I would like to see Microsoft's support in the fight against softweare patents. Software patents are bad for the industry. The SME are hit harder then the big ones. But CUI BONO? The patent industry is lawyers and patent privateers. Software developers don't need software patents.
TWZ wrote:"It might be possible that IBM is patenting this so that no one else *cough*SCO*Microsoft*cough* gets to the idea first."
???? Huuuuuaaaaahaaaaaahahahahaha!
IBM's lobby organisations fight hard for the reduction of limits to software patentability in Europe. Fritz Teufel, Eicta, Bitkom... that's IBM action.
IBM's committment to Open Source is janus head style.
Bruce Perens recently complained about IBM: "And yet, a pro-software patent agenda is being pursued by some of the largest and best partners we have in the Linux industry. IBM stands out in this regard. Obviously, IBM has done a lot for our community, and the very fact that IBM endorses our systems and distributes them so well to our many customers has helped us gain the economic significance that gets us taken seriously by standards organizations and legislators. At the same time, we have frequently found IBM taking an adversary position, one harmful to the open source developers, in patent policy discussions at standards organizations, and at governments here and abroad. There's no question that IBM is one of the major parties supporting the effort to expand software patenting to Europe. So we're at the point, in the progress of open source, where we realize that we have very good friends who can still hurt us in significant ways if we don't push back against them. We must push back, or we will simply not survive the upcoming legal onslaught."
SCO's patents were pure defensive too I guess. But today they even enforce IP they don't own. Defensive trivial patents are weapons of mass destruction. Also note that there are legal plan to make a patent infringement a criminal act (EU IPR enforcement directive). That's fun.
I suggest you to read the report of the US fderal trade commission. Or support FFII UK or the FFII Call for Action II.
There will be several swpat conferences and lobby actions next year.
We have to join forces and get rid of the inefficient software-patent system. In Europe it is still semi-legal. Let's support the EU Parliament's directive against the united scum in the national DOJs.
"Even to IBM most patents are not a cash cow. A small number of their patents bring in a lot of money, but most of them don't bring in any money." Arnoud Engelfriet, NL patent attorney
I read in other news that Iraq as under US occupation will get a copyright legislation written by a RIAA official. But nobody talks about software patents in Iraq. Will the United States pressure for a US style patent legislation in Iraq? I heard that patents are incompatible with islamic law. Some muslims in my neighborhood were much in favour of free software because of religious reasons. Do the Iraqis LUG guys also believe that the GPL unlike proprietary software is according to Shariah law.
A knight? Well, monarchy and democracy don't fit. At least this is sure. Britain still hasn't reached the state of an republic. A monarchy is a political system where people are inequal by birth. So it infriges on certain cristian values, that all men are created equal by the lord.
I would never accept to be knighted by an old representative person that is non-elected by the people.
The GI has a double tongue. Many members of GI protested against the GI presidial decision in favour of software patents. So they decided to start a media campaign, on the one hand busting an riddiculous patent on the other hand aplluding to the EU-commissions legislation.
FFII knows that. They in fact mirrored Espacenet on their website. A few years ago patents were just available as scanned PDF files.
Amazons Claims read like this (A -classified Patent document: "1. A method in a computer system for co-ordinating delivery of a gift from a gift giver to a recipient, the gift and recipient being specified in a gift order, the method comprising:
determining whether the gift order includes sufficient information so that the gift can be delivered to the recipient; when sufficient information is not provided in the gift order, obtaining delivery information from one or more information sources; and when sufficient delivery information can be obtained from the additional information sources so that the gift can be delivered to the recipient, directing the gift to be sent to the recipient as indicated by the deliver information.
2. The method of claim 1 including receiving the gift order electronically.
3. The method of claim 1 or 2 wherein when the gift order contains information such that the recipient can be contacted, obtaining the delivery information by contacting the recipient directly.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the recipient is contacted directly by sending an electronic mail.
5. The method of claim 3 wherein the recipient is contacted directly by a voice telephone call.
6. The method of one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the obtaining of delivery information includes collecting information from one or more information sources selected from among an Internet-based telephone database, an Internet-based electronic mail database, a local telephone database, a local electronic mail database, a database of previous recipients and gift givers, an Internet-based search engine, and a database of information relating to the domain name registration of an electronic mail address of the recipient.
7. A computer-based gift delivery system for coordinating the delivery of a gift from a gift giver to a recipient, comprising:
an order entry component for providing a selection of available gifts, for receiving a selection of a gift, for receiving contact information describing the recipient, and for storing the gift order; and a gift delivery component for retrieving the stored gift order, for determining whether the contact information includes sufficient delivery information to deliver the gift to the recipient, for when sufficient delivery information is not included, obtaining additional information about the recipient by attempting to contact the recipient and by searching various databases of information, and for directing the sending of the gift to the recipient when sufficient delivery information has been obtained.
8. The gift delivery system of claim 7 wherein the order entry component assigns an order tracking identification to each gift order and wherein the gift delivery component includes the order tracking identification when attempting to contact the recipient.
9. The gift delivery system of claim 7 or 8 wherein the gift delivery component searches various Internet-based databases using the recipient name or electronic mail address.
10. The gift delivery system of one of claims 7 to 9 wherein the order entry component receives payment electronically.
11. The gift delivery system of one of claims 7 to 10 wherein the order entry component is accessed via Web pages."
Yes, you are right. It's brand new news. Most discussion has been taken via email lists. The website is usually very slow because the CMs is a little bit complicated.
/*You can patent usability innovations to keep the competition from stealing them. */
Software patents are not common usage in the software industry. They only work for large companies and patent privateers. Just because the system is too expensive and we don't need them. Who lobbied for software patents? Patent attorneys, patent departments, patent offices. Most software developers don't even understand a word when they read the progress bar patent of IBM and other dangerous trivial patents.
Think of failed companies like SCO group when you are told that these patents are just defencive. they are WMD for software development.
/*If you're an inventor and you invent something useful, after having spent many hours and money, why should somebody else be free to come along and simply steal your idea? Patents exist specifically to grant limited-time monopolies to reward inventors for their effort. If you're another inventor and want to cash-in on a patented invention, well it forces your hand to invent something even better or perhaps even revolutionary. Again, patents promote innovation. */
However, the system does not work in the software industry. As a lawmaker you only apply the bureaucratic patent system if its benefits are higher than the costs. The current patent system is designed for manufacturing, not for a dynamic industry such as the software industry where innovation "just happens" and competition is about the race for innovation. Copyrights protects us very well, while software patents are held by mayor players (i.e. their patent offices) and patent privateers such as Eolas. Most software patents cover trivial issues. software developers don't have the time to file patent. Innovation is a natural effect of competition. You can't avoid innovation. We don't need reward in form of patent monopolies for our innovation force as the system doesn't work for us. I am not able to pay the fees for a patent. I cannot survive a patent lawsuit. In fact when my GPL software gets a letter from a patent attorney it has to stop.
The Patent system makes many mistakes. Prior art is usually not recognized. Limits set by law to patentability are circumvented via very broad claims.
Patents are an inefficient tool. They don't help me. The software industry grew large despite the existence of patents, not because of patent regulation.
Patents are not common usage in the software industry where real innovation can be done by very few persons who actually IMPLEMENT something. The race for the best implementation and the consumer adaption shouldn'd be replaced by monopoly law that limits competition or even kills development. Patents may be useful in other industries, in the software industry they are very harmful.
I remind you of von Hayek's remarks towards the patent system. He was very critical about the patent system like all liberal economists he fought against state inteference into the market: "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."
Nobody even thought of patents on business processes or data processing in these days!
/* Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not software ideas?*/
An old rhetoric trap: Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not storybooks for movies? Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not methods of cooking? Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not hair styles? Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not soccer techniques? Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not literature?
Patents are a tool(= instrument) of economic policy. From the side of the lawmaker: Only apply them when they are beneficial.
* Because copyrigt is suffient * because patents don't work in the software industry * because 20 years of protection are just too long (fixed by international Trips agreement) * because the software industry is innovative despite of patent protection. * because most issued software patents are trivial.
No, Unisys GIF patent is still valid in Europe. It will be totally free in June I guess.
the US GIF (=LZW patent) is expired.
20 years patent protection but you have one year to get a patent in other parts of the world (so it's 21 years).
20 years protection=patent monopoly are poison for the information society. We have to fight against software patentability. If you want to help to get rid off software patents please support the work of FFII.
Re:IBM makes $1.5 Billion/year on patent licensing
on
Perens on Patents
·
· Score: 1
So I hope Bruce Perens will come to the FFII conference in April in Brussels. We need your support. FFII will also be with one speaker at Fosdem 04. IBM is "lobbying", you'd better tell the story like this: The patent attorneys of IBM (like Fritz Teufel) are lobbying. It's a kind of hostile takeover by the patent lawyer industry.
This is nothing new, but it nice that Bruce Perens uses his public media attention to raise this issue. We shouldn't complain about Microsoft, we shall rather complain about the patent system that is out of order. There is a page of FFII about Microsoft.
There will also be a FFII conference in Brussels this April where software patent policy issues will be discussed. And other events.
Hope to meet you in Brussels, Bruce! We are still waiting for a solid US movement. Let's internationalize the issue.
XML may be free, but what about the compression algorith used:-)
The Apache License 2 is just a workaround for a real problem. Software patents are bad for development and bad for the economy. The US Federal State Commission called for change in a recent report, the benefits of software patents are falsified by emirical ressearch.
However, as software patents serve for the benefit of patent attorneys the institutions are intrested in an extension of the system, by widening the scope of patentability regardless of an economic foundation. Politicians like this quantitative patent approach, the result are many trivial patents of low quality and disfunction of the patent system atlarge. Many low quality patents endanger our information society. So it is nice to see that organisation like Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure build a counter-force to patent lawyer interest groups in Europe. So far the lobby work against software patents and the Eurolinux petition were very succesful. In my opinion we need a world wide movement in order to avoid Eolas vs. MS oder Amazonvs.Barnes&Noble ecc. will happen again. The GNU Public License is incompatible with Patent law and most projects and SME cannot afford to get patents. They, the innovators, don't want or need software patents.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the bomb on Utah? Aren't they all Christians in Utah? So I leave it to the Lord to punish SCO. Eternal doom proposed.
But Gnome and Windows will not support my language Plattduutsch very soon, however a KDE op platt project is annouced,
:-)
I don't want to play with monkeys... I want konquer the net.
What's really important is a common strqategy with KDE.
I would like to see Microsoft's support in the fight against softweare patents. Software patents are bad for the industry. The SME are hit harder then the big ones. But CUI BONO? The patent industry is lawyers and patent privateers. Software developers don't need software patents.
http://swpat.ffii.org
TWZ wrote :"It might be possible that IBM is patenting this so that no one else *cough*SCO*Microsoft*cough* gets to the idea first."
... that's IBM action.
???? Huuuuuaaaaahaaaaaahahahahaha!
IBM's lobby organisations fight hard for the reduction of limits to software patentability in Europe. Fritz Teufel, Eicta, Bitkom
IBM's committment to Open Source is janus head style.
Bruce Perens recently complained about IBM: "And yet, a pro-software patent agenda is being pursued by some of the largest and best partners we have in the Linux industry. IBM stands out in this regard. Obviously, IBM has done a lot for our community, and the very fact that IBM endorses our systems and distributes them so well to our many customers has helped us gain the economic significance that gets us taken seriously by standards organizations and legislators. At the same time, we have frequently found IBM taking an adversary position, one harmful to the open source developers, in patent policy discussions at standards organizations, and at governments here and abroad. There's no question that IBM is one of the major parties supporting the effort to expand software patenting to Europe. So we're at the point, in the progress of open source, where we realize that we have very good friends who can still hurt us in significant ways if we don't push back against them. We must push back, or we will simply not survive the upcoming legal onslaught."
SCO's patents were pure defensive too I guess. But today they even enforce IP they don't own. Defensive trivial patents are weapons of mass destruction. Also note that there are legal plan to make a patent infringement a criminal act (EU IPR enforcement directive). That's fun.
I suggest you to read the report of the US fderal trade commission. Or support FFII UK or the FFII Call for Action II.
There will be several swpat conferences and lobby actions next year.
We have to join forces and get rid of the inefficient software-patent system. In Europe it is still semi-legal. Let's support the EU Parliament's directive against the united scum in the national DOJs.
"Even to IBM most patents are not a cash cow. A small number of their patents bring in a lot of money, but most of them don't bring in any money."
Arnoud Engelfriet, NL patent attorney
There is a nice page of FFII UK that explains what can be done.
I read in other news that Iraq as under US occupation will get a copyright legislation written by a RIAA official. But nobody talks about software patents in Iraq. Will the United States pressure for a US style patent legislation in Iraq? I heard that patents are incompatible with islamic law. Some muslims in my neighborhood were much in favour of free software because of religious reasons. Do the Iraqis LUG guys also believe that the GPL unlike proprietary software is according to Shariah law.
See this funny site of FFII: webshop.ffii.org
Really? I thought they were associated with the FSF Europe. Or has it to be called "Free Software".
hmmm...
"FLOSS" as an compromise?
A knight? Well, monarchy and democracy don't fit. At least this is sure. Britain still hasn't reached the state of an republic. A monarchy is a political system where people are inequal by birth. So it infriges on certain cristian values, that all men are created equal by the lord.
I would never accept to be knighted by an old representative person that is non-elected by the people.
The GI has a double tongue. Many members of GI protested against the GI presidial decision in favour of software patents. So they decided to start a media campaign, on the one hand busting an riddiculous patent on the other hand aplluding to the EU-commissions legislation.
FFII was among the toughest critics of GI (German only).
FFII knows that. They in fact mirrored Espacenet on their website. A few years ago patents were just available as scanned PDF files.
Amazons Claims read like this (A -classified Patent document:
"1. A method in a computer system for co-ordinating delivery of a gift from a gift giver to a recipient, the gift and recipient being specified in a gift order, the method comprising:
determining whether the gift order includes sufficient information so that the gift can be delivered to the recipient;
when sufficient information is not provided in the gift order, obtaining delivery information from one or more information sources; and
when sufficient delivery information can be obtained from the additional information sources so that the gift can be delivered to the recipient, directing the gift to be sent to the recipient as indicated by the deliver information.
2. The method of claim 1 including receiving the gift order electronically.
3. The method of claim 1 or 2 wherein when the gift order contains information such that the recipient can be contacted, obtaining the delivery information by contacting the recipient directly.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the recipient is contacted directly by sending an electronic mail.
5. The method of claim 3 wherein the recipient is contacted directly by a voice telephone call.
6. The method of one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the obtaining of delivery information includes collecting information from one or more information sources selected from among an Internet-based telephone database, an Internet-based electronic mail database, a local telephone database, a local electronic mail database, a database of previous recipients and gift givers, an Internet-based search engine, and a database of information relating to the domain name registration of an electronic mail address of the recipient.
7. A computer-based gift delivery system for coordinating the delivery of a gift from a gift giver to a recipient, comprising:
an order entry component for providing a selection of available gifts, for receiving a selection of a gift, for receiving contact information describing the recipient, and for storing the gift order; and
a gift delivery component for retrieving the stored gift order, for determining whether the contact information includes sufficient delivery information to deliver the gift to the recipient, for when sufficient delivery information is not included, obtaining additional information about the recipient by attempting to contact the recipient and by searching various databases of information, and for directing the sending of the gift to the recipient when sufficient delivery information has been obtained.
8. The gift delivery system of claim 7 wherein the order entry component assigns an order tracking identification to each gift order and wherein the gift delivery component includes the order tracking identification when attempting to contact the recipient.
9. The gift delivery system of claim 7 or 8 wherein the gift delivery component searches various Internet-based databases using the recipient name or electronic mail address.
10. The gift delivery system of one of claims 7 to 9 wherein the order entry component receives payment electronically.
11. The gift delivery system of one of claims 7 to 10 wherein the order entry component is accessed via Web pages."
Yes, you are right. It's brand new news. Most discussion has been taken via email lists. The website is usually very slow because the CMs is a little bit complicated.
FF2? F F I I
Foundation for a
Free
Information
Infrastructure
Forderverein fur eine Freie Infornmationelle Infrastruktur
A popular OSS lobby group in Europe....
FFII is not that fast, it's news system is somehow wired. You find information about the case at the plone system of ffii.
Games? Try Dosbox: http://dosbox.sf.net
/*You can patent usability innovations to keep the competition from stealing them. */
Software patents are not common usage in the software industry. They only work for large companies and patent privateers. Just because the system is too expensive and we don't need them. Who lobbied for software patents? Patent attorneys, patent departments, patent offices. Most software developers don't even understand a word when they read the progress bar patent of IBM and other dangerous trivial patents.
Think of failed companies like SCO group when you are told that these patents are just defencive. they are WMD for software development.
/*If you're an inventor and you invent something useful, after having spent many hours and money, why should somebody else be free to come along and simply steal your idea? Patents exist specifically to grant limited-time monopolies to reward inventors for their effort. If you're another inventor and want to cash-in on a patented invention, well it forces your hand to invent something even better or perhaps even revolutionary. Again, patents promote innovation.
*/
However, the system does not work in the software industry. As a lawmaker you only apply the bureaucratic patent system if its benefits are higher than the costs. The current patent system is designed for manufacturing, not for a dynamic industry such as the software industry where innovation "just happens" and competition is about the race for innovation. Copyrights protects us very well, while software patents are held by mayor players (i.e. their patent offices) and patent privateers such as Eolas. Most software patents cover trivial issues. software developers don't have the time to file patent. Innovation is a natural effect of competition. You can't avoid innovation. We don't need reward in form of patent monopolies for our innovation force as the system doesn't work for us. I am not able to pay the fees for a patent. I cannot survive a patent lawsuit. In fact when my GPL software gets a letter from a patent attorney it has to stop.
The Patent system makes many mistakes. Prior art is usually not recognized. Limits set by law to patentability are circumvented via very broad claims.
Patents are an inefficient tool. They don't help me. The software industry grew large despite the existence of patents, not because of patent regulation.
Patents are not common usage in the software industry where real innovation can be done by very few persons who actually IMPLEMENT something. The race for the best implementation and the consumer adaption shouldn'd be replaced by monopoly law that limits competition or even kills development. Patents may be useful in other industries, in the software industry they are very harmful.
I remind you of von Hayek's remarks towards the patent system. He was very critical about the patent system like all liberal economists he fought against state inteference into the market:
"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."
Nobody even thought of patents on business processes or data processing in these days!
/* Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not software ideas?*/
An old rhetoric trap:
Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not storybooks for movies?
Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not methods of cooking?
Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not hair styles?
Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not soccer techniques?
Why should people be able to patent mechanical ideas but not literature?
Patents are a tool(= instrument) of economic policy. From the side of the lawmaker: Only apply them when they are beneficial.
* Because copyrigt is suffient
* because patents don't work in the software industry
* because 20 years of protection are just too long (fixed by international Trips agreement)
* because the software industry is innovative despite of patent protection.
* because most issued software patents are trivial.
No, Unisys GIF patent is still valid in Europe. It will be totally free in June I guess.
the US GIF (=LZW patent) is expired.
20 years patent protection but you have one year to get a patent in other parts of the world (so it's 21 years).
20 years protection=patent monopoly are poison for the information society. We have to fight against software patentability. If you want to help to get rid off software patents please support the work of FFII.
So I hope Bruce Perens will come to the FFII conference in April in Brussels. We need your support. FFII will also be with one speaker at Fosdem 04. IBM is "lobbying", you'd better tell the story like this: The patent attorneys of IBM (like Fritz Teufel) are lobbying. It's a kind of hostile takeover by the patent lawyer industry.
This is nothing new, but it nice that Bruce Perens uses his public media attention to raise this issue. We shouldn't complain about Microsoft, we shall rather complain about the patent system that is out of order. There is a page of FFII about Microsoft. There will also be a FFII conference in Brussels this April where software patent policy issues will be discussed. And other events. Hope to meet you in Brussels, Bruce! We are still waiting for a solid US movement. Let's internationalize the issue. XML may be free, but what about the compression algorith used :-)
The Apache License 2 is just a workaround for a real problem. Software patents are bad for development and bad for the economy. The US Federal State Commission called for change in a recent report, the benefits of software patents are falsified by emirical ressearch.
However, as software patents serve for the benefit of patent attorneys the institutions are intrested in an extension of the system, by widening the scope of patentability regardless of an economic foundation. Politicians like this quantitative patent approach, the result are many trivial patents of low quality and disfunction of the patent system atlarge. Many low quality patents endanger our information society. So it is nice to see that organisation like Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure build a counter-force to patent lawyer interest groups in Europe. So far the lobby work against software patents and the Eurolinux petition were very succesful. In my opinion we need a world wide movement in order to avoid Eolas vs. MS oder Amazonvs.Barnes&Noble ecc. will happen again. The GNU Public License is incompatible with Patent law and most projects and SME cannot afford to get patents. They, the innovators, don't want or need software patents.