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Patents

Patenting In The Burst Test 91

Posted by Hemos from the se-habla-espanol? dept.
gerddie writes "Heise has an interview with S. Kiesewetter-Köbinger, a patent examiner of the German PA, about the cultural break, software patents will impose to Europe if they become valid. He points out the danger to open source and science, and that with patents on software even mathematical methods would become patentable because there is no longer any difference. There is also a companion article competition in the court room, that gives some more insight in the history and current state of the patent system. All is in german, but as always the fish is your friend."
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Patenting In The Burst Test More

Patenting In The Burst Test

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  • The fish is -not- your friend. (Score:4, Informative)

    by sanermind ( 512885 ) on Monday August 13, 2001 @07:59AM (#2114269)
    As, if Hemos had even bothered to read the translated article, he would have realized that it is long, and that babelfish STOPS TRANSLATING it less than a third of a way through the article.

    use freetranslation.com [freetranslation.com] or one of the many other available translators [google.com] instead.

    yeesh.
    • Please don't blame Hemos, I was the one to add the babelfish link, because I didn't know of something better.
      Now I do.

  • Everybody sing along... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DreamSynthesis ( 415854 ) on Monday August 13, 2001 @08:04AM (#2114693) Homepage

    "Software patents, they suck real bad, da da de dum"... in all seriousness, (and I don't have to say this part around here), this is a BAD THING COMING.

    Here's my question: In light of the somewhat unfortunate fact that world economies are growing increasingly intertwined, especially given the rate of advances in digital communications, how great is the chance of my wonderful country (U.S.) eventually just deciding to "take the ball and go home" when it comes to countries that don't play by our current rules regarding software patents?

    This strikes to the core of a problem America has always suffered from, namely a nasty elitist attitude regarding all things involving tech and government. While it's true that the U.S. has enjoyed relatively little fallout for this attitude problem historically speaking, how long can that last?

    As an American, I suppose what I'm suggesting here is simply that U.S. citizens should probably start taking a closer look at how our internal government policy decisions (especially regarding technology issues) may eventually leave us out in the cold on the world economic scene. It only makes sense when you think about it; we've got the edge in a few areas for the moment, but tables have a way of turning whenever our good friend Murphy steps into the room...

    • Re:Everybody sing along... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      U.S. citizens should probably start taking a closer look at how our internal government policy decisions

      "Naah... sounds boring. Oh, gotta go. Jerry Springer's on TV."

    • One of the advantages to the old feudal system was that if you didn't like the way your town was run, you could (conceivably) go somewhere else. Nevermind the serf system.

      There's probably another way out of town aside from the main road.
  • all you base are belong to me!
  • That is the most gramatically awkward submission I've read recently. It's almost as if Taco wrote it himself! ;)
    • If read the babelfish translation you will, backwards how it is written you will see. Yoda, almost as if it were written by. Normal however I have found, word order for most other indo-european languages that is.
  • Being able to habla espanol will do you no good. The article is in Deutsch. So you must sprechen sie deutsch.

    There, I've demonstrated my full knowledge of both Spanish and German, and probably my lack of spelling skills in both.

  • http://babel.altavista.com/?urltext=http%3A%2F%2Fw ww.heise.de%2Fct%2F01%2F17%2F048%2F&lp=de_en i just hope no one gets the patent to breathing!
  • and many europeans neither, is that software patents have been for some time common practice in European Union. Officially pure software patents are not allowed, but unofficially they are approved. The patents are just labeled as being in the domain of "electronic information processing and data communications" and as such are not pure software patents.

    Check EPC article 52(1)c that says computer software is not patentable, and article 52(3) that has the infamous "as such" clause that EPO uses as a loop hole to grant software patents.

    Unfortunately it seems europe has lost this race even before anyone knew it was an issue.

    • Since software moves so rapidly, if they have patents, I think maybe 5 years would be good rather than 23 years or whatever it is.

      Given the typical software patents, it's obvious that there is not a whole lot of money poured into developing the patent. Things like "1-click buying" or "limiting # of 3D avatars viewable in the client based on distance to client's perspective" may be innovative, but once spelled out in a few words, any number of methods to implement them immediately and easily pop into the mind of a programmer.

  • Europe Should Fight This (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KarmaBlackballed ( 222917 ) on Monday August 13, 2001 @08:44AM (#2141374) Homepage Journal
    When I was a kid I remember reading that non-communist Russia was a huge threat to the west because they did not recognize western patents. Of course, I like most people agreed that this was a serious problem.

    Now I am an adult and I understand that earlier opinion was guided and shaped by the corporate marketing machine which has a vested interest in keeping ideas tied to their existing bank accounts.

    Europeans should fight Software Patents and not be shy about it.

  • Whew! (Score:4, Funny)

    by imac.usr ( 58845 ) on Monday August 13, 2001 @08:45AM (#2143087) Homepage
    After giving the headline a cursory glance, I thought it said, "Patenting The Burn-In Test"....although somebody's probably already working on that one.

  • Every single software patent I've seen begins with explaining what the patent covers, by describing an apparatus that implements the patent. Most of the time this means a PC running a piece of software.

    Since IANAL, I'm interpreting this so that providing only part of the solution (ie, the software component) isn't covered by the patent since no hardware is provided. If providing part of the solution is a breach, wouldn't it imply that providing the hardware part only (a pc) is infringing? If providing some part of the solution is infringing the patent and some other part is not, where does the line go?

  • ...and make money at the same time.
    Check out Bounty Quest [bountyquest.com], they reward people for finding documents that mention the idea before it was registered as a patent. That way the patent does not fulfil the new criteria and becomes invalid.

    You get paid too... :-)

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