yes of course, patents are a neccesity in some fields where enormuos investements are neccesary before a new product(e.g. in the pharmaceutical sector) can be sold.
Without patents in such fields, companies would have problems to justify high research and development investments if there is no confidence that they will get the invested money back because anybody would be allowed to copy the research and finally destroy the income needed to pay the research.
i agree with you. patents can harm incremental innovation a lot. I also agree that 20 years is a lot, especially in the software/computer arena, where, arguably, innovation occurs at an extremely rapid pace.
I want to add that e.g. in the pharmaceutical sector, you have only a few big companies which can really innovate in this market and a product is usually covered by one patent to protect it.
Compared to the software sector, there are 100.000s or maybe even millions of small and independent developers which all they need is a computer with a programming language installed.
Software patents protect the pure idea, and as
the process of coding and debugging is not considered as and inventitive activity, the thing which is covered by a software patent is the pure thought.
Of course, all of us can have resourcefull ideas, but is this at the same time an invention?
Actually, there is no need to convince your MP using the open source argument, SMEs and independent software developers generally have difficulties on dealing with patents.
Normally they have not patent department, no money to split off from development effort to inance the process of getting patents, and no left to finance patent trials.
The Summary from a study says:
- Broader patentability of software seems not desirable:
- the lower level of protection is no locational disadvantage
- companies oppose US model
- international, strategic use of patents obvious, but concentrated on relatively few large companies.
BTW: UK Gov't Considers Expanding Open Source Use http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/12/0 23221 3&tid=
The argument with environments with little respect for a patent system was not transported by me, this was somebody else's, and I don't endorse it for the US or the EU.
I also don't question that the US may have the largest amount of public and private R&D investment, but I don't think this was very different 10 years ago when(I assume) there was not this much difference in the interpretation of patent laws.
Some years ago, Europe was also still a big step behind the US, when thinking of the common currency.
Europe will also to integrate many new countries into the Union soon which are not as developed as the other nations and finally, I don't need to evangeise the US what is best for their country, but also please let the EU find out what it thinks is best for it.
However, it can be beneficial to not have patent protection in fields where innovation is incremental, normally rather cheap(having an idea), where is not much cost to produce(distributing software over the internet) and where the time needed to get the investment into idea back is normally rather short.
Even if one says that software should be protected by patents, there is still the argument wether it's good to allow the patent holder to block any commerical use which logically builds on the patent for 20 years
At least something should be improved as long as there are the cases like Amazon's one click patent and the Eolas case where the "infringers" have to pay for quite nice ideas but where the litigation today can only be desribed as insane.
These are only some examples, there is more where one can go on and on, e.g. in Germany, people get letters to pay 2000 Euro because they have put their city's abbreviation behind their domain name.
It wasn't "the EU" which came to the conclusion that the big money matters over the majority of the submissions to the consultation, it was the European Commission.
"The Commission might be prepared to support a revision of the Munich Convention to improve it and to make it clear that computer programmes are no longer excluded from patent protection."
John Mogg, Director General of DG XV (Internal Market and Financial Services), European Commission
There are also MEPs, especially in the JURI committee(a commitee of lawers) which only saw this from the law view and not from the political view and stayer very much on the patent office view, except for one amendment, the interoperability amendment.
But fortunately, the parliament consists of 625 members from all member states and the patent family didn't convince enough of them to close eyes and send this thing thru. This is where the power lies. We the people of europe, have the power to speak with our local representative and they have the power of their vote, and they excercised it on September 24th.
In this very moment, the European Parliament has demostrated that it is a absolutely democratic institution which takes care of their constitutionents and does not follow special interest groups alone - if they have the backing of the people in doing so. So write your MPs and tell them that tell them what you see.
And if you think the power to elect our representatives is not sufficient because they don't hear us, we have the right to
demonstrate and we did it in Brussels,
Strasbourg, Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart and Vienna!. This is what makes us really heard if you feel your MP is not listening. Subscribe to the mailing lists and come to the next demonstration or organize one with your Linux user group if you are upset about not being heard!
I don't say that strict IP laws will kill innovation.
I believe too broad IP laws stifle innovation in software because it limits competiton and in a market where there are no competitors, there no more incentivie to innovate.
Too broad IP laws cause too many patents, cause low patent standards, can be summarized as patent inflation. And this is a danger to SMEs because they can't afford the patent litigation lawsuits, so they have to pay or just get bought for a cheap price.
About your argument:
The IT industry in the US wasn't covered by copyright legislation until the late 80s(I've heard) and patent legislation(or: clarification) for software came not before 1994 which effects did not show seriously until the dot com bust.
Advocates also argue that software patents provide stronger incentives for R&D investment. But our results show that greater use of software patents is associated with lower R&D intensity. Although software patents do not necessarily cause a decline in R&D intensity, we can reject the argument that software patents have on average increased R&D incentives./
For example in the DMCA arena, now a second EU directive is coming which criminalizes the break of copy protection(this is called the "second basket") and if we don't stop them, they'll do a third basket on DRM: DRM a must for every computer - so what is free software then?
It could be made illegal to run something which you control in the end. Full control to the Matrix.
For software, the proposal for the directive already tries to get further. For example, it is one of the goals of this proposal that transmission of material to infringe patents is a patent infringement.
Given criminal charges there as well, which is also one of the objectives of the IPR enforcement diretive proposal, Internet network infrastructure providers would cause them to drop anything off the net which might infringe patents.
You are deluding yourself if you think that the European Parliament gets to make any serious decision. That's the job of the Council of Ministers and the Commission.
That's absolutely wrong these days!
This was right a few years ago before the Tready of Maastricht(1992), there is the co-decision procedure which changed the role of the Europarl from a consultative to decisive body which the Council of Ministers cannot ignore anymore.
This procedure has been improved with the Amsterdam Treaty from 1997.
Now, the European Parliament can even send the European Commission back home and even menioning this possibility in the past made a huge impact, so it can be considered very powerful institution nowadays!
I think the problem with the non-knowledge of many normal people about how the EU works is that there is no real
education going on
(AFAICS) which really covers EU topics in depth in local news papers and TV stations(at least in Germany)
No, patents can be extended from one country to another. The EPO
already granted a patent on one of the two parts
of the Amazon one-click shopping patent.
No, the other nations should not follow what the big tree countries(UK, France, Germany) say if they disagree.
This is just a general opinion. Related to the software patents, the same applies.
Also: The council has not the absolute power. If the Europeanparliament is strong enough in it's opinion(like it was already in the 1st reading), it can fix or reject the whole thing again,
see the picture on this page
Hi,
I know the situation is quite bad when it comes to people - it seems many people have become quite apolitical, they only seems to care about what they do tomorrow but simply don't care on what and who is ruling them. It' catastrophic!
Now for politicians: Of course they accept the message which the big origanisations and the patent offices and the patent lawers are telling them - if nobody is really competing with them at the same argumentative level.
That's of course a challenge to take, it's definitely not something for loosers! It's somethings for winners and we won the European Parliament on September 24!
Ok, the directive was passed at this point, but not before amending it to the extend so that it prohibits patents on pure software.
Maybe it was an easy win in comparsion to the things coming up now, but we can only live up to this challenge work together and get the best strategy and make it reality!
Now for what's to do now:
- Join the ffii-uk list on ffii.org.uk (even if you are not in the UK)
- No, don't fly to Brussels now - the council will meet in Brussels but the ministers meeting there will be OUR national ministers ask your national parliaments who will be going there or ask at the ffii-uk list for help.
Slashdot Mirror
Without patents in such fields, companies would have problems to justify high research and development investments if there is no confidence that they will get the invested money back because anybody would be allowed to copy the research and finally destroy the income needed to pay the research.
I want to add that e.g. in the pharmaceutical sector, you have only a few big companies which can really innovate in this market and a product is usually covered by one patent to protect it.
Compared to the software sector, there are 100.000s or maybe even millions of small and independent developers which all they need is a computer with a programming language installed.
Software patents protect the pure idea, and as the process of coding and debugging is not considered as and inventitive activity, the thing which is covered by a software patent is the pure thought.
Of course, all of us can have resourcefull ideas, but is this at the same time an invention?
Actually, there is no need to convince your MP using the open source argument, SMEs and independent software developers generally have difficulties on dealing with patents.
0 23221 3&tid=
Normally they have not patent department, no money to split off from development effort to inance the process of getting patents, and no left to finance patent trials.
The Summary from a study says:
- Broader patentability of software seems not desirable:
- the lower level of protection is no locational disadvantage
- companies oppose US model
- international, strategic use of patents obvious, but concentrated on relatively few large companies.
BTW:
UK Gov't Considers Expanding Open Source Use
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/12/
About the sellout of the software industry: Tell it your MP, another point which he'd have for rebut.
It's especially of relevance because the EU has agreed that they must especially foster the SMEs.
They are about 99.8% of a companies in Europa and provide two thirds of all employment!
As you can read on the link above, the EU started the 6th Framework Programme which includes 2,100 million for SME participation
Tell your MP how contraticory this is!
I also don't question that the US may have the largest amount of public and private R&D investment, but I don't think this was very different 10 years ago when(I assume) there was not this much difference in the interpretation of patent laws.
Some years ago, Europe was also still a big step behind the US, when thinking of the common currency.
Europe will also to integrate many new countries into the Union soon which are not as developed as the other nations and finally, I don't need to evangeise the US what is best for their country, but also please let the EU find out what it thinks is best for it.
However, it can be beneficial to not have patent protection in fields where innovation is incremental, normally rather cheap(having an idea), where is not much cost to produce(distributing software over the internet) and where the time needed to get the investment into idea back is normally rather short.
Even if one says that software should be protected by patents, there is still the argument wether it's good to allow the patent holder to block any commerical use which logically builds on the patent for 20 years
At least something should be improved as long as there are the cases like Amazon's one click patent and the Eolas case where the "infringers" have to pay for quite nice ideas but where the litigation today can only be desribed as insane.
These are only some examples, there is more where one can go on and on, e.g. in Germany, people get letters to pay 2000 Euro because they have put their city's abbreviation behind their domain name.
The European Commission is completely undemocratic and some also say, it's corrupt(look for subsies in the articles).
There are also MEPs, especially in the JURI committee(a commitee of lawers) which only saw this from the law view and not from the political view and stayer very much on the patent office view, except for one amendment, the interoperability amendment.
But fortunately, the parliament consists of 625 members from all member states and the patent family didn't convince enough of them to close eyes and send this thing thru. This is where the power lies. We the people of europe, have the power to speak with our local representative and they have the power of their vote, and they excercised it on September 24th.
In this very moment, the European Parliament has demostrated that it is a absolutely democratic institution which takes care of their constitutionents and does not follow special interest groups alone - if they have the backing of the people in doing so. So write your MPs and tell them that tell them what you see.
And if you think the power to elect our representatives is not sufficient because they don't hear us, we have the right to demonstrate and we did it in Brussels, Strasbourg, Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart and Vienna!. This is what makes us really heard if you feel your MP is not listening. Subscribe to the mailing lists and come to the next demonstration or organize one with your Linux user group if you are upset about not being heard!
I believe too broad IP laws stifle innovation in software because it limits competiton and in a market where there are no competitors, there no more incentivie to innovate.
Too broad IP laws cause too many patents, cause low patent standards, can be summarized as patent inflation. And this is a danger to SMEs because they can't afford the patent litigation lawsuits, so they have to pay or just get bought for a cheap price.
About your argument:
The IT industry in the US wasn't covered by copyright legislation until the late 80s(I've heard) and patent legislation(or: clarification) for software came not before 1994 which effects did not show seriously until the dot com bust.
A study from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadeplia also does not show such evidence, rather the other way around, in the conclusions, 2nd paragraph on page 24, it says:
For example in the DMCA arena, now a second EU directive is coming which criminalizes the break of copy protection(this is called the "second basket") and if we don't stop them, they'll do a third basket on DRM: DRM a must for every computer - so what is free software then?
It could be made illegal to run something which you control in the end. Full control to the Matrix.
For software, the proposal for the directive already tries to get further. For example, it is one of the goals of this proposal that transmission of material to infringe patents is a patent infringement.
Given criminal charges there as well, which is also one of the objectives of the IPR enforcement diretive proposal, Internet network infrastructure providers would cause them to drop anything off the net which might infringe patents.
This was right a few years ago before the Tready of Maastricht(1992), there is the co-decision procedure which changed the role of the Europarl from a consultative to decisive body which the Council of Ministers cannot ignore anymore.
This procedure has been improved with the Amsterdam Treaty from 1997.
Short overview of the EU Treaties
Now, the European Parliament can even send the European Commission back home and even menioning this possibility in the past made a huge impact, so it can be considered very powerful institution nowadays!
I think the problem with the non-knowledge of many normal people about how the EU works is that there is no real education going on (AFAICS) which really covers EU topics in depth in local news papers and TV stations(at least in Germany)
No, patents can be extended from one country to another.
The EPO already granted a patent on one of the two parts of the Amazon one-click shopping patent.
and then click on "Member of European Parliament" (just under ABC).
But right now you should contact your MPs, not your MEPs.
This is just a general opinion. Related to the software patents, the same applies.
Also: The council has not the absolute power. If the Europeanparliament is strong enough in it's opinion(like it was already in the 1st reading), it can fix or reject the whole thing again, see the picture on this page
Hi,
I know the situation is quite bad when it comes to people - it seems many people have become quite apolitical, they only seems to care about what they do tomorrow but simply don't care on what and who is ruling them. It' catastrophic!
Now for politicians: Of course they accept the message which the big origanisations and the patent offices and the patent lawers are telling them - if nobody is really competing with them at the same argumentative level.
That's of course a challenge to take, it's definitely not something for loosers! It's somethings for winners and we won the European Parliament on September 24!
Ok, the directive was passed at this point, but not before amending it to the extend so that it prohibits patents on pure software.
Maybe it was an easy win in comparsion to the things coming up now, but we can only live up to this challenge work together and get the best strategy and make it reality!
Now for what's to do now:
- Join the ffii-uk list on ffii.org.uk (even if you are not in the UK)
- No, don't fly to Brussels now - the council will meet in Brussels but the ministers meeting there will be OUR national ministers ask your national parliaments who will be going there or ask at the ffii-uk list for help.