I'm sure all of us in the castrated portions of the IP world are wishing the citizens of the EU luck with their protests. It would be nice to think that innovation and freedom still have a home somewhere in the world.

... is how the EU will spin the protests. I don't know if EU citizens are any more intelligent than the American sheeple, but a couple well-placed "digital terrorist" or such phrases could easily get ignorant people thinking the wrong way. (Japan, on the other hand, is getting worse and worse due to extreme apathy... you should see some of the election turnout numbers over here. It's scary.)

I don't know if EU citizens are any more intelligent than the American sheeple...

Questions of innate intelligence aside, the Europeans I encounter seem much more well informed and aware of the world than their US counterparts. I just moved from the US to London and the difference is startling. The news here isn't just scare mongering (well, there is a little), there is actual content to be found in scientific stories.

It's not about open source, although there is a similarity in the principle of open and free exchange of ideas.

Patents are government grants to build a business around a specific invention. There is a general issue here, namely that all invention comes from a communual process, exchange and refinement of ideas over time, and the granting of "exclusive" rights is by its very nature an act that ignores the reality of the process in order to create a new reality that favours certain groups over others.

However, we tend to accept that patents are one way of rewarding intellectual endeavour. Why then, are they bad?

There are many technical issues that make patents complex to grant: knowledge of the area in question, searching prior art, preparing lengthy documentation. This means that patents are expensive - in the EU, for instance, 10,000 Euro is the starting price, before you start looking at defending a patent.

The huge price tag puts patents firmly out of the reach of smaller groups and individuals who are not already wealthly. It is ironic, perhaps that these are also the groups and individuals who work the hardest to create new products and ideas, since they have the most to gain.

It is larger groups that are able to assemble large patent portfolios, therefore. Presumably these are then used to protect and reward innovation? No, most patents go unused in the direct sense, and become instead instruments for patent negotiations.

What is this? It is when a small company with a patent discovers that a larger company is infringing. It raises the question, and the large company discovers a handful of its own patents - previously ignored - that the smaller company is also infringing. The innovater finds that the precious patent is not only worthless, but has landed them in a situation where they may go bankrupt or have to sell their products to survive.

Large companies seek patents principally for this reason: to protect their existing markets and businesses against innovators.

The role of legislators is clear: their mandate, sponsored by big business, is to make this process as easy as possible.

Software patents take this to a new dimension. Software development is - unlike most prodyct creation - a process of almost pure invention. It is almost impossible to develop a complex software product without finding and solving many problems that others have also solved.

Patents are already biased against innovation, but software patents can create insurmountable obstacles. A business with the cash and the lawyers can find hundreds, perhaps thousands of "new" inventions in any complex software product. Needless to say, most or all of these are multiple re-inventions, but have not been previously patented, so are legally open to patent.

Software development, like all creative processes, relies on a pure and unbroken exchange of ideas and techniques across space and time. Software patents pretend that this exchange does not happen, and worse, they make the exchange impossible, and sometimes illegal.

At the extreme, software patents spell the end of not just open source, but the freedom of individuals to create new software. When every software invention has been patented, writing unauthorized code will become a criminal offense.

Large business loves this scenario. They pretend that software patents are essential to protect their "innovation" and "research". But this is a lie, as any honest observer can see.

The EU is, like all governments, manipulated by lobbyists, and the person who pays for the music will choose the dance. Software patents will come into law in the EU, there is no doubt about this.

The realisation that software patents (and all patents, indeed) are tools for monopolists will only come when the West has lost most of its competitive edge. I only hope that India and China realise - from self-interest - that they are being given a silver plate with a blank cheque, marked "please profit, we are in the process of strangling our nascent software businesses".

I am worried that the members of the European Parliament have the impression that the protests are not to be taken seriously, coming mostly from outspoken Open Source enthusiasts. These are too often regarded as not respecting intellectual property, only out to use software, ideas and information without having to pay for it.
While the opposite is generally true: why run Linux and OpenOffice.org instead of an easily obtained illegal copy of MS Windows and MS Office?
I just hope that the MEPs understand nobody has to gain from software patents as proposed in the directive, except a bunch of patent lawyers, patent pirates, and big software companies (and the latter not even in the long run).
Innovation will be stifled instead of promoted.
Small and medium sized software developers (not only open source) and the consumer will pay the price.
Let's see if the members of the European Parliament remember their mandate and vote in the interest of the European citizen!

I don't understand why being philosophically against software patents is always equated with socialism, and that patents are the ultimate expression of capitalism. I don't agree.

Patents in general are entirely anti-capitalistic devices. Their primary purpose is to inhibit competition, by making it illegal to compete. They enforce monopolies at best, and at their worst totally destroy entire fields of endeavor due to their mutually-assured destruction effect. They are not just about protecting theft of trade secrets, dumpster diving, or espionoge; but about controlling both thought and activity. If I completely and totally independently discover the same trivial algorithm, but you patented it somehow I'm breaking the law...I certainly didn't steal anything. Is anybody else worried about how IBM is dealing with SCO? I'll be as glad as anyone when IBM flattens them, but using their patent treasure chest to do so really bothers me.

And it also drives me crazy when I hear companies say they obtain patents for defense only. Patents by their very nature always offensive, they prevent others from independently working even if they never harm you or your market in any way and you don't sue them. That's agression plain and simple. If you want a defense then publish, don't patent (go to ip.com's Prior Art Database [ip.com] as an example of this approach).

And another misinformed justification is that patents are only dangerous if you try to make money with the patented idea. That is so wrong, go read the actual patent law! (yes it is very long, but still more readable than most patents). Even if you "practice" a patented idea in your home for your own amusement you are still breaking the law. You may get by with it, just like speeding, but patents intrude on everybody's rights.

I had an employer approach me once with the idea of patenting some software I wrote for them, and I took it as a serious ethical threat, and I told them that too. But when that happens, you tend to be very careful about how you apply your talent afterwards...being careful not to invent anything new, which I'm sure has resulted in some less than optimal solutions. But again, this is not socialist thinking. My company makes money from selling software I write, and I give them ownership over it in exchange for a salary, and I'm not distributing this code to the world. But likewise, I'm definitely against preventing somebody else from independently inventing the same software.

And the only reasonable argument for patents (as eliquently stated in the US Consitution) is to discourage the hording of information, so that others may build upon and progress technology. But look at how the patent system really works to completely subvert and prevent that one goal: submarine patents (those that through legal trickery stay in a filed state for perhaps decades without ever being divuldged). Patent laywers make sure that patents are entirely unreadable...even most lawyers who don't specialize in patent law are completely inept at reading them, let alone inventors and technologists who supposedly should be benefiting from them. Also it's almost impossible to ever find anything or make any sense of all that knowledge as its locked up so tight that it's completely worthless for anything but legal agression. The patent office should operate like a well indexed library of human knowledge, but instead it acts like a black hole locking away information so it is illegal to use.

I for one mostly agree with the capitalistic society, not the socialistic view. But I'm still extremely anti-patent, especially for non-physicial inventions of thought and expression. Patents are an extreme offense to humankind, captialism is not.

Patents in general are entirely anti-capitalistic devices. Their primary purpose is to inhibit competition, by making it illegal to compete.

Which might have made sense back in the industrial ages, when turning an idea into a product required considerable investments in terms of materials and tools to build prototypes, and manufacturing facilities for mass production. Software is different. To make it takes just a computer and a brain. After a piece of software is written down and debugged, it's done - no manufacturing required, hence no factories and machines. Modifying the design of any industrial good is likely to require reconfiguration of an entire production facility. Modifying the design of software takes just a branch on CVS and a little time.

From "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" Chapter 8:

In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants.

All the benefits of all human endeavour belong to all of humanity. We did not evolve to the state we are in today because one group of ape-like beings, having discovered how to make effective weapons for hunting and fire for cooking, kept the discoveries to themselves, only allowing others to make use of them on restricted terms; handing over ready-made weapons to the hunters whilst banning them from the workshop, blindfolding people whilst fires were lit, and punishing anyone who tried to study how to make axes or start a fire.

I can see a comedy sketch in there somewhere. Only thing is, in real life, it isn't funny.

Where's the petition to sign?

Yeah, so I'm late to this discussion, but I've been thinking about a crazy idea for a parent license of sorts.

Why not apply the spirit of the GPL to patent law? The GPL's been pretty successful at creating a library of free software (ignoring the current SCO mess), so technically something similar for patents should be doable. I'm thinking:

The Patent Public License (PPL)

• "Patent Name & Number" is licensed under this License, and remains the intellectual property of Inventor.
• Inventor hereby grants a permanent, royalty-free, and worldwide right to apply the Patent in devices that comply with all terms of this License.
• A device may utilise the Patent only if all Patents the device utilises are licensed under terms compatible with this License.

OK, I'm not a lawyer, but if you've seen something like the Adobe Acrobat 6.0 splash screen, that lists hundreds of patents used in the product. If someone could patent a blindingly obvious idea under a Public License (let's say clickable links) then they should be able to start the snowball rolling, and gather up the other patents a software package uses under the terms of the License, and so on with more and more programs and companies...

It'd be using patent law against itself :). Either you'd have millions of obvious software patents in the public domain, or patent law would have to be revised, either way it's a victory for the slashdot crowd.

Sure, it'd take a lot of captial to patent one or two initial ideas and press the initial lawsuits, but with some support (EFF/FSF?) it'd be doable. Any downsides people can see?

The US Supreme Court has clearly ruled software unpatentable. If the USPTO won't listen to the Supreme Court, what makes you think they'll listen to you?