EU Software Patent Directive Adopted 455
sebFlyte writes "FTA: "An EU Council spokeswoman said on Monday morning that the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive had been adopted." Apparently it's due to 'institutional reasons' that they're ignoring the outcry from developers and several nation states ..."
aarrghhh! (Score:5, Insightful)
It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being personally deeply affected by this directive - I own a software company that does a huge amount of R&D - I really hope the MEPs will do the right thing.
Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
These people will cry the day they get a cease and desist from Microsoft because their child programmed a bubble sort in LOGO class, in first grade.
The European Constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally don't want to live in a dictatorship where the will of the parliament is disregarded by people who have been elected by no-one.
Today's commission is like russia's communist party. Make sure they go back to home with a lesson they will never forget.
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:2, Insightful)
Knuts (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess we have to look to the Chinese now for inovatave software, along with everything else.
I know it isnt over, but it's like the long walk to the gas chamber. you can guess the outcome.
Sad Day
Write to your member of the EU parliament now (Score:5, Insightful)
They even asked the EU-Commission to restart the whole process, but the Commission flat out denied this request. I can't imagine that members of parliament like to be treated like that.
So please, write your local member of the EU parliament and tell him that you ask him to do everything within his power to stop this madness.
Re:Not the end of the world...yet. (Score:1, Insightful)
You know, the supporters of this directive (the hugest companies) have been able to break the rules of the government council for serving their interests... Sad day for the democracy and Europe.
Looks like the anti Linux law suits will start (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been the one thing that MS before going after IBM, HP, SGI, etc. over Linux. In fact, the only company with a get out of jail free card is Sun (and probably SCO).
Next couple of months are going to prove to be interesting.
Extremely high suckiness coefficient (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the EU Council has just stated that form is more important than meaning, and that it is more important that the bureaucrats are able to create legislation quickly and effortlessly than the legislation being fair and correct.
This is the crappiest thing I've heard in a long while! What's next, stopping citizens from seeing official documents because it creates unnecessary expenses and only whiners ask to see them anyway? Or removing the right to vote for all citizens of the EU, because recurring elections could hamper the ability of EU politicians to make long-term plans?
--Bud
What have YOU done? (Score:2, Insightful)
What have you done for the democracy, liberty and human rights? Yes, I mean you! If all you do is write on Slashdot then you have done nothing. that's what! People, when will we finally wake up? When will we understand that we, the people, have the responsibility for that failure? When will we understand that we are the ones who have the real power? When will we finally do something instead of bitching all day? When will we finally open our eyes? When?
Somethins is rotten (Score:5, Insightful)
And so they did. Try, that is. But was told that it was impossible for an A-item to become a B-item. They believed it, and didn't object further. This is bogus, because there's nothing that prevents A-items to be ruled as B-items. I smell a rat!
Hey, at least they're being honest... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or as they put it, "We are adopting the position for institutional reasons so as not to create a precedent which might have a consequence of creating future delays in other processes."
In other words, they want to do what they want to do, and they don't want protests or disagreements getting in their way, now or ever.
I guess Europe just fell to corporate interests.
I think it's shocking that we're giving all tech freedom to China. It'll be the only country on they planet where it'll be legal to double click and include a help icon with your software.
Re:Note that this means it goes back to Parliament (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Et muss een séch schummen Lëtz ze sin (Score:1, Insightful)
One would have thought that those crazy Luxembourgians would have enough (laundered) money to withstand bribing by Microsoft, Philips and Nokia, but nooooo....!
Re:see you (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lastly, patents are worthless without the means to back them up. A "large enough portfolio" mainly means you're willing to go to court to defend your claims.
If this directive is passed, European software researchers like my firm are basically put out of business. We cannot recover or protect our past investment, and our clients will not risk working with technology from small firms with no patent protection.
Re:The European Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Et muss een séch schummen Lëtz ze sin (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Patent everything! (Score:2, Insightful)
No don't. This is exactly what the bureaucrats want. More work for so-called civil 'servants' and administrators = more money for government departments = more power and influence for politicians = justification for higher taxes = socialism creeping in by the back door.
Re:The European Constitution (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think that around 70% of EU patents which would come into force are owned by companies from outside of the EU is a good enough reason not to allow it.
Re:Knuts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does not make sense. This would create a huge opportunity for confusion.
I believe - but need to do more research to be entirely sure - that while the application date applies, the US patent application date would apply in Europe as well, under WIPO rules.
This means that while European software firms have been explicitly denied the right to get patents on their inventions, US firms have been aquiring rights that will be enforced in Europe. Prior art will help to some extent but only if (a) the prior art was published before the US patent application date, and (b) the European firm is willing to go to court to fight the case.
Apart from open source, there is not a tradition of publishing software prior art in Europe, which will hamper efforts to find it.
Re:The European Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems slightly less than brilliant.
Re:it's time to become (more)anonymous (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's the matter? If you don't agree you have. (Score:5, Insightful)
A patent grants EXCLUSIVE rights to one of those ways.
Therefore, you have just created a land war. Only the rich and monied win a land war. Soon, you'll have nowhere to live. Good luck with that.
Put simply, there is no "stealing of ideas". That's ludicrous. I take your car? You have no car. I take your method of bush trimming? Both of our bushes get trimmed. That's life.
That's also the worst case. On the other hand, what if I develop a similar way of trimming bushes? Now who's stealing. I just wanted to trim my bushes, now you can take money from me! Who's the thief?
At some point the businesses of the world are being given the power to own the EXCLUSIVE right to sell something. I think we all know why that's bad. No competition == screwing people.
It's bad when the government mandates it (national telecomm companies). It's bad when monopoly enforces it (Standard Oil, Microsoft). It's bad when the people suffer it.
If I develop MY IDEA independently of you, I'll be damned if your patent should matter to me. Unfortunately, this is now my problem.
Worse, now the only people with significant patent portfolios won't be people. Instead they'll be the most morally reprehesible construct mankind has ever unleashed--corporations. Worst of all, they're pretty much designed to aggregate financial and legislative power.
Someday, this may cause a revolution...I hope.
Re:Write to your member of the EU parliament now (Score:5, Insightful)
David
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
US Corporations have a helluva lot more financial resources then ANY EU corporations and will drive any opposing corporation in the ground, just like they do over here in the US.
This is indeed a sad day for democracy, we shall have to wait and see if the EU parliament will pass this with a majority. If they do, I fear we will be entering into a new dark age, one this time that is not ruled by kings and nobles, but CEO's and board of directors.
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly I think it is time to make a way bigger deal out of this. If this is the way Europe is to be run, then I'm voting 'No' to Europe.
This is a total joke, this whole thing. It's enough to make one want to go visit the Luxembourg representative of today with a token of one's gratitude, by which I do not mean flowers. Whereas this is of course unfair, because they only moved it on because it was taking up too much of their time (aww).
The EU Commission needs to be deleted from the landscape.
Re:Patent everything! (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to avoid both. A corporation that can influence government policy in its own interests is essentially part of an enlarged state. We even speak of the M$ tax already.
Where to immigrate to? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are you going to immigrate to? It looks like the whole western world is falling beneath the monopoly behometh of (software) patents. We can expect Trading Technologies to shake down all trading firms, large and small, as well as all western exchanges, and Microsoft will leverage patents to eradicate GNU/Linux as anything other than an underground resistence of shrinking mindshare, and probably stifle most other innovations as well. The Free Software world will likely be looking to China for sanctuary in the near future, which is a situation so loaded with irony it defies imagining, proving once again that fact is orders of magnitude stranger than fiction.
We have about three years before this directive becomes law in Europe. Microsoft may or may not wait those three years before attacking software freedom in America, but we can all be assured that in five years time it will be virtually impossible for us as software programmers to practice our art and our profession in the west, without a patron from one of the major software houses (Microsoft, Apple, IBM).
This isn't the end of the world, but it is the end of a dynamic, innovative industry. This is hardly unprecidented. Poor governance and patents have destroyed and stifled many innovative industries, from the AT&T monopoly that destroyed hundreds of competing phone companies and froze the technology solid for sixty-plus years, to aviation, to chemistry, to biogenetics and medicine, and so on and so forth. Now its our turn, and we didn't stand up soon enough or speak loudly enough. Well, some of us did, but we were too few and too late.
So I ask again, where can we go? What countries are left that have not fallen beneath the Microsoft/IBM/Sun regime of software patents, and how long can we reasonably expect them to hold out against Americas wonton aggression in forcing our corporate interests down the world's collective throat?
Has China truly become our last, best hope for freedom?
Re:What have YOU done? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Et muss een séch schummen Lëtz ze sin (Score:2, Insightful)
Schaiss politiker....
Ech haat Belsch missen blaiwen...
Constitution gives more power to parliament? (Score:4, Insightful)
What I want to know is whether or not the constitution gives more power to the parliament. The parliament is apparently the body we (grassroots, minor busninesses, economicians) can influence. The closed and undemocratic bodies of the Commision and Council are in the hands of ip lawyers and multinationals.
If the parliament is strengthed, I'll vore for the constitution. If it is weakened, I'll vote against.
That's great, if that's how it worked... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an excellent argument. Unfortunately, it sounds very much like the star-eyed idealism that makes communism sound good: "If we all work together, one for another, we can achieve great things." Looks good on paper, but it falls apart under the shear force am individual greed and selfishness.
Corporations as a charter granted by the people to perform specific tasks are good. Corporations with equal rights as individuals are bad. Like Frankenstein's monster, corporations have turned on those they were built to serve. How have they turned on us? Corporations make up the largest single block of money funding lobbyists and politicians. It is well-documented that the politician who spends the most money is most likely to get elected.
So, figure it out. Corporations and individuals representing corporations contribute the most money to political campaigns. And they don't do it simply because they want a particular candidate to win: they do it so that their particular candidate will win, and owe them a favor.
See this [political-reform.net] for more information. There's a lot more out there, too. Corporations in their current form are not the pinnacle of civilisation; they are a threat to democracy and liberty. Until we have divested them of their current legal status as protected individuals, and returned them to their former status as chartered entities, corporations, by their actions, tend to be evil.
(No, not all corporations are evil. But many tend to evil, such as those self-same airplane manufacturers, Starbucks, the pharmacuetical companies, the oil companies, and Wal*Mart.)
"NO" to ratification (Score:1, Insightful)
Bring back the website shutdowns, but do it for real this time. No backdoor access, no link that can be clicked. If the European Consitution is ratified in all countries, the future of software will look like this.
Someone should take the Denmark representative's job, by the way. His national parliament required him to move the item to a "B" item, which he is required to do, and he did not do it.
Re:it's time to become (more)anonymous (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Implications for a European believer in democra (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, only vote yes for the consitution if you think this is the way the EU needs to be governed for the next couple of centuries. If you need more to feel happy with the EU, vote no. I guess.
Sad day indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me just say that those of you that think that the fact this only means that the directive is now sent to parliament is any consolation... Think again!
They are NOT going to back down just because a couple of thousand geeks want them to.
The problem is, even if the open source development takes a dive into the underground, and software gets developed without a license and hosted on obscure ftp servers or encrypted BitTorrents, what will it really matter.
If developers can't create and sell their software or services without having to spend thousands of euros every month to check whether there are any prior patents, any independent development is dead in the water.
And sadly just when it started to get interesting (not a coincidence)...
Personally I gave up developing independently, commercially a few years ago. I'm now developing in house applications for a large industrial cooperation. I wonder how the in house development is going to be governed. We hardly buy any software; everything is developed by a team of developers. I don't see it happening that we will pay for the right to create our own 'clickable command buttons' and other bizarre patents.
Hell, we'd probably need to start by patenting all the stuff we made already, not to sell or license it, but just to protect ourselves from other guys who probably thought of the same stuff.
When will people learn that there is no reason why 10 or 100 or 1000 people couldn't come up with the exact same idea at the same time?
It's just so ridiculous.
Re:Implications for a European believer in democra (Score:3, Insightful)
Also constitutions are not set in stone, they can be changed. For example, the German constitution was last changed in summer 2002 (animal protection was added as a 'state goal' to the constitution). Unlike 'normal' laws, however, it takes more to be able to change it - in Germany, a 2/3 majority in both chambers is required. I don't know what is necessary to change the EU constitution, and no doubt it will be more difficult than for other regulations. But it surely is not like we are stuck with it for the next centuries...
Re:It's Not Oer Yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not the end of the world...yet. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only have the council ignored the parliament, and broken their own rules in the process, they've got the directive to the point where only a 2/3rds majority of all members states can prevent it becoming law (which isn't going to happen short of a miracle). No restart happens unless the parliament rejects it.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
Any fixing of the system should also remove any economic incentive to grant or deny patents.
Re:it's time to become (more)anonymous (Score:1, Insightful)
As I am reading this from both sides of the pond, it seems the best thing to do is live like a cockroach for a few years and bail to South America. In short, outsource yourself.
Seriously. If you can't continue R&D in your native land, why fight the inertia of the 800lb gorilla? Move someplace that won't lockdown your mind. Watch as Brazil becomes an emerging powerhouse of ideas.
I refuse to go to jail to befret some conglomerate. Let them take the 30-year mortgage to oblivion. My curiosity is mine.
Condolences: (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently, the 'blood of patriots' is worth something less than a hundred dollars on the open markent, and with your spare change you can purchase the integrity and immortal souls of every member of congress. The war is over, and we, the 'have-nots', have been roundly defeated.
However, all is not lost. In order to prevent any sort of cohesive resistance, the powers that be have elected to maintain a plentiful supply of beer at reasonable prices, and insure that you can get 200 channels of daytime television for a reasonable monthly fee. Sit back, watch another MASH re-run, and have a cold one mate. Cheers!