European Software Patents Not Dead Yet

Ensign Nemo writes "Software patents in Europe still being pushed. They're at it again and they're not waisting any time. Even though opposition is there the backers of software patents are getting sneakier and sneakier." Poland, if you help us out again, I pledge to never, ever forget you.

Stay tuned

[Staplerh]

Hmm. Guess we'll have to wait until next Monday for more definate information. From TFA:

That the matter would be settled for good next Monday, Luxembourgs Economics Minister Jeannot Krecke for one announced at a meeting of the European Parliament's Legal Committee this Wednesday.

Hmm.. Guess we'll get yet ANOTHER Slashdot story on Monday - if Ms. Krecke is correct in her prediction. Oh well, this is a matter of importance and I suppose as many news stories/comments as we can read, the better informed we'll all be on the subject!

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[eric76]

If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?

The purpose of patents is to allow the patent holder a limited monopoly on the invention while telling everyone how it's done.

Think of it as a solution to a problem for which one can, if the solution is truly clever, receive a government granted monopoly on the solution for a period of time.

What we have now is that any solution, no matter how obvious or trivial, is being granted the same monopoly protection as if it were really unique.

It's like giving a class a test in which the first person to solve the problem by some method gets an 'A' and the rest using the same method are given 'F's. The question is whether that problem is sufficiently difficult that the other students would have been able to arrive at the same solution without copying the solution of the first to solve the problem.

If the other students could have only solved the problem by copying that of the first, then the 'F's would be appropriate. But if the problem was such that every student satisfactorally solved the problem on his own, they should all receive 'A's.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[zerblat]

Pantents exist to encourage innovation by making research that wouldn't be profitable otherwise possible. Do software patents encourage innovation? Will software patents give us more software related inventions? I haven't seen any studies that indicate that. I have however seen studies that suggest the contrary, that software patents in fact inhibit research (e.g. these [researchoninnovation.org] two [dbresearch.com]).

So, tell me again why we should introduce this costly, bureaucratic and monopolistic process. Exactly how will it benifit the citizens of the EU? Will it give us new, innovative software? Will it give us more jobs (apart from all the patent lawyers, that is)?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[coaxial]

Well to be pedantic, "pedantic" [reference.com] isn't a synonym for "contrarian" [reference.com]. You should know what the big words mean before you use them.

Re:dont think so

[Anonymous Coward]

> patents like all property create wealth.

Property doesn't *generate* wealth! Patents prevent other people from generating wealth, not that patents are property to begin with, but let's not let the facts get in the way of your delusions.

The Pro-Patent Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

I attended the meeting where the UK Patent Office explained its pro-software patent position.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/14/patent_dir ective/ [theregister.co.uk]

Their strongest argument was that a lot of things that used to be done entirely with hardware are increasingly done in software, so software patents are needed to replace hardware patents.

For example, electronic companies want to keep the same type of patent coverage for the next generation of their products (with more embedded code) as they are used to having. And what's wrong with that?

The UK Patent Office is aware that patents *may* be damaging to pure software, but believes that the "technical effect" rule will prevent this. Unfortunately they were utterly unconvincing when pressed for detail.

Their big picture is that the benefits of software patents to other parts of the economy (e.g. 'phone companies) will be greater than any harm to open source software.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[brunos]

you do need to patent chemical processes, machines etc, because they are not covered by copyright. Software, on the other hand is already protected by copyright, and copyright is a much fairer way of protecting creativity as you have it automatically, whereas you must spend a lot of money and time to get (and defend) a patent.

Some MEPs seem clued up...

[KontinMonet]

On the 13th Jan, I received the following (extract) from the UK Labour Party group of MEPs:

"The Labour MEPs' position is reflected in the amendments we tabled and voted for in the Parliament's report on the Commission proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. In short, the position remains:

. No US-style patenting of software.
. Software as such, must not be patented. No patenting of business methods or "general ideas"
. Opensource software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive does not have any adverse effect on opensource software and small software developers.
. Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies."

I'm not sure what they intend to do about this latest news. Email/snailmail all takes so-o-o-o long and I wonder whether it's just assistants sending stock replies...

Re:The Ministers of what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is, as far as I know, pretty much the same as when other, sometimes totally unrelated, decisions are piggybacked onto a bill that is to be aproved by congress. I.e. a small decission that has been agreed upon and passed on just to expediate the process.

In the EU council this procedure seems to be called A-list agendas. Things on the A-list agenda is supposed to be agreed upon beforehand and should be possible to go to vote on without any discussion.

OTOH I just might be smoking crack and pulling all of this out of my *ss

In Germany...

[CharonX]

In Germany there is a huge majority in the parliament (with supporters from EVERY party) that is AGAINST software patents.
Sadly, the parliaments "delegate" to this EU meeting (Federal Minister of Agriculture) Renate Künast has gone into a "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" mode, so demands that she stands up against the EU directive will probably fall on deaf ears.

EPO rulez!!!

[KontinMonet]

This so-called 'A-item' should not have been put before the committe in the first place as it disregards the rules for placing these items. The (unelected, govt. appointed) EU Commission (as usual) is simply making up its own rules as it goes along.

With this sort of arrogant crap we constantly suffer from the Commission, is it any wonder that even if this item is thrown out, we still might not win. The European Patent Office can still do its own thing. Don't believe me? The EPO is not bound by many of the laws or regulations that most of the citizens of Europe take for granted, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

Some examples:
. The Employment Law offers the staff extremely limited protection. Staff can be dismissed almost at will by the President and have no claims to unemployment pay or other social security payments
. Basic legal rights are ignored. The President is the ultimate ruler of the EPO. He is judge, jury and executioner. His decisions on matters within the office are final. Any decision made by the President can be enacted immediately. There is no "stay of execution" pending the outcome of appeal hearings. Sanctions are arbitrary and harsh.
. Even criminal law is disregarded: In 1995 the then President of the EPO physically attacked and injured a staff member, the Administrative Council of the EPO subsequently refusing to lift the immunity of the President.

BBC radio doc on broken US patent system

[eetiiyupy]

Try to catch the BBC Radio 4 programme in business [bbc.co.uk] this week (warning the schedule info is correct but the content is still on last week's programme). I expected this to be just the normal corporate b/s, but it was in fact more interested in problems in the USA, particularly in patent examination. There are representatives on both sides of the argument, but I would have the "say no to patent expansion" side winning. There is a repeat on Sunday evening 21:30GMT. I don't know if the "listen again" has moved to the current edition yet - as I say, the web site is stuck on last week.

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sorry, but I believe you're confusing Europe with the US. Europe did find against Microsoft, and is only discussing software patents now because they already rejected the proposal the first time around.

Europe as a whole certainly has its flaws, but its government being absurdly pro-corporation is not normally one of them.

EPO Technical FX...

[KontinMonet]

The EPO is stating that: A computer program can be patented as such, if it has a "further technical effect". But practically any solution to a computing problem constitutes a "further technical effect".

The EPO further declares that the "arrangement or manner of representation", may as well constitute a patentable technical feature. And examples which are given include pulse code modulation or a measuring instrument which produces a particular form of graph for representing the measured information and a computer data structure. This means that according to the EPO's guidelines, the order of information in a data structure could be patented if accessing the data structure is claimed. Yes!! I claim Name and Address (and Address and Name, to be on the safe side)!

As the FFI points out:

The most frequently used rhetorical trick of the Council paper works as follows: [A] is not patentable, unless [condition B] is met. But, upon close scrutiny, it turns out that condition B is always met.

It gets worse.

The wording "normal physical interaction between a program and the computer" means about as much as "normal physical interaction between a recipe and the cook", that is: nothing. It is a magic formula whose usage can be inferred only from recent decisions of the EPO, in which it served to justify the granting of patents on geometrical calculation rules to IBM. In the present case, according to the EPO, the "further technical effect beyond ..." consisted in the economisation of space on a computer screen. Wow! Novel or what?

Re:Not to be pedantic, but..

[sbrown123]

EU is not for the benefit of citizens, but for the benefit of corporations.

EU is not for the benefit of corporations. EU allows for trade and business between and outside of member states. A cattle rancher in the UK could be hurt or assisted by trade regulation enforced by the EU with the United States. That cattle rancher is not a corporation, but an individual doing business within trade laws enforced by the EU that his/her country is a member there of.

It is a market, not a democracy.

Actually, it is a democracy. All member states have equal representation and vote. It has a presidency that is regularly rotated.