EuroLinux Calls For Papers In Patent Fight

Bonnie Greene writes: "Michelle Head of LinuxNews.com discusses how EuroLinux is fighting software patents in Europe, a topic now officially under investigation by the European Commission. Got a report or position paper on the evils of software patents? EuroLinux wants to publish it in hopes of influencing the EC."

some more facts

[arnim]

some facts are missing or not quite right:

- the reason for collecting the opinions is the conference on 20.-29. november this year, where the european patent offices will make their proposal for changing the european patent treaty. at the moment they want to change article 52 in a way to allow software patents. [european-p...office.org]

- the petition [eurolinux.org] has already 52.000 signatures (pls sign if You haven't done it yet. it hasn't been mentioned on slashdot ever, even i submitted it several times)

- eurolinux is not just against a software patent system similar to the US, but against any patents on software and algorithms.

The /. profiler did it again

[YellowSubRoutine]

the evil slashdot profiler has been building a profile of every /.er in the past few months, by analyzing the results of the strange polls, and by colleding the "score 0" messages And now he has launched a topic the average /.er has no sensefull reply on... Or has a group of crazy ppl amused themselves with polluting this serious topic? ow, and btw: software patents are bad, just like patents on breathing and getting addicted to internet.

Re:The /. profiler did it again

[YellowSubRoutine]

of course, I forgot to select "plain old text", destroing my formatting... excuses

DEMYC (and YEPP?) opposes software patents

[villoks]

The following resolution was adapted in the Democrat Youth Community of Europe and will hopefully be adapted also in Youth of the European People's Party (they have a meeting in here Helsinki this weekend). Please feel free to use it to put pressure on your local (center-to-right) parties. The member organisations of can be found from www.demyc.org and www.yepp.org.

Greets
Ville

Resolution on Computer Software Patents

Unanimously adopted by the 85th Demyc Executive Committee in Cyprus

1) Noting that European Patent Office is planning to remove computer programs from the list of the things which can not be patented of in its next conference in end of November

2) Further noting the still existing great amount of unsolved problems in software patents like:
* Abstract-logical nature of software, which is in conflict with the patent system's requirement for concreteness and physical substance

* Inefficient long period of protection (20 years)

* The lack of IT-expertise among the patent inspectors which would lead too wide patent claims to be accepted as has happened in the United States

* The problem of anti-competitiveness; US software patents, if easily transferable to EU, could substantially narrow competition in the European Union, give dominant position to US corporations and have negative influence among European IT start-ups

* The negative effect of patents to the Interoperability of computer programs

3) Taking into consideration the strong opposition among small and medium size companies towards software patents in Europe

4) Having in mind the enormous economic importance of computer software industry and its need for effective protection for its investments

5) DEMYC calls upon European political parties and the European Commission (DG XV) to take immediate actions to delay all development on software patents until the problems are correctly addressed
6) DEMYC further calls for taking actions to strengthen the European software industry by improving the regulatory framework on combating software piracy

My DeCSS archive:

Old news...

[drnomad]

is that a dutch European commisioner wants reconsideration of these Euro patent policies, because it would undermine the Open Source community.

Open Source gets increasing support within the Euro-government's organizations, patents would debunk this.

Unfortunately these articles were never translated to English.

Can you imagine? Linux, non-American-ware, being undermined by stupid laws? Would it be possible to patent stuff, making Apache obsolete (hay, those patent laws don't have to be identical to US patent laws... even in Europe, we can do some stupid things)

The shortest paper we need...

[Noryungi]

Is this:

"Microsoft uses software patents to maintain its monopoly". 'Nuff said.

Nevertheless, I'd like to contribute a few words of my own.

A Good Perspective

[AnUnnamedSource]

A good article where the author is relatively objective, but finds good ground to question patents as well as copyrights on software, is "The Evitability of Software Patents" by W. Neville Holmes in the March 2000 issue of Computer (published by the IEEE Computer Society).

Coming from such a mainstream publication, I would think it should carry a lot of weight.

-- "On second thought, let's not go there. 'Tis a silly place."

The case of Russian Law

[Ektanoor]

In Russian law it is specifically forbidden to patent patents or even chip designs. These products are considered mostly at the same level as productions of Art( :) ) and are consequently covered by the local copyright laws. Besides, today, these laws talk particularly about software and computer designs. Other acts, such as Penal Codex possesses a specific part concerning software and computer designs. In any case, the whole Body of Law in Russia considers our little wonderful world much the same as Art. Hope this stays for long.

PS: Are you now proud of being considred a Picasso?

Javascript

[evvk]

Yet another lame hit-your-head-in-the-wall -with-javascript-or-use-the-source page. Why is it so damn hard to support all browsers and not use javascript? Although I am against patents, I almost hope javascript was patented and huge fees charged for its use..

Re:The case of Russian Law

[Ektanoor]

Sorry for the patent patents. I meant software.

Want to shed the Yoke of American Imperialism?

[FreeUser]

If you want to get out from under the yoke of American imperialism, one of the best thing you (and the rest of the world) can do is "just say NO" to intellectual property laws and software patents in particular.

There is a reason the US Patent office is granting every software patent under the sun. That reason is to give American software companies an advantage (perhaps an unassailable one), enforced by a government mandated monopoly. Just the sort of solution Washington would come up with to fend of increasing competition from abroad ... for the cure (software patents) is far worse than the illness (foreign competition). The very patents which will supposedly protect (unfairly IMHO) American corporate interests are the very same patents that can and will be used to kill some of the most promising new products (such as Linux or FreeBSD).

Think about this. If the EU ratifies the notion of software patents, then they will have to honor all of the patents granted by the USPTO, including the plethora of stupid and obvious patents that make developing just about any non-trivial program a violation of somebody's IP somewhere.

It would be nice if the US would dismantle its patent system (at least for software, preferably for everything), but since that isn't likely the best we can hope for is that the rest of the world is intelligent enough to stand up to us. Then at least the (software) technology can continue to move forward at an exponential pace somewhere, even if it is only outside of our own borders. Hopefully then the competition from abroad will force our misguided powermongers to rethink their position in this country, in a decade or two.

It's about bloody time...

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

... that something being done about these patent fights be mentioned here, we've been pumped with story after story of 'x has patented this' and 'y has applied for a patent for this' but we don't hear about the fight. We need to fight all these dumbass patents, and I think that one of the first that needs to be attacked is that @%#^ one that Digital Convergence is licensing from their co-conspirator (whose corporate name eludes me at the moment). Why can someone patent scanning something off a piece of paper and using that to look something up on the Internet? we've had barcode readers for a very long time, and they are in almost EVERY library, and these libraries are using internet browers to reference the numbers...

Pardon the ranty nature of that, I haven't had my coffee

Just a thought...

[Ektanoor]

People does anyone have contacts with someone in Amazonia or some very_lost_place? Well this is not bashing anyone. Sincerly I respect and understand those that may live in such places but I just got a Damn Idea...

What is our environment? Engeneering or Art? Well let's ask someone who never had seen a computer, What He Sees on the screen. Did you get my idea? All of us live under a world of windows, buttons, menus, pictures, links and a lot of other stuff. Now How this would look like to someone else? A Picasso picture? Salvador Dali is a schoolboy? Kazcinsky never reached the top?

Yeah most of us would think: "he will think, a mess". But in fact what he woulf think about this?

On the other side. Do you remeber that one of the "click"? The patent that claims clicks in links. What about if I use a keyboard, a pen, a touchscreen or voice?

A matter of human rights.

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a time when society believed the earth was flat and by this society was limited to errors of this belief. Today, with an industry still younger than many people subjected to it, there is this belief again that is in great errors. These errors, of course, prevent a great deal in the way of advancement. There are over 3000 programming languages having come into existance in a short time comparied to far fewer human documented languages in the known history of man. What is happening is another tower of babel, this one digital, but out of it will come a breakdown of the binary mentality of those who have and those who have not.

The tool of computers, the tool of abstraction manipulation is not for just those who can slap some man fabricated concept on and then tell others they "CANNOT" use it.

To remove the errors of this flat digital world, is to expose the reality of abstraction manipulation mechanics and point out that applying these mechanics thru computers is in fact a natural human right. Otherwise a valid and reasonable option must be provided for those who do not want to be subjected to the elitist who impose such computer machinery upon the rest of us.

The needed exposure is here:

A response to a USPTO RFC regarding Prior Art. [mindspring.com]

Good initiative

[apol]

Some time ago I realised that even if I were close friend of many European governors and of many important journal editorilists I would not know what to send them... I have never seen an article with enough good arguments for this case, explained to someone who is not a computer expert. In particular I would like to see a document which do not mix this case with the case for free software. Do you?

Take actions also in your own country!

[villoks]

We are at the moment making an active campaing against SW-patents in Finland and from the experiences we have had, following conclusion can be made:

A) Political parties (expecially MPs) don't know anything about the topic. On the other hand it's quite easy to explain them why SW-patents are bad for Europe. After that it's possible to ask them to take actions in this matter

B) Civil servants are the persons who normally make the decisions in this field. They are normally very strongly in favor of widening patent system (more money to their budjec sector)

C) Media doesn't understand the question, but if right "hitwords" are used, it's actually quite easy to get them write about the topic. An "objective" article is always better than an opinion letter.

The most important thing anyway is that DO SOMETHING. Write. Call to a MP or parlamentary groups' secreteriats. Offer a bier to a journalist. After the European Patent Organisation makes its decision in the end of November, it's too late! We need just 5 European countries to oppose the chance in EPO in order to prevent it. And if EPC isn't changed, EU commission won't most likely try to harmonize the law..

Greets
Ville Oksanen

PS. If anyone from Finland wants to know what can/should be done here (Finland haven't decided yet what's its offical position), please contact me! (v%oksanen.net)

My DeCSS archive:

EuroLinux

[Neo Minder]

I'd just like to say that those people working on the EuroLinux team are doing a great job. I've meet a few of them, and they're fighting hard and coding even harder.