire this year, in the US it already is expired.
It's not real the algrorith that is patented. The algorith was known.
F.A. von Hayek was aware of the problemthat emerges with your criticism. intellectual property is a propaganda term that may let you think of your 'property'. A patent is a monopoly grant by a goverment, ie. an interference into the freedom of the market. The difference to copyright is that you can easily "reinvent" the patent without even knowing about it.
A 2=ind9911 &L=hayek-l&F=&S=&P=4746
Hayek Quote:
I am thinking here of the extension of the
concept of property to such rights and privileges as patents for
inventions, copyright, trade-marks, and the like. It seems
to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application
of the concept of property as it has been developed for material
things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly
and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition
is to be made to work. In the field of industrial patents in
particular we shall have seriously to examine whether the award
of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and
effective form of reward for the kind of risk-bearing which
investment in scientific research involves.
Link:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?
From a case law perspective!
i mage_view
But we talk about statutory law. Lawyers do not understand software. Only parliament has legislative powers and can express the will of the people. Lawyers may not reverse the meaning of the law they can oly adopt it. And when they reverse the meaning of it, they have to be stopped by a clarified law. Yes, the patent courts are influenced by the patent attorney industry that is intrested in widening the scope of patent law so that everything under the moon can become patentable whether it is economically justified or not, whether it harms the economy or not. When law has cancer we need to cure it.
I don't want my grandmother to buy me a shirt. I don't want to understand the crap misinterpretations of patent attorneys. Read a few patents, dig further into the law and get yourself informed. So when the lawyers fail then we have to clarify and defend the law.
And old Frisian proverb says
"Wer nicht deichen will muss weichen"
Who does'nt want to dike will have to leave the land!
Lawyers - the vampires of information society.
----------
you misunderstood mean: you can patent an algorithm as embodied in a software program,
--> a "computer-implemented invention"
but you cannot patent the algorithm itself
--> in some parts of the world, you cannot make a real distinction. Usually algorithms or complicated stuff is not patented but the pretty obvious.
Just read a few software patents, for instance Sun's shopping cart ( it's a long description of simple applied web design every php programmer does without even thinking of inventions),
Expace net Shoppingcart patent
Sun's claims:'1. A computer-executable process, embedded in a computer-useable medium, for supplying items on a network (46), the network having at least one computer-server (20) for communicating with users employing a browser program on a terminal/computer (35) at a location remote from said computer-server, said embedded process comprising the steps of:
receiving (152), at the computer-server, a transmitted command from said browser program for a shopping page (40);
in response to said transmitted command, generating (154) a shopping page file and transmitting (156) the shopping page file to said browser program;
receiving (168), at the computer-server, at least one user selected item from the shopping page received (158) by the browser program;
creating (174) a list at the computer server;
at the computer server, adding (178) to the list each user selected item received by said receiving step;
returning (184) from the computer server the list of items in an entry of a shopping page file to said browser program; and
continuing user selection (200), receiving (168) data strings, adding (178) items to said list and returning (184) said list until termination by the user. [and so on] '
Or take a look at this graphic
http://plone.ffii.org/prmat/EP1278133a2/
Yes, there are software patents in Europe, most of them trivial and x-applied by non-Europeans. For me the question is not how to improve their legal securtiy (EU-Commission), but how to get rid of them.
Stalman is an idiot that does not help us when he is talking about the isssue. He can learn a lot from Georg Greve (FSF Europe) and the work in Europe.
Stallman saying anything against patent attorneys only throws us back. He is a lobbying autist.
FUD?
I think you said it right:
1. There are international treaties that clearly state what shall be patentable and what not.
2. the lawyer, i.e. case-law modified the law by decisions that perverted the meaning of the law.
3. The EU Commission wants to codify this in order to decrease the legal incertainty created by the misinterpretation. That is legalising a landgrab. The EU Parl reconfirmec the original rules.
'If I invent a new compression algorithm that is patentable, sure I want to _have the choice_ to either (a) patent it and make money from the patent, (b) dedicate it to the public domain for all to use.'
This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law.
'If FFII had their choice, then my freedom for (a) would be removed, for some "specious" allegation that software patents are hindering innovation, when, in fact, the swathe of open source software and internet protocols/technology are evidence that software patents have not done anything to hinder innovation.'
Patents are a govermental granted monopoly priviledge that is justified by the idea to promote innovation. When this 'encourage innovation'-condition is not met the whole interference into the free market is wrong.
Patent law is an instrument of economic policy and shall not be applied in fields where it is not designed for.
There are many many projects that had trouble because of patents.
BTW: FFII is no FL/OSS organisation but a developers association. Many supporters write commercial software and everybody knows that this slow bureaucratic patent law does not work in the field of software.
To 1)
Yes, but currently there is a way in Europe to delete illegally granted patents.
Patents don't play a role in European software development business. Most developers have never seen a patent. Most software patents are granted to non-software developing companys from outside Europe because of the weak patent office standards that circumvent the law.
What of these patents that wetre already granted are worth to get a patent? Which of these cover real innovation?
See http://webshiop.ffii.org
Not cpompanys but companys IPR lobbyists and patent attorneys associations. There is no economic justification.
...in order to avoid patent stalinism...
Don't forget that patents are a government granted monopoly privilege. This does not sound like Free market, that sounds like a red dictatorship.
Have a look at
http://demo.ffii.org
and get informed what it actually is about. it was quite successful last time in order to attract a great media audience.
They didn't go offline with their site. But they probably could get when patents are adopted, see
http://webshop.ffii.org
The only group that benefits from software patent law are patent attorneys.
There is no economic justification or evidence, it is a pure legalistic move with no economic foundation. We won the debate.
Liberal Economists, SME, Programmers are against software patent law. Patent law is no felxible instrument that causes benefit in the area of software.
Only lawyers associations and the Business Software Allicance.
It a common prejudice by those you don't understand the reality of patent law.
It already is possible.
See FFII: Microsoft and Patents
As far as I remember they patented parts of the Office XML specification....
Join the web strike (find banners etc here)
http://demo.ffii.org
Join the web demo with your site:
http://demo.ffii.org
Subscribe or participate, or link to FFII UK
http://www.ffii.org.uk
There is still the lack of a strong corresponding US movement. However US citizens can help us. Mirror http://demo.ffii.org or the other sites, report the event to the media. Write articles, participate in the next WIPO round. Put pressure on your legal department.
And of course you can also organize events in your part of the world, demonstrations at the USPTO or DoJ.
Nobody software professional ever requested that bad old old bureaucratic patent law, the patent lawyers like to sell us. It is not the big against the small ones, it's a patent attorney's conspiracy!
There was no democratic decision ever about software patents in the States.
Don't forget that parts of the XBOx are protected by trivial patents of Microsoft.
i ndex.en.h tml
See:
Microsoft and Patents
http://swpat.ffii.org/players/microsoft/
Bruxelles event
http://dot.kde.org/1081152462/
Web strike and demo
http://demo.ffii.org
Harmtut Pilch of FFII provides a great Analysis on Montis decision.
Hartmut's document in short:
EU Boosts Microsoft's Monopoly
The European Commission's competition procedings against Microsoft have led to a verdict which gives a big boost to Microsoft's monopoly position in the OS market and helps Microsoft expand this position to other markets. While the Commission may have earned substantial revenues for itself by imposing a one-time fine of 1% of Microsoft's liquid cash reserves, the smallprint of the verdict gives Microsoft green light to kill its main competitors in the operating systems market. This smallprint was simultaneously reinforced through backroom deals in the Council's Patent Policy working party, of which copies have been leaked to FFII. Immediately after the announcments the stock value of MSFT rose by 3%.
Well , they should better report the offence to the police so that a crimninal investigation into SCO's license fraud can be started.
The government is not involved at all. It is a case for the legal system.
KDE is no Linux desktop, i is a *nix desktop. And of course you should'nt believe the Ximian propaganda company. I think bashing of alternative platforms shows the substancial weekness of Ximian. I would rather like to see less FUD in the Free Software World.
My personal impression is that qt is the best documented and structured qui toolset.
KDE app does not mean it is a qt app!
What I particularly found ugly was the Nautilus was started with the Gnome desktop from KDE. Not a fault of KDe but from Gnome. Some Gnome developers are zelots that are an interoperability risk.
Now nobody cares about success storys anymore. It runs and runs and runs...
Well, Suse is a good choice, my favorite distro. And HP will make sure that their notebooks support Suse Linux. That means they will have to invest in Kernel development.
I would rather suggest to sue SCO. Or report the offence to the police so that managers of the SCO Group will be helt accountable in Australia and everywhere else.
When somebody sells licenses about something he does not own its fraud, when you send wrong signals to the finacial market it is financial fraud. The aussies shall report it to the police.
BTW.: Werent there lawsuits or injunctions against SCO in Australia?
I posted this link of New Scotsman to slashdot.
Quote: 'The company also argued it could not have known its behaviour would infringe EU law and therefore it should not be fined at all.'
Microsoft's chief European lawyer, Horacio Gutierrez said according to New Scotsman(quote2):'We believe it's unprecedented and inappropriate for the commission to impose a fine on a company's US operations when those operations are already regulated by the US government,'
Not really, this is a Novell blabla statement. They have to explain their shareholders why they bought Ximian and thois has little influence on SuSes comittment to KDE. I hope that the ximian marketing guerilla will have no impact on Novell and SuSe. KDE is the desktop of choice of SuSE and Gnome products have to be better integrated. Last year a lot of efforts were taken to bridge the gap. And KDE now has mono bindings.
Oh, you need a visa as a European to work in the USA? I thought that only applied to Brazilians like miguel who was deported from the US.
I like the Americans and their style, why don't you come abroad and enjoy our life? International exchange is always good.