European Software Patents Not Dead Yet 331
Ensign Nemo writes "Software patents in Europe still being pushed.
They're at it again and they're not waisting any time. Even though opposition is there the backers of software patents are getting sneakier and sneakier." Poland, if you help us out again, I pledge to never, ever forget you.
Oops. (Score:2, Funny)
Would you say they're throwing there weight around?
Re:Oops. (Score:2)
Should I.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Should I.... (Score:2)
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he wil
Re:Should I.... (Score:2)
Right. Just a flesh wound.
Re:Should I.... (Score:2)
Given the popularity of Monty Python among Geeks and the slashdot crowd, and its impact on tech culture (including the word spam) do I really need to give refernece to the seen?
Ok, if anyone doesn't know what the scene is, reply here and I will post a more detailed reference....
Re:Should I.... (Score:2)
Re: Should I.... (Score:2)
Stay tuned (Score:5, Informative)
That the matter would be settled for good next Monday, Luxembourgs Economics Minister Jeannot Krecke for one announced at a meeting of the European Parliament's Legal Committee this Wednesday.
Hmm.. Guess we'll get yet ANOTHER Slashdot story on Monday - if Ms. Krecke is correct in her prediction. Oh well, this is a matter of importance and I suppose as many news stories/comments as we can read, the better informed we'll all be on the subject!
I'm still waiting... (Score:2, Funny)
In Europe, Only Old People Support Software Patent (Score:2, Funny)
Is it true?
Déjà vu in Brussels (Score:4, Interesting)
Waisting time? (Score:2)
no duh (Score:3, Insightful)
The Ministers of what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that a bit like asking the Minister of Defence if they think the tax system should be revised? Or asking the Minister for Education what his thoughts are on creating a new highway?
I'm beginning to see why so many Europeans don't take the EU seriously.
Re:The Ministers of what? (Score:2, Interesting)
And many Europeans are always pissed on the Council and their undemocratic methods (they are not directly elected, but they have lawmaking power).
The thing is that ppl are complaining on the Council and the lack of democracy in the EU and at the same time, the same ppl are crying out loud on every attempt to move power from the Council to the Parlament (they are basically afraid of the superstate of E
Re:The Ministers of what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides that, they have absolutely no business discussing, let alone deciding, on the software patents issue. They have absolutely no knowledge or understanding of the subject matter.
Re:The Ministers of what? (Score:2, Informative)
In the EU council this procedure seems to be called A-list agendas. Things on the A-list agenda is supposed to be agreed upon beforehand and should be possible to go to vote on without any discussion.
OTOH I just might be smoking crack and pulling all o
Re:The Ministers of what? (Score:2)
there is only one way to stop this nonsense (Score:2)
It would be in place in a week.
Re:there is only one way to stop this nonsense (Score:2)
As an Australian, I wish. Unfortunately, American products, particularly wheat, will continue to unfairly take markets due to the massive subsidies that will continue in one guise or another.
Reminds me of a joke (Score:2, Funny)
A: A simple majority.
Wait. That's not funny.
Take 5 minutes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let them know that software patents are important enough to deserve a proper discussion in the parliament. Add why *you* think they are important (and wrong).
For the Belgians and the Dutch: http://www.softwarepatenten.be/landbouwraad [softwarepatenten.be].
For the rest of us: http://ffii.org/ [ffii.org].
Please, take this 5 minutes, it's worth it.
Chris.
The EU is shooting its own foot (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a solid argument for the MEPs. Something they can understand.
Im all for copyright legislation because it protects Open Source aswell as commercial endeavours - that is very important, but patents on software algorithm and ideas should not be possible, next thing you know someone is patenting pi - or atleast the first five decimals
Re:The EU is shooting its own foot (Score:2)
The vote went against patents in the European Parliament but despite that, thanks to ample pressure from big, largely US based, business interests, the European council of ministers seems determined to force the legislation through.
This is one of the reasons that it's actually had some level of mainstream media coverage, because i
It's like a spoiled brat asking again and again... (Score:4, Insightful)
GJC
Some MEPs seem clued up... (Score:3, Informative)
"The Labour MEPs' position is reflected in the amendments we tabled and voted for in the Parliament's report on the Commission proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. In short, the position remains:
. No US-style patenting of software.
. Software as such, must not be patented. No patenting of business methods or "general ideas"
. Opensource software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive does not have any adverse effect on opensource software and small software developers.
. Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies."
I'm not sure what they intend to do about this latest news. Email/snailmail all takes so-o-o-o long and I wonder whether it's just assistants sending stock replies...
In Germany... (Score:3, Informative)
Sadly, the parliaments "delegate" to this EU meeting (Federal Minister of Agriculture) Renate Künast has gone into a "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" mode, so demands that she stands up against the EU directive will probably fall on deaf ears.
EPO rulez!!! (Score:4, Informative)
With this sort of arrogant crap we constantly suffer from the Commission, is it any wonder that even if this item is thrown out, we still might not win. The European Patent Office can still do its own thing. Don't believe me? The EPO is not bound by many of the laws or regulations that most of the citizens of Europe take for granted, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.
Some examples:
. The Employment Law offers the staff extremely limited protection. Staff can be dismissed almost at will by the President and have no claims to unemployment pay or other social security payments
. Basic legal rights are ignored. The President is the ultimate ruler of the EPO. He is judge, jury and executioner. His decisions on matters within the office are final. Any decision made by the President can be enacted immediately. There is no "stay of execution" pending the outcome of appeal hearings. Sanctions are arbitrary and harsh.
. Even criminal law is disregarded: In 1995 the then President of the EPO physically attacked and injured a staff member, the Administrative Council of the EPO subsequently refusing to lift the immunity of the President.
BBC radio doc on broken US patent system (Score:3, Informative)
EPO Technical FX... (Score:3, Informative)
The EPO further declares that the "arrangement or manner of representation", may as well constitute a patentable technical feature. And examples which are given include pulse code modulation or a measuring instrument which produces a particular form of graph for representing the measured information and a computer data structure. This means that according to the EPO's guidelines, the order of information in a data structure could be patented if accessing the data structure is claimed. Yes!! I claim Name and Address (and Address and Name, to be on the safe side)!
As the FFI points out:
The most frequently used rhetorical trick of the Council paper works as follows: [A] is not patentable, unless [condition B] is met. But, upon close scrutiny, it turns out that condition B is always met.
It gets worse.
The wording "normal physical interaction between a program and the computer" means about as much as "normal physical interaction between a recipe and the cook", that is: nothing. It is a magic formula whose usage can be inferred only from recent decisions of the EPO, in which it served to justify the granting of patents on geometrical calculation rules to IBM. In the present case, according to the EPO, the "further technical effect beyond
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
One only has to look at the rampant achievements and success of Free Software and Open So
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source software, and free software *depend* on copyright. Yes, depend on it. Without copyright, then anyone could take the code, including large corporations, and modify it for their own interest, and sell it without releasing the source code. Basically, it'd defeat the point of the difference between "free", and "Free".
Software shouldn't be *patented* because you're patenting an algorithm. And computer code is a completely logical process. It'd be very similar to patenting a mathematical formula. They're both *discovered*, not really *created*. It also creates a lot of problems in enforceability, and in large corporations being able to sue anyone they please. It's not only logically wrong, but also effectively wrong. It's similar, in a way, to the DMCA in that it gives bigger corporations the power to control everyone.
Very very few people argue against copyright when it comes to software. Free software people/open source people argue against patents alone.
oh, and trademark has nothing to do with the issue. Don't lump the three under the whole "intellectual property" umbrella. You'll almost always be wrong when you do. They have very little to do with each other.
Why not be pedantic? (Score:2, Interesting)
Valid point, however.... (Score:2)
Strictly limted ( 5/10 years or only as long as supported ) and no patents
That said, a valid view point would be to make all software free and open. If someone "steals" the code and modifies it so what. If there modified version is not better it would die on the vine.
Re:Valid point, however.... (Score:2)
Even this case is debatable, considering that many books go "out of print" within less than this time. Most books (,movies and music) make most of their sales within a fairly short time of their publication. One one thing which does tend to boost sales of old books is if the same author has published a new book. There's also a more fundermental issue of how much copyright, especially very long copyright, acts as an incentiv
Re:Valid point, however.... (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
RMS invented the GPL to hack the copyright. If copyrights were to be abolished RMS would be dancing in the streets.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Similarly, anyone could take the binaries this company would be selling and redistribute at will. They'd have the privilege of developing their version without anyone helping, of course but no exclusive distribution rights which might make selling proprietary so
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Which makes the constant stream of slashdot posters arguing against copyright for music, films, etc all the more gauling and hypocritical. Why should the result of my efforts be afforded special protection just because they happen to be code, rather than music?
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Informative)
So, tell me again why we should introduce this costly, bureaucratic and monopolistic process. Exactly how will it benifit the citizens of the EU? Will it give us new, innovative software? Will it give us more jobs (apart from all the patent lawyers, that is)?
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, but I believe you're confusing Europe with the US. Europe did find against Microsoft, and is only discussing software patents now because they already rejected the proposal the first time around.
Europe as a whole certainly has its flaws, but its government being absurdly pro-corporation is not normally one of them.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
EU is not for the benefit of corporations. EU allows for trade and business between and outside of member states. A cattle rancher in the UK could be hurt or assisted by trade regulation enforced by the EU with the United States. That cattle rancher is not a corporation, but an individual doing business within trade laws enforced by the EU that his/her country is a member there of.
It is a market, not a democracy.
Actually, i
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess this is one major difference that sets software apart from everything else: R&D cost. As far as I know, R
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're quite distinguishable. Suppose you have a patent on adding element A to B, wait a while and element C. Now suppose you have a patent on the software-implemented algorithm to add "A" and "B", wait a while and add
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
All too often, I hear someone say that their patent is, "in truth, fairly simple/straightforward." It's the R&D that goes into perfecting a particular implementation.
Patents are generally formatted by first listing the simplest overview of the process, then progressively adding detail until the most intimate details are listed.
Without any patents, everything would become "trade secrets," and, in a different culture, releasing trade secrets to the public or steali
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This effectively makes it very hard for small and independent software developers to exist as they don't have the money to get a patent. Don't have the money to protect against lawsuits for unjustified patents (it takes a lot of money to get a patent overturned). And finally, if they some way get a patent, they can't afford to protect it.
Furthermore a problem w
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the problem, software is easy. It is trivially easy such that a teenager can master the most advanced of techniques. The only
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
In perfect world this wouldn't happen and therefore software patents should be possible. But in the real world, where companies try to patent anything that they can, patent offices are not able to investigate wich patents are too general to be allowed. This is why you get patens for one-click, double-click, scrollbar...
Other industries have existed long before patenting and on those industries most of the common tools and technigues have been availeble for everybody to innovate. When it has gotten more complex, then came the patents. But with more complex structures you need more R&D or something really innovative to prevent anybody else of doing something basic stuff.
software industry is just too young and evolving to be limited with patents.
Not being allowed to exactly duplicate someone else's work will encourage people to try alternate solutions, or experiment with variables.
Or just forget their ideas, because they have not enough resources to find out what parts of their innovation has been already been patented. Why risking everything, when you can join the big company and work there as they have allways done.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, yes, the old "don't let them look up logarithms in a table" trick.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
But it's true! Your used to be allowed to request a copy of Eton tables in math exams, and be provided with one. The last time I asked a proctor for a copy they just looked at me completely blankly as if they'd never heard of it.
Jedidiah.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright and patents were intended to encourage people to make stuff that otherwise wouldn't be done. When people and organizations are willing to create an entire operating system and a collection of thousands of programs (GNU/Linux and the thousands of associated programs), the basic premise of copyright and patents is nullified.
If people will create without incentive, there is no reason to impose needless costs on both consumers and creators by strangling the public domain with laws like copyright. If Microsoft refuses to develop Windows because it no longer has any copyrights, then Linux is there as a replacement, and it will become 10x what Windows ever was or Linux is today once it becomes unshackled from copyright and patent issues and has the customer base of MS Windows today.
And that is assuming that no grants are given to fund open source development. The Chinese government, among others, has shown that they are willing to fund open source work. A small amount of federal funds would replace a massive amount spent in retail software licenses.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Some would say that the incentive is in seeing others improve upon your work and give those improvements back to the community; enforcement of this relies on copright law.
If Microsoft refuses to develop Windows because it no longer has any copyrights, then Linux is there as a replacement, and it will become 10x what Windows ever was or Linux is today once it becomes unshackled from copyright and patent issues and has the customer base of MS Windows today.
How so?
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a creator, but I'm concerned that operating in a legal minefield of vague, overlapping and bogus patents will destroy my ability to make money.
Copyrights are a reasonable match for software, and that's all the protection it needs. Software is too maleable to support well-defined patent claims. Software doesn't need copyrights and patents. Other kinds of products don't get double IP coverage; why should software?
I'd rather take my chances that some someone duplicates the functionality of my products and competes in the marketplace than risk having some jackass submarine patent-holder pop out of the woodwork demanding cash out of my bank account.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
They sometimes do. You can patent a particular way of producing something, and explain this way in a book. This book will be protected by copyright.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
by taking away the ability to patent
No one is taking away the ability to patent. This is about restricting patents to inventions, which I addressed in another post.
Programmers are authors. They are protected by copyright. By not expanding patents so software those authors retain copyright and the incentives it provides.
As for your industry which "is being held back by software paten
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Unlike IBM perhaps?:
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Do you have more information on that? I never heard of it before. I dug around Google a bit, but can't find any quality information on it.
In particular, was it ever upheld by any court? And if so how high did it go? Just because the patent office issued a patent doesn't make it legally valid (not to mention whether it is rationally valid chuckle). As far as I'm aware the patent office issued a number of early software patents and the courts struck
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Also google for the words "Goetz" "Autoflow" "IBM". The Goetz/IBM story is full of hindsightful ironies - who would've guessed that IBM were the original "free" software advocates and anti-software patent activists
I don't think there's all that much around on the 'net on this subject and I certainly don't know about court case specifics but I'd very much like to get a deeper insight into IBM's early anti-swpat policy myself.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Hopefully some kind soul will jump in with more info. Even a simple confirmation whether any judge ever even laid eyes on it would be nice.
-
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
I don't live anywhere near Minnesota and maybe you don't either but if I did, I'd certainly be sticking my nose int
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Not true. There are patents applicable to software going back for decades.
Absolutely true, and I go into it in more detail in this post. [slashdot.org] Software patents were consistantly and properly thrown out until the 80's. They were only issued in signifigant numbers in the 90's. And not they are rarely enforced, and even when someone attempts to enforce one it is still to
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?
12:02 Restate my assumptions:
1. Mathematics is the language of nature.
2. Principals and ideas in mathematics are universal truths; hence they are discovered, not created.
3. Computer science is the straight forward application of discreet mathematics. Thus ideas and algorithms written in computers are not patentable.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Max
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
1. Novelty: You assume that novelty matters or novelty constitutes a right. But look at many areas where novelty or beeing the first does not matter.
Try to find out why you regard novelty as important.
Silly examples e.g.
"I was the first who sold sausages together with novels. My business plan. I went bankrupt. Now someone "stole" my idea and does the same. I bear the costs of the invention."
In the Software business you usually are infringing on a patent you never read. Your o
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Software patents create a disincentive for people to engage in economic activity by removing the possibility of generating a return on an investment.
One single piece of software can easily infringe on tens or hundreds of so-called 'software patents'. Each of those patent holders can do anything from taking the entire profit to denying the distribution of said software completely.
So, how would you feel about writing some new software you wanted to sell when you know that someone
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The motivation behind patents is not to reward people who innovate for the sake of patting them on the back, but to provide insentive for them to begin innovating in the first place, with the hopes that society will benefit from their creation after a small time period.
The reasoning behind patents is dubious in general - it presupposes that there would be less innovation were they not to exist (or even to exist in a more limited form). If history has taught us anything, it is that greed always finds a way to mask its ugly head and I'm sure that businesses would find a way to profit from their inventions even were patents not to exist. Being the first to market (and the name recognition that goes along with it) can be a very powerful ally indeed.
Secondly, it is not clear that the current time period for software patent expiration is anywhere near reasonable. In the fast-changing world of computers and information technology, even a year can be a long enough time period for software to become obsolete. How long do software patents last? 10 years? 17 years?
Then look at the patents that companies try to secure - one click ordering via amazon.com? If the patent on one-click ordering were even remotely influential on the companies decision to implement that feature, then I could perhaps see that a software patent may be useful in achieving its dubious purpose. But in this case, it is the ease of ordering - the desire to improve the customer's experience - from which the implementation gains its lure.
The above question strikes me as no more grounded than when a five year old gets into a fight with his sibling and says "stop copying me!". One person's being the first to have a particular idea does not in anyway entail his or her posession of that idea. So with this in mind, the question is: "If you create something really novel, even if it is in software, why *SHOULD* you be able to get a patent on it?"
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair, this was potentially something that patents were about: If a small company or lone inventor comes up with a stunning new product they potentially don't have the capital to get it to market. To get the capital they need to shop the invention around venture capitalists. Once they've made the idea somewhat public (in the shopping around phase) a large company with lots of resources could easily duplicate, produce, and market said invention before the inventor can manage to raise the capital and get production underway. In principal the patent would help alleviate this because the invention could be openly published, but there would still be a window of time for the inventor to raise funds and get his product to market before anyone else was allowed to join in.
Of course in this day and age of NDAs for everything, and the rate at which new products (particularly software) can be brought to market, this sort of concept just doesn't carry as much weight as it use to.
Jedidiah.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
A sibling post mentions the desire to have a "full and complete record" to allow the public to exploit inventions after they fall out of patent. This is true. Allow me to take a different tack and see if it helps explain things.
You do not have to patent an invention.
Let me stress that again: you do not have to patent an invention.
A patent is a disclosure of your invention and a description of its functioning, sufficient to make a working implementation - given the proper tools. If you give this out th
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've come up with many algorithms in the past that I've thought were novel... then found out someone thought of it and gave it a fancy name 50 years ago. I could have got a patent on it if I'd wanted - but I wouldn't have deserved it. I'm just not *that* good.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:5, Informative)
The purpose of patents is to allow the patent holder a limited monopoly on the invention while telling everyone how it's done.
Think of it as a solution to a problem for which one can, if the solution is truly clever, receive a government granted monopoly on the solution for a period of time.
What we have now is that any solution, no matter how obvious or trivial, is being granted the same monopoly protection as if it were really unique.
It's like giving a class a test in which the first person to solve the problem by some method gets an 'A' and the rest using the same method are given 'F's. The question is whether that problem is sufficiently difficult that the other students would have been able to arrive at the same solution without copying the solution of the first to solve the problem.
If the other students could have only solved the problem by copying that of the first, then the 'F's would be appropriate. But if the problem was such that every student satisfactorally solved the problem on his own, they should all receive 'A's.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Excellent explanation! Care to take a stab at a similarly clear one for trademark?
That one throws a lot of people.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
So the only question is: do software patents or copyrights "promote the progress of science and useful arts"? Anything else is irrelevent.
Max
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
It's the only legally valid method of doing things in this country. If you want a different method our canny ancestors provided you with the ability to AMEND the Constitution, an effort which you can spearhead at any time.
If you aren't up to it, then obviously the law isn't important enough to change. And I think the 'prob
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well to begin with, patents are an imposition on freedom. You give someone a temporary and artificial monopoly in order to gain benefit to society. You don't have to justify why not give them patents, you have to show why you should. The benefits (at least in theory) are thus:
1) Companies have a greater incentive to innovate and create new products.
2) Little guys don't get their inventions stolen.
Except that neither of these apply to software patents. Now, clearly, there's no shortage of innovation an
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
The issue here is changing the extent of the "something" that can qualify. If I create a novel equation, do I get a patent on it? If I create a novel sequence of thoughts, do I get a patent on it?
Pysical objects and physical processes may be inventions, may be patented.
As the US Supreme Court ruled in Parker v Flook, all algorithms/equaltions/calculations are to be considered to be familiar prior art for patent purposes. You cannot "invent" a new equation. The lower c
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
With software the likelihood of this happening increases dramatically. In my opinion that's wrong.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because that is not what usually happens. Software patents are used as weapons to destroy competition, not as protection for true innovation. If patent holders would limit themselves to only truly innovative, non-trivial solutions I doubt anyone would care. As it is we (anyone making a living in software) are under constant threat because someone might take out a patent on some completely t
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Please try and find another example - and preferably not one that is a direct assault on my freedom to study and communicate mathematics. As I have said before and elsew
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
I agree that the notion that some modes of thought are effectively illegal, especially when related to a field in which one striv
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Unfortunately I have lost the link, but there was an interview with an ex MSFT who has setup a company with the express purpose of dealing, and profiting only from leasing out a large stable of patents. Yes he intended to hire software engineers, but they were never to actually produce anything tangible - other than a stream of patents.
Their method of 'work' was to, perhaps once a week or month, throw the engineers into a room, t
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
If you create something really novel, even if it is a plot in a book, why *shouldn't* you be able to get a patent on it?
Can't you see how wonderful it would be if JRR Tolkien could be awarded a monopoly on writing about Dragons? Rowlings could get a monopoly on books with young wizards? Spielberg could patent films with dinosaurs? That would advance science and culture, wouldn't it? Why shou
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Because your program is already protected by copyright! Having both copyright & patent protection is double-dipping, IMO. You don't see Ford taking out copyrights on their trucks, and you don't see authors patenting books.
As far as I am concerned, software should either be protected by patents, or copyrights, but NOT both. And frankly I prefer copyrights.
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
There are many reasons, which others will have undoubtedly posted, but let me just give you one thought:
How is it possible to create comething novel in software without relying on the novelties thousands of other have created before?
Suppose you design a new compression algorithm. Do you really think that is possible without using many concepts which others have thought of before? If thes
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
Because software is such a specialised field that the patent office cannot distinguish between worthwhile and non-worthwhile patents.
Since the overall penalty to society for not allowing any software patents is less than the penalty for allowing the non-worthwhile patents, the only thing to do is to disallow them all.
If you could actually set up a competent software patent office who coul
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
And here's the key word. Patents are supposed to describe something new and 'non-obvious'. But 99.9999(9)% of patents on software are utterly trivial and even any half-witted developer routinely produces simple algorithms that are blindingly obvious:
x = 2;
y = 'z';
print 'Eh? if x is not z;
is the sort of thing that springs to mind. But ISNOT is being patented.
Hardly novel or non-obvious. It doesn't contribute to the sum of human wealth and economy in any arguably sensible way that I ca
Re:Not to be pedantic, but.. (Score:2)
2) Because I, as a programmer, do not want to be a lawyer as well.
3) Nor do I want to be forced to work for one of a very small number of companies, with enough patents to have cross-license agreements with each other.
4) Because no nation with software patents have ever been able to limit them to really novel and non-obvio
Re:dont think so (Score:4, Insightful)
Weapons create property. property is wealth. Weapons like all property create wealth. the more varieties of weapons in society the greater the wealth that can be created. the better off society as a whole becomes. you only need to look at the US versus poorer countries. it is the enforcement of others property rights that has created wide spread wealth.
Patents are for innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
A hardware idea simply re-implemented in software is not a new idea and not patentable.
A pure software algo is a mathematical discovery and not patentable. You cannot patent mathematics.
I think you misunderstood what the EU parliament did, the wording rules out pure data processing patents. It does not
Thats what democracy is about (Score:2)
I challenge the pro-software and pro business process patent supported to accept the result.