Euro Patent Restart Demand Repeated by Parliament 204
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents has ratified and repeated the demands of the Parliament for the computer-implemented inventions directive to be sent back to the drawing board, even though the Commission has refused to re-start it after previous demands. From the article: "It is not certain that the Commission will comply with the request of the Parliament, nor that it will use the opportunity to draft a good text ... The new Commission is not obliged to follow the Parliament's request and they might still try to keep all options open and ask the Council to adopt the agreement of last May without a new vote, so as to gain even more options for themselves."
Re:would this invalidate the GPL? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because it isn't patented, doesn't mean that copyright protection goes away. In fact as things stand right now almost no GPL code in existance uses patented algorithms.
It's highly worrying... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, question (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, question: Is the EU parliament in the end going to be, or are they right now, as pissed off about this as Slashdot seems to be? I mean, whether the parliament cares about patents or not, you'd think. In the U.S. if a branch of government got outright snubbed like this they'd probably wind up doing everything in their power to kill the idea of software patents forever, even if they didn't really care about software patents, just out of spite
Disgraceful FUD on BBC (Score:5, Insightful)
As a BBC license payer, I'm incensed that they could be spreading such FUD. Since when has Linux "eschewed the notion of property"?
Just because the open source community is vehemently opposed to software patents, doesn't mean that they don't support the "notion of property". Without such notions as copyright for instance, the GPL would be impossible.
Re:Profit Anyone? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's highly worrying... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm. As geeks we know what to do when a system becomes unresponsive . . . REBOOT!
Re:Disgraceful FUD on BBC (Score:4, Insightful)
As a BBC license payer, I'm appalled by the factual inaccuracy in the "EU software patent law faces axe" article.
The statement is made that "The open source movement, of which Linux is the flagbearer, eschews notions of property and instead allows anyone to examine and tinker with the inner workings of software."
This is nonsense, verging on the libellous. The open source movement has no such stance. Even minimal fact checking would quickly reveal that the Gnu Public License, under which much of today's open source software, including Linux, is released, depends fundamentally on the protections and rights granted by copyright.
The concept that the open source movement seeks to destroy any sense of property is precisely the sort of scare story being pushed by large computer manufacturers in their attempt to railroad the software patents directive through the European parliament.
I expect better from a supposedly neutral and unbiased news organisation.
Re:EU Bureaucracy (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's a damned good thing they did push the vote that way IMO. Nobody wants or needs this law. Everything is fine just as it is now, but there's a push by large US software companies to try to break our system just like theirs.
This is exactly why further integration is needed (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance the parliament still has little power, but without it this directive would have been passed months ago. Without EU at all, it would have been passed years ago under pressure from US-based megacorporations.
I'd say that even though the situation is dangerous, it shows that the European parliament is perfectly doing its job and representing the will of the European people, and counterbalancing the ivory power that is the Commission. In particular, kudos to Michel Rocard, former French Prime Minister and one of the main forces in this legislative fight. A friend of mine met him when he was just starting to discover the issue; and he was pleasantly suprised to find how he listened to anti patent arguments and quickly acquired knowledge and decided to act.
Re:Disgraceful FUD on BBC (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because the open source community is vehemently opposed to software patents, doesn't mean that they don't support the "notion of property". Without such notions as copyright for instance, the GPL would be impossible.
Then why are you telling us? Write to the BBC...
I question this. (Score:2, Insightful)
I for one will question this.
Perhaps Mr. Lueders can show how one can start up a software company from scratch now in the U.S., without having to worry about a frivolous patent infringement lawsuit? Or without having to sell out a significant stake in your company to Venture Capitalists in order to pay for lawyers (and not developers)?
As mentioned recently on Slashdot, even Bill Gates recognized the stifling effects of Patents on technology back in the early 1990's.
Perhaps Mr. Lueders can show how innovation isn't stifled by this? And perhaps Mr. Lueders can show how innovation isn't stifled by a Patent Holder sitting on a Patent, keeping others from entering the field, and in the meantime absolutely botching the attempt to get the technology propagated. One classic case of this was Digicash back in the late 1990's.
Software Patents stifle innovation. And it is clear that they will put the EU at a disadvantage, beholden to the US companies which currently own most everything.
If the EU wants to have a hope of being able to compete, their only hope is to encourage innovation by Copyright protection, and not stifling development by passing Software Patents.
Re:Profit Anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's simple in action - you cannot force me to sell at your price.
I alone make the final determination of the value of my property and may not be made to sell. This right is why eminent domain impinges on property rights. It forces you to sell.
And scarcity is not what you think it means. There is only one Microsoft Windows and one Firefox. There may be COPIES, but that does not change the scarcity of the original.
Re:Profit Anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Brian
Re:it's not that simple (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a system by which you get a government and, for better or for worse, that government represents you. One of the things that government does is represent your interests in international bodies, including the EU. If you aren't happy with the way you get your government, that's a national problem. You could guillotine your queen and have a revolution, for example. However, most people do actually consider Denmark a democracy. Furthermore, I suspect your government would actually be free to ask the people and hold a referendum on its Commissioners.
If your government isn't acting the way your parliament wants it to, it sounds like your parliament has the option of dissolving it (I don't know how Danish government works), but apparently it doesn't care enough about this issue to take that step. That's not unusual, and it's by design: democracy does not mean that the majority, or even the majority of representatives, gets their will on every issue. It's similar in the US, where the Senate and the House are two separate bodies that control each other, and the executive branch has a lot of separate powers, and they aren't all always consistent with each other.
Historically, the Commission makes sense; giving lots of power to the European Parliament overnight would have been insane since people had no idea of how the politics would work out, while the Commission grew out of the mechanisms all member states were already using for interacting. Again, I don't like many of the decisions the Commission has been making, and it sounds like it's time to give more power to the European Parliament. But the fact that things are the way they are isn't the result of some insane European bureaucracy or anti-democratic movement, it's the prudent and natural way to achieve what the European Union is trying to achieve. European Parliament could easily have turned out to be a bunch of anti-democratic hoodlums and kooks, in which case we'd all be grateful that we didn't hand over power over our lives to them.
economic reality check: (Score:3, Insightful)
Patents are NOT applied to where the invention is made, but where the patent is filed.
Logic dictates, thus, that EU-corporations *CAN* file and 'protect' their IP on the worldmarket: the only thing for that to happen is that they file their patent abroad, in countries where they have been stupid enough to allow them, such as the USA and Japan. But EU companies *are* protected in the EU (when swp remain unvalid) against the typical smothering of big foreign companies with huge portofolios.
In all sense, and even only speaking economically, thus, the EU has a clear economic advantage. WE can sue others, but we can't be sued by others over swp. For the EU as whole, it becomes apparent that this is very beneficial, maybe to the point where other countries will be forced to abandon their swp-mentality too, because otherwise they will be in a inherent disadvantage.
Now, why don't people don't seem to get this? A lot of IP-proponents seem to go the way of 'our IP has to be protected' - ignoring all other valid considerations - but the irony is, even purely focussing on the economics, the EU is better off not having them withion the EU, but still being able to apply them abroad.
Bogeyman China (Score:3, Insightful)
We've done extremely well so far!
Are you saying 85% profit margins for MS are not enough incentive to develop software?
Your argument is fine if you develop something that would take 20 years to recoup your costs, but no version of software will be around in 4 years time , let alone 20 years time, so by reality it must be possible to recoup your costs in a much shorter space of time with software.
Software has a relatively low cost to develop, low capital investment, high profit margin (85%+ in the case of MS) and short shelf life.
In addition since there is no need to disclose the algorithm to sell the software, you have a perfect protection mechanism for your magic algo if it truely represents something new. DON'T TELL ANYONE HOW IT WORKS!
"you will never build anything beyond a sub-poverty society."
Again, we've done extremely well so far, software is developing much faster than Pharma, Transport and even PC hardware!
My complaint to the BBC (Score:3, Insightful)
I am outraged at the apalling bias and factual misrepresentation in the BBC article, "EU software patent law faces axe".
First, the bias. The article presents the view of a limited sector of the IT industry with "CompTIA, an umbrella organization for technology companies, said only when intellectual property was adequately protected would European inventors prosper."
They certainly don't represent my technology business!
Where is the view of that other sector of the IT industry: those inventors whose intellectual property is placed in peril by these monopolistic "protections"? And the others: businesses whose work depends on access to open standards and open source infrastructure?
As an inventor myself, I am deeply concerned that my ability to publish my own works will be blocked, should patentability be extended to computer software. The danger to small business such as mine is of being sued to bankruptcy by large institutional firms with large and ever-growing patent portfolios, covering every nuance of technology, even the obvious stuff.
Only large, wealthy firms benefit in such a system: they cross-license with each other to avoid the expense of fighting. Not so for the small and growing enterprise with new ideas. Software patents are hardly good for small inventors: they're a closed club for the big boys.
Secondly, factual misrepresentation. The article says "The open source movement, of which Linux is the flagbearer, eschews notions of property". Wrong, wrong, wrong! The open source movement is absolutely dependent on notions of property and fully aware of this. Almost every piece of software - and even literature, music and science nowadays - produced as open source, makes use of intellectual property law for its protection. It is wrong to paint an unprofessional image of the open source movement, for it includes everyone: individuals, business of all sizes, and governments.
You are right, however, to say that open source "allows anyone to examine and tinker with the inner workings of software." Is there anyone who doesn't believe in the opportunity to learn how things work, if they desire to?
Ironically, the stated official purpose of patents is to ensure everyone has access to the knowledge of how things work, so that anyone can learn to make better things.
It is ironic and frightening to see this getting lost among the backroom bribes, attempts to push dodgy laws through the back door against the wishes of parliament, "patent-acquisition" companies that sue easy targets but don't actually make anything themselves... and journalism parroting the propaganda of "umbrella" organisations that don't represent us.
I'm very glad, however, that the dodgy law didn't get passed through that dodgy back door after all.
Yours faithfully,
Jamie Lokier,
A businessman and inventor whose livelihood depends on the legal right to share his ideas freely.
Re:it's not that simple (Score:2, Insightful)
I do not want to guillotine our queen and have a president instead, as I prefer a non-political head of State over a president.
But I would prefer if decisions by our parliament would be binding to our government. If that was the case for all EU governments, the software patent directive would have been dead now. (And Denmark would not (for the first time since 1864) have gone to war (against Iraq), since there was a massive majority against it in our parliament. In the US at least the Congress has to approve going to war.)
I agree on your statements on the European Parliament, and I think it is time to give them more power.
This is not correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Software patent have existing for about 10 years (more or less). So are you saying the economic value of software before 1994 was zero?
I'll assume I don't have to point to the multitude of examples that prove this to be false?
Innovation vs. Copying? (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA, Hugo Leuders of pro-patent CompTIA said:
Seems to me that he's obscuring the fact that "imitation and copying" is an important part of most innovation. We'd never be where we are without it.
Re:Profit Anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. grew its industry rapidly by running roughshod over attempts by the European countries to control trade secrets & other forms of intellectual property. The U.S. wouldn't be where it is today economically if it had taken European whining about patents, copyright & such, seriously. It's only recently, as the primary economic superpower, that Americans suddenly think it's a good idea for everyone to let them control the flow of ideas & technology throughout the world.
Software & business model patents are being used to crush competition, rather than provide any kind of innovation for society's benefit. True entrepreneurs make money by providing desired goods & services, not by getting laws passed which let them earn money through extortion.
Re:Profit Anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Patenting software is not a black and white issue, and presenting it as such is underestimating your audience. No-one is saying patents do not have the positive effects you mentioned. What the opposers of SW patents are saying is that monopolies granted by the patents have severe side-effects (that are inherent to the software industry), and that those side-effects are bad enough to counter the positive effects.
I understand that in a complex matter like this people will disagree. But why the hell does the discussion always have to be black and white? Patents are not a god-given right - they are a compromise solution to a specific problem. If the problem set changes, or new solutions become available, the solution should be re-evaluated. Pretty simple.