German Parliament Tells Government To Strictly Limit Patents On Software 75
jrepin writes "On Friday the 7th of June the German Parliament decided upon a joint motion to limit software patents. The Parliament urges the German Government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer programs (PDF, German; English translation). Software should exclusively be covered by copyright, and the rights of the copyright holders should not be devalued by third parties' software patents. The only exception where patents should be allowed are computer programs which replace a mechanical or electromagnetic component. In addition the Parliament made clear that governmental actions related to patents must never interfere with the legality of distributing Free Software."
Patents for software will expand... (Score:5, Informative)
... like copyright did. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg [wikipedia.org]
radio transceivers? Re:The only exception... (Score:5, Informative)
computer programs which replace a mechanical or electromagnetic component
What would be realistic examples of this?
software based radio? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio [wikipedia.org]
Excerpt:
A software-defined radio system, or SDR, is a radio communication system where components that have been typically implemented in hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system.[1] While the concept of SDR is not new, the rapidly evolving capabilities of digital electronics render practical many processes which used to be only theoretically possible.
A basic SDR system may consist of a personal computer equipped with a sound card, or other analog-to-digital converter, preceded by some form of RF front end. Significant amounts of signal processing are handed over to the general-purpose processor, rather than being done in special-purpose hardware. Such a design produces a radio which can receive and transmit widely different radio protocols (sometimes referred to as waveforms) based solely on the software used.
Software radios have significant utility for the military and cell phone services, both of which must serve a wide variety of changing radio protocols in real time.
Re:Patents for software will expand... (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes, a little ahead since it's US trade policy to push these laws onto their partners before they adopt the laws themselves, under the guise of coming in line with the rest of the world.
Other countries aren't pushing for more patents in software, but the US has been pushing them (and DRM, and ridiculous copyright extensions) on everyone else for years now.
Re:Better Idea (Score:1, Informative)
That's not true.
Unless you mean "most copies of software" instead of "most of the different programs".
Does your local grocery chain try to sell their logistics and backup scripts? No, didn't think so. Thanks for playing, try again...
More info on my wiki (Score:5, Informative)
I've been documenting this and have all the background here:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/German_parliament_petition_against_software_patents [swpat.org]
Re:Copyright seems better than Patent. (Score:2, Informative)
You don't patent ideas, you patent implemenations of an idea to perform a useful function.
You don't patent math, you patent uses of math to perform a useful function.
The mods who modded this up are morons who don't actually know anything about patents, but will happily parrot any idiotic thing they see on the interwebs if it happens to line up with their own idiotic thinking.
Re:Copyright seems better than Patent. (Score:3, Informative)
Bullshit! Why do you think even "software patents" are still forced to say "A device and method..." in front of it? Read the actual laws!
Patents are, have been, and always will be about a specific implementation!
Fact is that a shockingly small industry came up with several methods to do work once (come up with a device, algorithm, song, etc), but trick us into giving them real money every time, while they only give us a copy of the results of that work. Even though our money took real work *every* time, to be made, while making copies taken absolutely zero work. And even though it it literally physically impossible for them to prevent us from making those copies ourselves, because the whole act of perceiving that something even exists entails making at least one copy into a storage (e.g. our brain) whose copying behavior cannot be controlled without destroying all freedom and privacy.
Those people, which as now should be clear, factually are legalized organized crime stealing your money, also flooded the media with deliberate lies about those very facts. Something for which our human brains have a weakness: They start to believe everything if it's repeated often enough. Yes, also those who think they can't be manipulated. Even me. Even you. All it takes is to have a neural net as a brain. (In fact I can even reproduce it on simulated neural nets and other association engines.)
I don't blame you (because that would be insane), but damn, keep your eyes open! Spreading that kind of disinformation is hurting us all. And I want to think of you as a good person.
Re:Copyright seems better than Patent. (Score:4, Informative)
A big part of the copyright problem is that copyright is now functionally a forever monopoly. Nothing entered the US public domain this last year.
idea vs. implementation... does it matter? (Score:4, Informative)
You don't patent ideas, you patent implemenations of an idea to perform a useful function.
You don't patent math, you patent uses of math to perform a useful function.
I think I see what you're driving at, but does it matter?
Example: Consider Amazon's One Click patent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click [wikipedia.org] excerpts below ).
So... Amazon patented an implementation instead of the idea of One Click.
If that matters, help me understand why Apple licensed that patent (Wiki excerpt 2,below) instead of just creating their own implementation?
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Wiki Excerpt 1:
1-Click, also called one-click or one-click buying, is the technique of allowing customers to make online purchases with a single click, with the payment information needed to complete the purchase already entered by the user previously. More particularly, it allows an online shopper using an internet marketplace to purchase an item without having to use shopping cart software. Instead of manually inputting billing and shipping information for a purchase, a user can use one-click buying to use a predefined address and credit card number to purchase one or more items.
Wiki Excerpt 2:
Amazon.com in 2000 licensed 1-Click ordering to Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) for use on its online store. Apple subsequently added 1-Click ordering to the iTunes Store and iPhoto.
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The mods who modded this up are morons who don't actually know anything about patents, but will happily parrot any idiotic thing they see on the interwebs if it happens to line up with their own idiotic thinking.
So... are you saying all is well in the Land of Patents then? Perhaps for the lawyers & trolls.
To my simple mind, it seems like a lot of headaches just go away if our society copyrighted software instead of trying to patent it.
This runs against EU plans (Score:3, Informative)
An European convention from 1974 says software are not patentable. Member states included that in their laws. Many software patents have been granted anyway, but they cannot stand in court.
The EU commission tried to pass a directive to make software patent legal, but it has been defeated in European parliament (a quite rare event). EU commission now plan to make the European Patent Office the juridiction for patent cases, instead of regular courts. That way software patent would still be illegal, but the EPO would rule as if they were.
German parliament stance runs against that plan. But since 2008, we now the real masters in Europe are the German parliament and the German constitutional court. We can therefore trust them to prevail. If they managed to impose a suicidal economic policy for the whole continent, I guess they can impose something on the much more frivolous patent front.