Software Patents Affecting Futures Exchanges 261
KontinMonet writes "The Financial Times reports European exchanges, brokers and traders are preparing for possible legal battles with Trading Technologies, a US software company. The situation is being made harder for potential defendants because the cases so far have all been sealed. No doubt, all those IP lawyers think this is a good thing..."
Open letter.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.tradingtechnologies.com/news/documents
Re:Open letter.. (Score:2)
"Take this offer, because the next will be worse..."
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Extortion is a threat against property or persons unless paid off.
Threatening to worsen the terms of a license to GUI software patents if it isn't accepted is neither. It is, however, criminally stupid in the present Euorpean patent law environment.
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK, at least, "A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or asnother or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes unwarranted demand with menaces..." (Theft Act 1968 Section 21 - based on age old common law).
Re:Open letter.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that for traders there is almost no choice. You trade on Eurex because it is very liquid. And by trading it stays liquid. If a smaller exchange offers to lower the fees it is still not attractive because the risk of trading illiquid futures are to big. So, essentially a successful exchange can do whatever it wants.
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you can't blame them - costumes can be really expensive. Especially the frilly period costumes and all the sci-fi stuff.
(Score -1: Cheap hit at simple tyop)
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Interesting)
TT and the participating exchange (PE) would guarantee each other level access, permanently.
Inside the world of PE futures and future options (this includes traders, customers, FCMs, ISVs, exchanges, etc.), TT would forfeit the right to be the aggressor in any patent infringement lawsuit, permanently; in that way allowing absolutely anyone to use TT's current and future patent protected concepts any way they desire.
TT would receive from PE 2.5 cents per side for every PE future and future option transaction, permanently."
then they go on rambling abou "competition, competition, competition", apparently it's just for eveyone else since they want permanently 2.5c on any transaction made(with no way to end the agreement). basically tt could just sit on their asses after that and keep receiving money to the end of the world even when their patents expire! the letter is also full of stuff that you would expect to find from a 419 letter(using capitals in wrong place, yes i know the irony in that i don't usually bother with them myself, also they ramble a fair amount on how the 'customers' would benefit from this 2.5c agreement, make zillions with their magic technology and so forth).
amazing that they got such advanced tech.. yet need to protect it with sealed court procediings(if it's so much out there that they need go around suing people, do they really have something unique?).
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Insightful)
we couldn't even patch the servers that their gateway software ran on because they refused to support on any platform above a 2 year old windows 2000 service pack.
Our traders used to lose a fortune in exchange fees due to their downtime. It's no wonder they are desperate for money.
Re:Open letter.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with support always existed, even back to the time of VMS. They needed to keep all platforms on as narrow a release and patch range as possible.
TT has problems.... (Score:5, Informative)
The patent, is on something fairly obvious given any knowledge of market trading called a "Market Depth" display, which shows orders that are not just at the top of the market, but those at slightly worse prices. The ability to access the Market Depth is actually a function of the exchange itself. All TT are doing is presenting a horizontal representation of the bid-offer spread depths.
The main market is probably Eurex which is German based. US customers may be affected but not EU based ones.
I Use TT (Score:2, Informative)
first, market depth has been available at the exchanges for some time, what TT does is provide a vertical display (extremely intuitive compared to previous methods of displaying depth) and make the display totally clickable and easy to manipulate. This makes order entry, cancellati
Re:I Use TT (Score:3, Interesting)
As for speed, that was variable. Many packets in former times would just be lost and nobody would be wiser. When it worked it was fast, but hey, no error checking! Someone explained that it was like being a dwarf in the T-bills pit in Chicago. You could hollar but nobody could hear you.
All the exchanges provide
Re:I Use TT (Score:2)
Re:I Use TT (Score:2)
Re:TT has problems.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:TT has problems.... (Score:2)
Many markets don't actually have that much money themselves. The cash is in the infrastructure. Euronext has some money and so do Deutsche Boerse (50% owner of Eurex).
Re:Open letter.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sealed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sealed? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sealed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, this is about patents, which should be public anyway, right?
Re:Sealed? (Score:2, Informative)
The article does indeed say the "cases" are sealed. If they are talking about US cases, that's simply incorrect reporting. Patent "cases" don't get sealed in the US. Documents, though, may be. In many cases, so many documents are filed under seal that it's difficult to get a clear understanding of what is going on in the case.
Plus, this is about patents, which should be p
Re:Sealed? (Score:2)
Why should you? SCO did not....
It's going to be traumatic... (Score:5, Interesting)
My point being: I've asked the EPO several times in the past whether I could patent aspects of our company's software R&D, they have always rejected this out of hand. I know that they have allowed software patents anyhow, if described sufficiently bizarrely.
But if a flood of US software patents hits the European market it will have the effect of killing the European technology business almost overnight.
We have, so to speak, no immunity.
Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dyson patented his cyclone technology for his vacuum invention. good.
He almost ran out of money twice when hoover copied him twice and deliberately tried to cut off his balls twice
(how do I real-life killfile hoover? mmm, a pda app that does company holdings lookups on bar code scans and warns you why you dont want to support them.... mmmmmmmmm nice)... hoover have thier money in a lot of pots. It'd be nice to steer clear of them. en-masse.
Not that I am domestically inclined, but <s>hoovering</s> vacuuming (cycloning?) is one thing I am for, and I regularly clean my motherboard this way (oh... and my room) anyway, not to stray too far off topic... Dyson was a case for and against patents.
A hoover patent for belly button fluff could never be contested by anyone = hoover because of money.
If patents were granted in a sane way, instead of just making shit loads of money, then people could use them to defend against bigger corps, and bgger corps couldn't shovel sandbag patents around thier corner of a market.
Also, a patent should be registered with a timelimit to make a move on it. to stop this company who is trying to sue dell for 'selling overseas on the internet' which is a premise (or a method, solution or something) that they developed.
Microsoft have given up on being a monopoly, they are letting the USPTO do it for them. And some lawyers with girly pony tails (Yes Schwartz, I said girly)
So while I see Dyson as a mixed case, I think software patents will never ever come to the aid of a little guy.
The problem is, are they really going to be steam rollered in? Isn't there some kind of pan-european IT union? Should there be?
Has the BCS (brit.comp.soc) done anything? doubt it.
Give some details on this guys patent, maybe
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean Dyson put out a Vacuum cleaner and its obvious how it works just by examining it.
Microsoft put out a modified Kerberos and nobody can figure out how it works until they gave out the documentation...
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:2)
With a physical item, you can take it apart and examine it and figure out how to make it yourself. For anything truly novel, that's a hell of a lot easier than coming up with the design yourself. Thus, such things need to be protected for a limited time to ensure that the inventor can recoup their investment. If not, then fewer people/companies will be willing to make th
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:2)
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:2)
http://www.golds.co.uk/articles/articles_corp_pat
Dyson finally got £4m out of Hoover (they initially agreed to 1m, but Hoover appealed).
I wonder what the outcome would have been outside of Europe...
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:2)
Do you ahve any evidence that MS are suing anyone for patent violation? I know they're filing for a lot of patents, but so are IBM, etc.
Isn't there some kind of pan-european IT union?
I've been working as a programmer in the UK for almost 6 years, and I'm not aware of there being any IT union at all, let alone a pan-EU one. I've not looked into it recently, though.
keep exporting your fast food and k3wl choons!
Actu
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you ahve any evidence that MS are suing anyone for patent violation? I know they're filing for a lot of patents, but so are IBM, etc.
No suing is far to petty for them. They just email thier corps and gets nice new headlines saying 'XYZ project infringes patent'. Patents are like guns in a knife fight. You don't really have to fire them to win the fight.
Mircosoft own IP in opengl, I am sure some whoresome games developers (EA?) are thinking about not doing linux stuff (gl only) because of this.
Basically, the sandbag theory is you artificially inflate the cost of entry to market with patents, and also hang big 'beware of the monopolies' sign up for new comers with ideas of rebellion.
Where would google be if M$ had been more proactive of the net all those years ago (where would the net be?) (I dropped the 'net - just net know)
keep exporting your fast food and k3wl choons!
Actually, if it was up to me, they could keep them too; I don't eat burgers or listen to very much American music. That's just me though
I thought brits were up on sarcasm.
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:2)
Thought the BCS were pro-patents anyway.
Re:Aaah but patents are GOOD!! no really... (Score:2)
Hoover (Score:2)
Does priority date apply then? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm in a slightly different position than yourself.
Suppose I patent my stuff, it is worthless unless I also spend a lot of money defending those patents. I can't afford to both invest in my company AND play the patent/lawyer game. All it would do is divert money from 'making things' into money spent 'stopping other people making things'.
At th
Re:It's going to be traumatic... (Score:2, Interesting)
source: http://politiken.dk/visartikel.iasp?pageid=366576 [politiken.dk] (in danish.. theres no international stuff on it yet..)
Re:It's going to be traumatic... (Score:2)
Re:It's going to be traumatic... (Score:3)
The patent in question is held by a firm (or individual trading as) Minfo [minfo.info].
That's hardly fair (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps the comments wasn't meant this way but that was how it sounded.
Re:That's hardly fair (Score:3, Insightful)
The patent system ensures that it is perfectly legal to make money by such immoral means. Therefore it is the duty of companies like TT to do so because they are required to increase shareholder value.
This will continue as long as the patents system is in place.
Throw away patents and we won't have this kind of lawyer feeding frenzy.
Re:That's hardly fair (Score:5, Insightful)
They benefit from all conflicts, and all sides of the conflicts.
They rape, loot and soil everything they get their hands on.
Whole areas are starved by them.
They still are asskissing servants.
Re:That's hardly fair (Score:2)
Do I live under Republican US law or something? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do I live under Republican US law or something? (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, US patents ARE null and void in the EU. They only hold in the US. The problem is that if a company wishes to sell something to a US-based firm, that firm will need to comply to US patent law. The company, if based in the EU, has nothing to fear, but its clients have. And these clients may ask for indemnification from the company, which the company is probably unwilling to provide.
So what I expect to happen, is that many European companies will not trade with the US anymore. This is probably a big step in getting the US a saner patent system anyway.
Not quite (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.angenehm.com/pat_faqs3.html
The priority date (the date from which your patent is taken to have been submitted) is taken as the first submission to any patent office in any country in which you applied.
So it looks like Belgian's guys problem above would apply. His USA counterpart would come in and apply for a patent quoting a prior USA patent priority date.
He's then forced to try to show prior art in a world where prior software art isn't disclosed. So there's probably plenty of prior art, but can he get the companies to release their code to prove it?!
It may have to do with this (Score:2)
Re:Do I live under Republican US law or something? (Score:2)
Well, the problem with giving people the choices of "with us or against us" is that many people (myself included) will take this implied threat masquerading as biblical text
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
One day these leeches will be crushed, but they need to demonstrate to the wider audience that they *need* to be crushed. Hopefully this happens before they are too established.
Re:Excellent (Score:2)
I can hear it already: "But an insane patent law creates jobs!"
It just MIGHT be valid, however... (Score:2)
Here's one patent -- looks like a GUI patent! (Score:5, Informative)
I guess it is "functional" -- it does something. But that seems pretty shitty and obvious to me. And Click based trading with intuitive grid display of market depth"> [uspto.gov] is the other patent -- also for a UI.
Re:Here's one patent -- looks like a GUI patent! (Score:2)
Re:Here's one patent -- looks like a GUI patent! (Score:2, Informative)
It is as if someone patented a special kind of interactive graph: copy that and you have copied the thing, no matter
Re:Here's one patent -- looks like a GUI patent! (Score:2)
If any company pays these idiots, they deserve what they get. If they want to break the patent, find prior art. Its out there. If they can't find it, hire the right people to find it.
A polite note about lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, come on...as a law student who hates this as much as anyone here, that's just not fair.
Granted, it seems like there are plenty of lawyers willing to push for and litigate harsh copyright/trademark/(software )patent laws, but I don't actually know where they learn it. In colleges and unis, the IP professor/lawyers who are for expansive laws are few and far between. And in the 'wild,' the concentration appears higher than it is because, the software/entertainment pro-copyright-till-we-choke lawyers are the only ones who have control of the microphone (why do you think that is?).
Anyways, I have yet to meet a professor that supports the things we all complain about. In fact, I know such lawyers exist only looking at the amici briefs files for, say, Grokster. Most are shades of Lessig. And if they're having any effect, I guess I just don't see how there won't be floods of actual lawyers pouring out of the schools who advocate erring on the side of restrained law rather than expansive law.
Re:A polite note about lawyers (Score:2, Informative)
Hey, come on...as a law student who hates this as much as anyone here, that's just not fair."
If it squeaks, and looks like a mouse; call it a mouse.
Evidence is; lawyers are mice
They say they believe in competition (Score:5, Informative)
They make and sell a "premier order system" called X_TRADER. They claim over 50% of the volume on the "big four" exchanges use it.
The report above says contradictory statements on profitability: they have had $40 million invested between 99-02. Currently have $8 million in the bank and hav been $32million net income loss over the past 6 years. . So the problem is they are losing money, have been trying for years to make it and become the "Microsoft" of trading platforms but have been failing. The 2.5 cent inclusiong they want (as a start) will give them $130 million profit per year.
"We believe in competition within every sector of the futures industry", except, obviously, from other competitors or indeed companies in the rest of the world. To quote again "The 2.5 cent inclusion would create a new era of competition for order-entry by extending TT's intellectual property to the world, forever".
Those quotes are from the press release above. This shows a) how fucked up the patent situation has become and b) how vitally important it is that US business interests are kept out of EU and Rest-of-the-world interests. The TT release is a money grab for sustained income from the rest of the world despite them having no legal basis to do so outside the US.
TT wants the right to an income and wants it enshrined across patent law that they will be the Microsoft of trading software, basically. No company has the right to an income and if they can't profit in 6 years and are net loss making, maybe they should fuck off then.
The CTO is ex Andersen (Score:2)
Re:They say they believe in competition (Score:2)
That's a pretty broad statement to make. Are you implying that Tucker (of automobile fame) should have had no patent protection from the big automakers because he failed to make a profit on his own? Obviously his ideas were worthless if he failed to profit from them. Right?
The case in question sounds fishy, but let's not go off the deep end with the sweeping generalizatio
Protection Racket? (Score:2)
This sounds an awful lot like a Mafia protection racket... along the lines of "pay us money and no accidents will happen to your store".
Another voice in the EU patent debate (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps... (Score:2, Insightful)
I, for once, am glad (Score:3, Interesting)
A mis-quote from the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
I think she meant to say:
She added: "Independent software vendors may have to reconsider doing business, and in particular the way they make new software, perhaps they should just crumble under the weight of patent law and become resellers for larger firms?."
damn TT.
Re:A mis-quote from the article: (Score:2)
Groklaw has also article (Score:5, Informative)
Read the comments:
off as a PROCESS. And they got a PATENT on it....
AGGGH (Score:3, Insightful)
No Doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
As an IP lawyer, and specifically a registered patent attorney who handles software patents, I could not disagree more. Courts are supposed to be PUBLIC fora so that EVERYONE can see justice being dispensed. Closing hearings and sealing files inevitably leads to suspicion that proceedings are not being conducted fairly. Therefore I am strongly FOR keeping things open.
That said, there are sometimes portions of proceedings that SHOULD be closed to the public. One example is a hearing where a defendant's trade secrets will be discussed. Most times such a discussion, or at least details of it, are not crucial to understanding the basic proeeding. A defendant should not have to lose its trade secrets merely because it chooses to defend itself in court instead of settling the case.
Take the IBM v. SCO case, for instance. SCO is trying to force IBM to hand over the source code for IBM's *NIX versions. Should SCO be able to force this? Theoretically, yes, but in that instance, SCO would have shown some more concrete proof of its claims. Having so forced IBM to turn over the source code, should SCO be able to make it public? NO. IBM has the right to protect its property and SCO should not be able to (mis)use the courts to destroy potential trade secrets of a competitor.
I have found that people who make blanket statements about what lawyers love or about the evils of intellectual property usually understand neither of those topics. Software development is (properly, I might add) now an engineering endeavor. Engineers have had to deal with patents in every field for literally hundreds of years. Software development is no different. If you think it should be otherwise, I challenge you to examine the basis for that opinion. I suspect you will find it is because you think or know that you could create a patented piece of software yourself without using anyone else's code because you have the necessary skills. In that case, you are no different from the skilled artisan in any other field. In that case, if you are against software patents, then you must be against any type of patents because it would not be fair to have a special exemption for one type of invention and not another.
Think about it. Think long. Think hard. Think critically. Then let me know what you think. Flamers - save your keystrokes. I sleep very well at night knowing I am providing a valuable service to my clients - many of then small and individual inventors who are looking at being able to actually PROFIT from their hard work BECAUSE they have a patent and not in spite of it.
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
GAAAAHHH!. This is pure ego-driven, self-serving nonsense. It is simply not (and should not be) enough to claim 20 years of ownership and punitive litigation simply because you got to the patent office before I did. There is very little that is so unique i
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
I would like to see a single patent that was "invented" by an independent software developer where the patent developer actually made money from patent licenses. Especially where it could be documented that the concept really was original, novel, and no prior art could be demonstrated (as patents supposedly should be but software patents rarely are).
Indeed, with only a very few exceptions, I don't see many independent inventors making money from a device of any sort (mechanical, bi
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
The US patent system is unique in the sense that it grants a patent to the firt to INVENT, not the first to file an application. If you can prove you are the first inventor and meet the statutory requirements, you get the patent. Plain and simple. If someone else gets a patent issued first, theirs is invalidated.
I will not waste my company's money throwing money at a patent lawyer since I'd rather reinvest the money to make my ideas better and
Re:No Doubt (Score:2, Interesting)
The real issue of substance is whether TT really has a case, not in US law, but under EU law. We simply don't know this until someone challenges them. TT have been very clever in pitching their cost per trade metric well below the pain threshold, so it's cheaper to pay TT then take it to court. As its not challenged, there are no papers to make public, and TT can request as part of the agreement that the agreement terms and conditions are confidential.
There is a
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
software patents not proportionate to efforts (Score:2, Interesting)
Steady there, cowboy
The big difference with 'hardware' patents
(including, say, pharmaceutical patents) is the
utter disproportion of the protection offered by a
patent in the software case. Pharmaceuticals
by now cost hundreds of millions to develop, and
this has to be recouped in a very short time.
The large
Re:MOD UP (Score:2)
I wish I could give you my karma.
an example, please? (Score:3, Interesting)
Could you provide an example or two of an individual successfully defending a patent against a corporation with much deeper pockets?
Re:No Doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
The incremental cost of software duplication is near zero, which makes software engineering unique. All other cases I am aware of, the use of a patent also entails some expendature of physical resource required to create the (physical) product. Blueprints for a bridge are of no value unless the bridge (or some bridge) is actually built. Circuit diagrams are of no real impact unless someone actually builds a circuit. But in the case of software, the expression of the knowledge and the application of it are one and the same.
Now, please consider the PURPOSE of patents - the original purpose for creating the patent system. It was to reward inventors in order to encourage them to invent further and thus allow society to progress. This is the only legitimate reason the patent system has to exist. So, the question now becomes - in the case of software, which produces useful products without needing to physically duplicate them, does society benefit more from the controlling of those ideas or the free distribution of them? Does the patent system provide a net gain or net loss to society (NOT, please note, to the business community alone.)
I don't know the answer, not for sure. But the zero cost of software duplication is a fundamental difference between this and other fields. I am not prepared to argue the point as to whether matters in software would stand where they are today without patents - I suspect they would, personally, since so much of the key work was academic in nature, but I have no hard facts - so you are free to disagree. But remember that even the patent system itself is secondary to the best interests of society, however little we might remember that today. A new situation requires re-examination of fundamental assumptions, and software is a new situation.
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
What's the US constitution say? Either:
All types of invention are created equal, with the right to be patented,...
or rather
Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Inventors the exclusive Right to their Discoveries
Do you think the constitution should be changed on that point?
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
Re:No Doubt (Score:3, Insightful)
As most software patents can be expressed as a mathmatical formula, and since by law mathmatical formulas are specifically excempt from patent law, I don't see where this is necessarily the case.
It is also very easy to come up with software that violates a patent simply because some idiot in the USPTO decided to permit the
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
Re:No Doubt (Score:2)
it is commonly accepted that there are two agencies that create revenue for the Government. The first is the IRS. The second is the USPTO. Congress siphons off ("diverts") income from user fees (application fees, time extension f
Re:IBM's source code (Score:2)
Analysis and explanation (Score:5, Informative)
I work on electronic trading systems for one of the big investment banks and I take care of the GUIs used by our fixed income traders for trading both cash and derivative instruments on all the exchanges mentioned here - Eurex, LIFFE, CME, CBoT - as well as many, many others.
I've been following [slashdot.org] this issue and I hope that TT's patents will be challenged and overturned. Here's why (note that you should read this and then read the two [uspto.gov] patents [uspto.gov].
Futures exchanges are generally order-drive - i.e. you submit an order to buy/sell a certain amount of a particular instrument at a certain price. There are hundreds of market participants, and they all want to do different things. For a given instrument - Al might want to buy 100 contracts at 100.00, Bob might want to sell 50 contracts at 100.01, Charles wants to buy 1200 contracts at 99.99, Dave also wants to at 99.99, but he only wants 77 contracts, and Egon wants to sell 492 contracts at 100.02.
Now, a typical way of showing this in a graphical manner is as follows:
NB: Apologies for the crap formatting. The extra spaces are Slash's fault - if you're confused, pipe it through 'tr -d` `' - or, if you're a lamer, cut'n'paste it into an editor and delete the spaces.
'Bid' means 'Buy' and 'Offer' means sell. 'BQ' and 'OQ' stand for 'Bid Quantity' and 'Offer Quantity' respectively. Note how Charles and Dave's orders are added together.
Now, the term for this sort of representation, is the "depth". If I'm a trader looking at this, I know that, if I want to (and assuming the depth doesn't change before I submit my order), I can sell 100 contracts at 100.00 and/or sell 1277 contracts at 99.99.
So, how obvious is it to represent the depth as a horizontal bar chart?
Now, let's say I decide to sell 50 contracts at 100.00 - i.e. I want to 'hit' that 'bid' (the opposite is to 'lift' someone's offer). Do I want to click on a 'Place Order' button, then select which instrument it is from a list, tick a 'Buy'/'Sell' radio button and type in the quantity and price before hitting select?
Do I hell! I want to click on the '100' and have a "Submit Order" pop-up appear straight away with the 'Instrument', 'Quantity' and 'Price' fields pre-filled, with a big fat 'Submit' button that I hit to send the order to the market. The order goes in, the exchange's order matching system matches it against Al's order and executed the trade. I then get a pop-up that says "You've just sold 50 contracts at 100.00" and Al gets a pop-up saying "You've just bought 50 contracts at 100.00".
The depth will then change to look like this:
Now, let's say that by some amazing coincidence, I have 1377 contracts that I want to sell. I can get out my calculator and figure out that if I offload my position by hitting those two bids (I neither know nor care that the 1277 bid is actually two orders), I'll get an average price of approx. 99.99073.
Or, how about instead of having to pull out my calculator, my GUI calculates and displays this automatically, as follows:
abstractions manipulating abstraction ... (Score:2)
Just how damn far can you get away from the concrete basis of patents and still obtain a patent?
Depends on the organization granting patents apparently.
Tipping Point for Patent Mania (Score:3, Funny)
What will finally put an end to this madness?
Legal method patents.
SWP as seen from the viewpoint of a IPlawyer-twit (Score:3, Interesting)
"Look Beyond the Rhetoric
Leaders of the open-source software movement have long been harsh critics of software patents. The GPL itself says, "any free program is threatened constantly by software patents." The appeal contends that copyright provides adequate protection for the creations of software authors. The Appeal advocated reliance on copyright law, rather than patent law, for the protection of software.
Not long afterward, in late January, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee recommended scrapping the pending directive, extending the debate until at least the end of the year. There may ultimately be an EU software directive that affects the scope of software patenting in Europe, but not any time soon.
Once upon a time, we intellectual property lawyers got to live peacefully in our ivory towers. Those were the good old days. Now it seems that intellectual property policy issues have become fraught with partisan rhetoric. Most open-source promoters are against software patents. Most corporate spokesmen side with patents, period, whether they cover software or not. But it is worth looking beyond the rhetoric.
Copyright is an odd champion for the side of light. It would be neither original nor controversial to observe that copyright is an awkward scheme to protect computer software. At best, it is a square peg in a round hole. Before you take up the crusade of copyright, remember what it covers. Copying -- sounds like something you do to a book. Public performance -- sounds like a play or a film, right? Derivative works -- that sounds like an album by Vanilla Ice. This should be no surprise: The copyright law was written to cover books and music and plays and films.
Protecting Expression
Copyright protects expression, not ideas. But software is not really all that expressive. When was the last time you went to a poetry reading and heard someone reciting C++? ("Wow, that recursive reference in his data structure was so deliciously ironic!") More important, software does not derive its value from expression; it derives its value from function. The fact that most software companies can get away with distributing software in object code form proves this point.
Code may be as elegant as a Chanel suit, but most people don't care. They want products to work, and they want software that makes them work. Users not only don't care how elegant code is, they actively don't want to know. I love my TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) and I love my PDA -- not because they contain lovely code, but because I will never have to see what code is in them. I know in my heart that I am not alone.
This makes protection of software via copyright tricky, because functional elements or ideas are not protected -- only expression. Not surprisingly, actually identifying software copyright infringement is like reading tea leaves. It's straightforward, of course, when someone wholesale copies a piece of software. This catches up the shameless counterfeiters. But people using software to develop products rarely copy software without modification.
If they re-write code, they can come up with a very different looking set of expression that performs the same function. Have they infringed the copyright? That is not so straightforward. The serious copyright battles are over the copying of bits and pieces, structures, design elements and so forth -- and applying copyright law to those cases is difficult, expensive and unpredictable.
Leave It to Lawyers
Unless you are a copyright lawyer, you probably don't know that the rule for assessing infringement in several U.S. judiciary circuits is the "abstraction, filtration, comparison" test. The court will "first break down the allegedly infringed program into its constituent structural parts. Then, by examining each of these parts for such things as incorporated ideas, expression that is necessarily incidental to those idea
debunking a pro-patent claim (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, as others (such as Halo1) and myself have already pointed out, there is no inherent right for a 'fair compensation' by a patent. A patent is a monopoly, given by the state, because it (is supposed to) promote innovation. For all those claiming to be capitalists: a monopoly given by the state does not sound all that capitalistic, does it?
But regardless: if it doesn't achieve it's goal of promoting innovation, it should not be granted, period.
But secondly, let's assume to agree with the 'I've earned it'-concept. Would that, in effect, be fair? Patents, these days, are more about ideas then anything else: even the original needed working model isn't any longer necessary... so, is it 'fair' to be compensated for an idea?
Well, imagine some other dude thought of the same idea a little bit later then you, but he gets to the patent-office first, and he gets the patent...where does that leave you? Shouldn't you be compensated for 'all the hard work and energy' you put in the idea? And imagine you were first to apply for it, but he had the actual idea first, independently from you...shouldn't it be 'fair' that he get compensated for his energy and work? Would it be fair if he put in years and years of hard work, but you suddenly had an aha-moment and filed for the same idea first, and thus got all the benefits?
As one can see, it is not about fairness at all, and not even about being compensated for hard work. not who came up with the idea first. It's just a matter who filed for it first. There is no justice in this system; the idea you had can be the same idea anyone else had, at the same time, even. Therefor, there is (or at least should) no such thing as an idea that can be 'owned'. This is also why copyright differs on a basic level from patents: while the chance that anyone else writes the exact same book is nihil, having the same idea can happen all too easy.
And would it be 'fair' that someone else got a monopoly for 20 years for an idea that you had come up with independently, and maybe even earlier, but filed it one minute before you? Me thinks not. Let's face it: patents are not about fair compensation or inherent rights; they are issued for the benefit of the public at large and for the promotion of innovation.
If it doesn't do that, there is NO reason why anyone should get a state-ordained monopoly.
Re:Article text (Score:2)
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2, Insightful)
No; you are wrong.
What we are talking about here is the concept that something can be considered property in the US, that would NOT be considered property in the EU. And the process by which US corporations are attempting to both alter the set of things considered property, AND to get EU members
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
Patents are only property if they're valid. "Software as such" cannot be patented under the European Patent Convention. Since you rather want to talk of "process patents" I note that in the examples you give, the entire "process" consists in a general-purpose computer running software. I think they're great examples of what unpatentable "software as such" means. Unfortunately, the European Pate
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
75% of already granted European software patents are owned by US and Japanese companies [ffii.org]. European companies have only something like 20% of all granted software patents.
US companies also patent processes implemented in software (to buy something with one click of a mouse, to load certain kinds of XML information, ...), and not individual computer programs.
A very nice report was published recently by the European Parliament's Directorate General on Economic and Social Policy, which completely debunks the "computer-implemented inventions are entirely different things that software", and which confirms that the European Patent Office's practice is not all that different from US practice.
The report is linked at the bottom of this PR [ffii.org].
Compressing an image is generally plain maths, and "mathematical processes" are not (should not be) patentable in Europe. Of course, the EPO (with the help of enterprising lawyers appealing to its Technical Board of Appeals) has found ways to interpret the European Patent Convention to get around this. I'm also not sure how you can say in general that "searching" is patentable.
I'd be very interested in seeing any numbers you have on this. Also, whether or not we have software patents in Europe is completely independent of those companies' abilities to get software patents in the US.
Patents are not about fairness, patents are economic means which can be used to correct an economic system running haywire due to relentless imitation. You do not introduce artificial monopolies in an economic sector because it's "fair".
You might want to look at this presentation [ugent.be] by a lawyer and law scholar specialised in software patents on that. Trying to paint it as a "communists vs capitalists" is sooooo last 5 years (although Bill Gates doesn't seem to know that yet either).
Even if you unconditionally believe that any sort of intellectual creation should be associated with the broadest possible form of property rights, there's still the problem that software patents conflict with the property rights of software authors, granted to them by copyright. They prevent the normal exploitation of their works, which is even in conflict with the often cited TRIPs agreement.
Again, this has nothing to do with rewards, respect for work or whatever. It's
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
Europeans can be assholes too.
"Secondly, most of these European software companies also patent their inventions in the US, and are thus protected by US law against infringment of their patents in the US. "
See above. Though the problem is mostly with the fact that these guys are ALLOWED to do this. Businesses are amoral entities which extract profit from whatever system happens to be in place. Just because our asshole businessmen extract ill-gott
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
No, we're not. We're talking about _intellectual_ property rights, that should more aptly be called temporary government granted monopolies or something to avoid such confusion.
"Would you want someone to move in and take something that belongs to you, and not pay compensation?"
If you're not granted the temporary monopoly, there _is_ nothing that belongs to you, _nothing_ has been taken, and _no_ compensation could arguably be required under any 'pro
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
Absolutely. The small guy benefits. Why do you think it's the IBMs and the Microsofts and the Nokias of this world who support the big patent regime, and the small companies and the random Free Software people who are against it?
Patents are expensive. You need money to take out a patent, and you need expensive lawyers to enforce them, and you need lots of money to bring lawsuits, and if you happen to inadvertantly treat on someone else's patent (w
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
You really are a European SME? Might I ask which one? It's not that this is impossible of course, there's for example AllVoice [ffii.org].
Anyway, UEAPME [ueapme.org] and CEA-PME [ffii.org] represent respectively 11 million and 500,000 small guys, and they're both against.
Re:Software patents in Europe (Score:2)
But if someone sees a chimney you invented and builds one just like it, you can not argue that you have lost anything of value to you at all, because you have not lost the use of that chimney.
Without the legal invention of intellectual property, there _is_ no intellectual property, any more than
Re:We Also Have Weapons of Mass Destruction (Score:2)