EU Closer To Rejecting Software Patents 213
niekko writes "BusinessWeek is reporting on the hot subject of European software patent directive. 'The European Parliament moved Tuesday toward rejecting a proposed law creating a single way of patenting software across the European Union, officials said -- a move that would effectively kill the legislation since lawmakers do not plan to set forth a new version.'"
More details (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More details (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Haven' t we heard this before? (Score:5, Informative)
A more likely eventual route to "harmonisation" allowing software patents could be through decisions of a proposed Community-wide Patent Court, if the EU ever manages to agree to set the thing up.
The CPC has been a long-standing goal of the EU system for a long time.
Re:Killing this directive is dangerous. (Score:3, Informative)
The combined citizenship of the EU is barely able to stave off the CIID. Once the sponsors of the legislation work behind the scenes on individual governments, we'll have no hope.
* possibly making an ASS out of U and ME here
Re:adios corporate america (Score:1, Informative)
Re:If only... (Score:2, Informative)
Taken from Groklaw:
The amendments FFII view as most important are the amendments to Articles 3, 4.1, 4.2, 5.2 and 6a. By the way, FFII says that MEPS are apparently no longer reading email about the directive. You can only reach them in Strasbourg by phone or fax.
Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
Failing that we want a rejection of course...
Re:Good luck to all you Europeans... (Score:1, Informative)
Yes.... you don't understand the laws so you misinterpret them.
First, look up the basic definitions like those found at Merriam Webster [m-w.com] or Dictionary.
Patents, by definition, give the patent holder a limited monopoly (for a given period of time) on making, selling, or using the thing that he has a patent on.
They aren't supposed to be given for things that are "obvious" or are already known or common practice. For example, I couldn't patent the PB&J sandwich because of prior art (they've been made by pretty much everyone for a long time. Likewise, something "easy and stupid" shouldn't be patentable.
The knee-jerk reaction that most people think is that "patents make me not able to do something that Microsoft has patented". What they seldom think is "my patent keeps Microsoft from running away with my ideas and leaving me out in the cold with nothing for my efforts". The former is basically the bottom-feeders' arguments. Someone has come up with something, the bottom-feeder wants to be able to take someone else's ideas and do it as well and, perhaps, gain by it. They then claim it "stifles invention". It wasn't their idea in the first place and yet they want to benefit from it (by simple use or even financially).
Take the company I currently work for. The owner had an idea and patented it himself. He then created a small business to realize his ideas. The patent is protecting his ideas for himself to benefit from. Without a patent, as soon as he published the idea in any form, anyone would be able to take the ideas and incorporate them into their own products (particularly a large company like Microsoft who could throw 100s of times the money at the problem) and leave him without any compensation for his original ideas.
What you read on Slashdot is, more often than not, the opinion of people who have no patents and who have never had any exposure to patents other than from the bottom-feeder perspective. Such people see ideas that some company has in their products that they want to duplicate for their OSS project and claim that patents are evil because they can't take those ideas and give them out freely (which could deprive the original owner of benefit from his ideas). Basically, like many they want the benefits for free... including not having the cost of having to think of something themselves.
Patents are not a bad thing unless they are abused. The US Patent Office has made some mistakes in the past but they seem to be ready to clean up any problems they make, when informed of the mistake. Also, the term of patents is too long for software patents simply because of the nature of software. If software patents were granted for, say, 3 years instead of the 17 years as they are now, then there would probably be less issue.
Beware of assuming that anyone (including myself) who posts on slashdot knows anything about what they are talking about. Look up things for yourself and understand the issues instead of just taking any random
don't be confused (Score:2, Informative)
this is not the end of sw patents in europe, it's just a continuation of business as normal...
sum.zero
Re:Killing this directive is dangerous. (Score:4, Informative)
I have highlighted the outright lies with italics:
Remember, the words "technical contribution" are lawyerly weasel-words that allow an otherwise invalid patent to be approved.
I believe that claims that the consultation was wide-ranging and balanced have been debunked elsewhere. It was done with about the same fairness as the survey the Home Office put out, that shows that most people are in favour of ID cards.
The page goes on in this way; further analysis can be found here [ffii.org], here [ffii.org], and here [google.com].
I will believe it when I see it (Score:1, Informative)
I will believe the rejection of the directive when I see it - not a single moment before.
Re:Haven' t we heard this before? (Score:2, Informative)
However, the EU commission promised through a letter today that they would comply entirely with the Parliament, that is, if the Parliament ammends the directive, they would accept the ammendments, and if the directive was to be rejected, they wouldn't touch the issue anymore.
Maybe they're afraid of ending up in the same way the EU council did: being accused of treason...
Tonnerre
Re:Is this a good or a bad thing? (Score:2, Informative)
Tonnerre
Cross finger (Score:1, Informative)
I just want to do what I like to do in peace. I don't have the resources to fight anything in the tribunals.
I hope that the big guy will not win. Please !!!!
It was rejected! (Score:3, Informative)
And the actual vote was.... (Score:2, Informative)
``We buried a bad law and did so without flowers,'' Eva Lichtenberger, a member of the parliament from Austria's Green party, told reporters.