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."
Re:The only exception... (Score:5, Interesting)
Slide to unlock? That's a physical component that's existed for a long time.
Maybe skeuomorphics will come back into style because of this.
Re:The only exception... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The only exception... (Score:4, Interesting)
4. to restrict patent law protection to software supportable teachings in which the co mputer program serves merely as a replaceable equivalent for a mechanical or electro - mechanical component, as is the case, for instance, when software - based washing machine controls can replace an electro - mechanical program control unit consisting of revol ving cylinders which activate the control circuits for the specific steps of the wash cycle;
Maybe it is lost in translation, but I think they would have to rule out mechanical and electro-mechanical computers from eligibility as the component. If they don't, everyone would claim their spreadsheet program is replacing a spreadsheet run on a Babbage machine. Might spur development of some pretty cool Colossus type computers though - that way the patent writers could point to an existing electro mechanical component.
Re:Better Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Most software in the world is designed by companies seeking to make profit from selling this software. Software, as with any information, does not naturally support scarcity. Without scarcity value of any resource goes down to zero. As such, offering new software will not be profitable.
Now companies are not going to engage in non-profitable activities, so they will shift focus from producing software to some other activity revolving around software. There are multiple monetization methods available to open source software - they are service, customization, and deployment for compensation and in-software advertising. Aside from advertising, these do no apply to consumer-grade off-the-shelf software as it exists today.
So by advocating "open source everywhere" you are advocating one of the following: a) ad-ware b) end of user-friendly installation and patching, so it can be sold as as service.
Open source software is a hammer, it has plenty of good uses, but not everything is a nail.
Re:Self-Defeating Legislation (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay. You can have the right to patent anything you like so long as it only applies to things that you (or someone else) makes an actual, physical circuit to do.
So all those people running software on general purpose processors are not hindered in one bit and can replicate your methods (note: not necessarily your exact work) to their heart's content.
That's basically the situation specified and if you can't see how that differs from, say, someone patenting some obscure part of MPEG decompression and suing, say, VideoLAN for it, then you probably shouldn't be a patent lawyer.
Yes, all computer programs are Turing-compatible (if you like) and you can implement a computer using wooden blocks that modify a flow of water if you really wanted to - it's not hard. But the fact is that your patent shouldn't cover such a general range of specified equipment that nobody can ever use your technique on a general purpose computer.
What you've found isn't a "loophole", it's exactly the narrowing that someone has deliberately introduced. Patent holders will now be able to patent "an electrical circuit that does X" (maybe, possibly, if they jump through lots of hoops and nobody ever discovers their PUBLISHED patent and reimplements it somehow else) but not "any program on a general purpose computer that does X".
It's the right fix. It allows someone to invent, say, ABS and protect that invention. But it prevents someone from "inventing", say, a way to compress files by looking for common strings and building an index. Sure, you can make a computer that does the same as the circuit part of the ABS system, but you CAN'T make it actually control an ABS system without hitting the patent.