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Patents Government Politics

EU Gears Up for Another Patent Fight 159

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the innovation-or-immitation dept.
DirkFromEurope writes "Heise Online is reporting on the Digital Europe meeting of the Progress & Freedom Foundation in Prague. From the article: 'Proponents for a broadening of industrial property rights in the computer sector have declared a new round in the fight about software patents in the EU opened. "It starts again", announced Günther Schmalz, head of SAP's software department.' Günther also 'expressed hope that his camp will be better prepared this time than during the last struggle. A "bridge position" must be reached, which both sides could live with.'"
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EU Gears Up for Another Patent Fight More

EU Gears Up for Another Patent Fight

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  • One key question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by btarval ( 874919 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @03:30PM (#14527849)
    While I don't live in Europe, the success or failure of preventing Software Patents there will affect me.

    So, I'd like to ask: How can citizens of non-European nations help support the efforts to fight Software Patents there?

    • I'd say that the most apparent methods would be:
      1. Money for lawyers, advertisments
      2. Well-recognized names in the field denouncing software patents in respected EU forums of discourse.

    • Re:One key question (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21, 2006 @03:48PM (#14527942)
      If you're outside of europe, it seems like this policy would affect you in a positive way.

      If you're from the US - your software industry gets a huge subsidy from Europe.

      If you're from India/China - your software industry loses a big potential competitor (europe).

      • Re:One key question (Score:2, Insightful)

        by alx5000 ( 896642 )

        You only seem to be bearing the economical aspects in mind. But let's take a wider look, please. Just to point out two examples:

        • Many cryptographic algorythms are developed outside the US, due to their restrictive laws on strong cryptography exportations. Most of this kind of development could disappear just because on cryptography patents in EU.
        • Doesn't any US citizen use software like KDE? Both free and not-so-free software developed in EU could suffer the adoption of such a patent system.

        I don't think

      • So suppose I'm from the world, trying to work in the worldwide software market. I would lose if the EU got software patents.
    • "How can citizens of non-European nations help support the efforts to fight Software Patents there?"

      Don't help stop them, encourage them! Because if the EU has software patents and your country doesn't, you can still make the software and sell it, but Europe can't. You can even sell it across the Internet to European companies and the EU can't stop you!
      It's one less competitor. The true innovative software developers will then move their operations to your country.

      UK has restricted monopolies on lotteries
      • Don't help stop them, encourage them! Because if the EU has software patents and your country doesn't, you can still make the software and sell it, but Europe can't. You can even sell it across the Internet to European companies and the EU can't stop you!

        Yeah, because that's exactly what happened in the U.S.: the entire software industry folded in the wake of State Street Bank & Trust in 1998. The entire software community just immediately collapsed, and there was no tech boom in the late 1990's. So

        • Bit by bit (Score:3, Insightful)

          by NigelJohnstone ( 242811 )
          "Eight years after State Street, software innovation here in the U.S. is exuberant and growing, despite the doomsday predictions of naysayers. But I'm sure it's due to collapse any day now..."

          Why would it collapse immediately and not slowly trickle away like manufacturing did, like the computer industry did (e.g. Lenova), like Services did (to India). Bit by bit trickle by trickle.

          Look at gambling and the UK, UK locked down gambling to a few players, so internet gambling sites went offshore and still serve
        • You might like to read up on this one:

          http://news.ft.com/cms/s/99610a50-7bb2-11da-ab8e-0 000779e2340.html [ft.com]

          EU implemented a database IP right to encourage production of databases, USA didn't. USA ended up with many more databases than EU. It didn't suddenly flip, we didn't wake up one morning and EU was far behind, it was a slow and steady change, more companies in the USA could enter the market, leading to more successes and slow competitive shift to the USA.
    • So, I'd like to ask: How can citizens of non-European nations help support the efforts to fight Software Patents there?

      Well, Canada will most likely stage a peaceful sit-in, and Mexico can activate Montezuma's Revenge.
    • Your best bets are to keep an eye on these sites

      http://www.ffii.org/ [ffii.org] (especially)
      http://www.fsf.org/ [fsf.org]
      http://www.eff.org/ [eff.org]

      They usually have links where you can join them and help them in any way they need it.

  • They'll eventually have their way. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) * on Saturday January 21, 2006 @03:42PM (#14527906)
    As others have pointed out, they'll try again and again, and they only have to win once. We have to win every time.

    Once established (as in the USA) it will never be reversed, because then that would be "stealing" from the companies that own all the patents.
    • It's essentially irreversible because it takes far more political power to pass a law than to prevent one from getting passed. That software patents come so close to being made into law is evidence that there are some very politically powerful influences pushing for them. The EU is very undemocratic, which makes it all the easier to buy them.

      The 'stealing' term can be applied both ways, and if there weren't big patent interests lobbying, then it would be 'stealing' to enact patents, because it's an unfair r
      • "The 'stealing' term can be applied both ways, and if there weren't big patent interests lobbying, then it would be 'stealing' to enact patents, because it's an unfair restriction on what companies can produce or use."

        You can only steal ideas by regulating them (that is: by introducing so-called intellectual property laws). Infriging on patents is not theft.

        But the parent is right that it will be called theft so as not to have to reverse these laws.

    • Re:They'll eventually have their way. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Once established (as in the USA) it will never be reversed, because then that would be "stealing" from the companies that own all the patents.

      I don't see why something like this would need to be an instant transition. It could be that the patent office wouldn't simply take anymore software patent applications. The existing patents would just vanish eventually.

    • Re:They'll eventually have their way. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:35PM (#14528148)
      Democracy is dead, replaces by capitalism. Everything is for sale to the highest bidder including your govt. Your only hope in hanging on whatever rights you have is to try and buy them.
      • Capitalism has relatively little to do with politics. Mercantilism on the other hand gets heavily involved in protectionism, government intervention etc.

        America and most other Western European societies are really more mercantilistic societies than capitalistic.

         
        • Either way, they have to convince the mob to continue supporting them by controlling the means of the spread of public information. That has changed now, the internet is democratising the spread of information, what will happen next? I can't say, but I am sure a great many more people (and I mean many many more than before) will be involved in the decision making process.

          The are still going with the patent fight because they believe the people that fought it before will be to tired to fight it again. Of c

    • As others have pointed out, they'll try again and again, and they only have to win once. We have to win every time.

      They don't have to win and you need to fight the bastards. There are three ways they can lose but all of them are the same: get the message out. This can generate shareholder and customer backlashes.

      Shareholder backlash comes from the unpopular nature of software patents. They have to pay for it every time. Do you think that shareholders will forever fund unpopular attempts to create law

    • "As others have pointed out, they'll try again and again, and they only have to win once. We have to win every time."

      If that bothers you, you might as well have fun fighting them.
    • "As others have pointed out, they'll try again and again, and they only have to win once. We have to win every time."

      Yes, this situation is very annoying, personally inconvenient and wholly unnecessary and I think the remedy is for the FFII et al to adopt a more offensive political strategy. From an economic and legal perspective, the case for software patents is strongly reminiscent of the case for "Intelligent Design" and I don't think it is beyond us to make that clear to our European politicians, or b

      • 'the case for software patents is strongly reminiscent of the case for "Intelligent Design"'

        The case for patents in general, you mean. The effects are just very much more obvious when you have an segment that has previously been spared from them.
    • As others have pointed out, they'll try again and again, and they only have to win once. We have to win every time.

      Sounds not unlike fighting terrorists.
    • Sorry, this is wrong-wrong-wrong.

      Patents for software exist in the US because there is no movement against Software Patents.
      http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/us-parl [ffii.org]
      Give me 500k $ for a campaign and US software patents will be gone soon.

      The fight against software patenting in Europe is won. Now the action is related to the community patent and of course it could be a indirect way to get swpat through. At least the people like Jonathan Zuck claim so, because they make their money from Software patent lo

  • The newspeak is strong with this one... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MadTinfoilHatter ( 940931 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @03:43PM (#14527915)

    A "bridge position" must be reached, which both sides could live with.'"


    Translation for the European-newspeak-impaired:
    "It's hard to overturn a complete rejection. Because we were afraid of a complete rejection last time, we did a strategic retreat. This time we must get our hoof inside the door, in the guise of a 'mutually satisfying compromise', so that we may then fortify our positions and lobby our way to our goal."

    "Bridge position" my a**. It's more like a bridgehead position.

    • Yeah, I caught that too. Hmmm a bridge... That's something you cross to get to your real goal, isn't it... You'd think they would pick their wording a little better. I mean a little effort to disguise what they're doing, just to be professional. Damn I am fed to my back teeth with these money grubbing bastards.

    • ...and yet unwittingly revealing:

      A "bridge position" must be reached

      One lesson learned from the history of armed conflict should be that the single most important reason for a party to urgently try and capture a bridge is to find a way to invade with their incoming troops and tanks.

      However, even for politicians it should be plain to see that their options on software patents are just as binary as that field itself: There are questions where, as between a logical 0 and 1, there is no room for "compromise".

    • Re:The newspeak is strong with this one... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:38PM (#14528175) Journal
      Not to mention the belief they are trying to foster that there must be some kind of happy medium in this case. It's like asking if you'd like to burn at 1000 degrees for an hour, and when you say no, they decide there must be some middle ground you can agree on, say 30 minutes?
      • It's like asking if you'd like to burn at 1000 degrees for an hour

        It's not quite that bad; software patents aren't instantly fatal. Restricting software patents to a sufficiently short term of, say, three years from initial patent application, or to one year from actual issue, might not be overly burdensome if the patent office worked in a timely manner. However, given the tendency shown by copyright forces for term creep, and the potential for different kinds of ideas (software vs. gizmo) be patentable f

        • "software patents aren't instantly fatal."

          All patents are instantly damaging. As legal monopoly rights the existence of patents slow down adoption of innovation and, as such, slows down innovation in society as a whole. It creates an incentive for protecting, enhancing, and investing in the value of the monopoly as such, through marketing, litigation, lock-in, tie-in and other rent-seeking behaviour, not for the investment in R&D. As such, they are the antithesis of a free market, constantly raising the

    • Re:The newspeak is strong with this one... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The "bridge position" that both sides could live with was reached when the morons scrapped the bill rather than have an ammended bill that would have achieved their supposed aims. Now would be a good time to directly attack the EPO and have patents that are in violation of the EPC voided, with compensation for the holders of these worthless patents.

      If government bodies like the EPO don't have to follow legislation, why should citizens?

    • True. Therefore, to reach a satisfying compromise, lets take the position that all 'intellectual property' whatsoever must be immediately and retroactively declared invalid without any transition period, and any and all ill-gotten license fees and price gouging of any sort attributable to such illegitimate monopoly legislation shall be immediately refunded.

      Some form of middle ground from that point of view and their point of view might even be somewhat remotely acceptable...
  • 1. Create your own hardware. Make sure that the hardware can assimilate obfuscated code in a way difficult to reverse engineer.

    2. Create your software for your proprietary hardware.

    3. Create your own peripherals for your proprietary hardware and software.

    If you don't like this idea, then deal with the fact that your software relies on the creations of millions of other people, basically using what other's decided NOT to patent.
  • Comprimises and negotions are open to abuse. Just look at taxes, they always start with a small contribution then over a hundred or so years, they take out a nice chunk. The way people are today, they will make it an ultimatum to utilize any law/regulation ect to their maximal benifiet, and they have the money and resources to do so. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. I say that the position shouldn't be levied at all in there direction, and if anything more leverage should be put on keeping things t

  • Software patents help companies screw consumers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21, 2006 @03:56PM (#14527987)
    The typical modus operandi of U.S. software companies is this. Figure out a clever way to do something with software. Protect the method with patents. Aggressively sue anyone who builds anything similar. Then overhype and overprice your product and sell it to the world. When people in Bangladesh or Turkey or Egypt use pirate copies of the software because they can't afford the full U.S. dollar price, send the local branch of the BSA to break down their doors and lecture everyone about piracy = theft. Or something like that. The price never comes down however. Its always the full U.S. price.

    I don't think the software industry deserves patent protection, frankly. All it does is create a predictable one way flow of money to the U.S. The EU is right to challenge software patents.
    • Most of the time, it's not even something clever. Think one-click checkout patent. This is not new technology leading to better business, this is a business method done with existing software. Another advantage - you can sue people who try a similar business method but with different technology. You might not win, but you can guarantee that it won't get thrown out of court. And against small competitors, this means instant win.
    • If patents have to be, then the time they are valid must be proportional to how hard it is to figure out on your own, or how long it took to "research". No bullshit like having a 20 year patent on 1-click "technology" -- that should not be patentable for more than 2 days.

  • Trade secrets ARE the bridge position (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NigelJohnstone ( 242811 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:01PM (#14528003)
    Trade secrets ARE the bridge position!

    It's worldwide protection, it's free, it's instant cover and if your internal inventions are truely inventive then nobody else will think of them.
    SAP can have its protection and still keep an open competitive market, there is no need to lock other European companies out of SAP's market to protect SAP's inventions.

    On the other hand, if you are forced to patent before your competitor does, you reveal your secrets to every competitor in the world, even ones not excluded by your patent. They can then use your patent (and your competitors patents too) in their products in their markets to their advantage.

    If SAP truely have inventions then they will benefit more from a software patent free Europe.
    • On the other hand, if you are forced to patent before your competitor does, you reveal your secrets to every competitor in the world, even ones not excluded by your patent. They can then use your patent (and your competitors patents too) in their products in their markets to their advantage.

      No they can't, you own a patent on it. They can learn from your patent, conduct research in that area, come up with something sufficiently different and use that, but they can't just use your patented tech. There are no
      • "No they can't, you own a patent on it. "

        Patents only cover the places they're issued, and only the invention itself (so if you patent a better way to make chocolate, anyone outside your patent coverage can use your idea and sell you the resulting chocolate). So no.

        "Those who want software patents will never agree to accept trade secrets instead, as they offer zero protection."

        They are used extensively now, so it represents the status quo not a change.

  • In a nutshell:SWPats bad for companies of any size (Score:5, Insightful)

    by D4C5CE ( 578304 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:04PM (#14528013)
    Elaborate studies have convincingly made the case against software patents for several decades now, but to sum things up in a few words -e.g. when you meet your M(E)P or Congresscritter who probably won't like to read economic estimates or loads of Legalese- just look at how Andrew Brown recently put it in his excellent Guardian essay Owning Ideas (November 19, 2005) [guardian.co.uk]:
    The first company into almost any field will fail. But if it leaves enough patents behind it, these may strangle all its successors. Patenting ideas rewards failure and makes success more difficult. You can't argue that they are needed as incentives. Bill Gates made his fortune in a world without software patents - and if that's not big enough to act as an incentive, nothing is.

  • Too bad! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by faragon ( 789704 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:05PM (#14528017) Homepage
    As european, I can not understand this Software-Patents-Pandora's-Box redux. Everyone knows that the pro-sw-patent lobby is a deep pocket restless beast, but the previous defeatment should be respected, IMO, as there are no new arguments for a view change.

    I like to recall RMS arguments related to software patents, specialy the one related to the fact that to patent sofware is quite similar to patent concepts and ideas, not implementations, thus preventing innovation. Please note that "new ideas" are usually merely linear combinations of previous concepts. True innovations are *very* rare.

  • Bridge Position? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:13PM (#14528056) Homepage
    If the software patent people are going to push an extreme agenda, in the hope of achieving a 'bridge position', isn't it time to push for a winding back of all patents? Make the pro-patent lobby so busy protecting their existing position that they will be thankful that they end up with just a lack of software patents.

    • I like this idea a lot.

      Comments on this thread keep referring to the difference between ideas and implementations. I don't really understand this as I cannot see where the line should be drawn. Clearly not at the point of instantiation into a physical object as then a separate patent would be required for every instance. Take a step back and you have a design which is surely an idea.

      Wouldn't the arguments put forward by Andrew Brown of the Guardian (as summarised/quoted in the previous comment by D4C

  • I still don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by toby ( 759 ) * on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:16PM (#14528069) Homepage Journal
    Let's accept, for the moment, the position that what should be protected (by copyright) is the expression or implementation of an idea/algorithm, and that an idea/algorithm -- like a mathematical theorem -- cannot sensibly be 'patented'.

    Then how can it possibly follow that Open Source threatens proprietary software producers? By definition Open Source code is freely inspectable by anyone for copyright infringement against proprietary code (obtained in some unspecified way).

    The SCO 'case' founders on the same rock: It's all there, published, and so false claims cannot be made against it.

    On the other hand, proprietary products routinely infringe licenses to steal code -- justifiably and reasonably copyrighted expressions or implementations -- from Open Source projects. So who's threatening whom? This software patents farrago is insupportable lunacy from beginning to end.

    • Re:I still don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NeutronCowboy ( 896098 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:01PM (#14529067)
      Open Source software threatens proprietary software by making software in general into a commodity. Since that means that the margins shrink drastically on the product, software companies are deathly afraid of open-source. And the cheapest way to fight it is to make it practically illegal - not by passing actual laws against open-source (I'm sure most countries will consider this some type of free speech impediment), but by creating so many patents and patent-lawsuits that only corporations can afford to create and maintain software.
      • the cheapest way to fight it is to make it practically illegal

        I remember now. Thanks. My brain just resists being made to work that way.

        Apart from keeping sight of the interests of end users in all this (which are clearly not served by software patents), and wondering why it should only be legal to be paid to work on proprietary products and not on open source ones -- we should also try and not let them blur the distinction between:
        threaten = 'might steal from'
        threaten = 'we might lose sales'

        But wha

        • Someone else in this thread made an interesting distinction between capitalism and mercantilism. Capitalism is an economic theory that requires some fairly strict assumptions to work properly. Mercantilism is its middle-age precursor - the pursuit of money without any restriction. It seems to me that the US looks much more like the mercantilistic city states of Italy in the middle ages than the capitalistic society first sketched out by Adam Smith. Too bad though that the powers that be couldn't care less a

  • There was a "bridge" (Score:3, Informative)

    by k98sven ( 324383 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:36PM (#14528161) Journal
    There was a "bridge position" last time, namely the proposal that including the amendments the EU parliament had passed. Then the pro-patent Commission pushed through the thing in the Council of Ministers pretending the amendments never happened.

    And then the pro-patent lobby decided to go "all or nothing" when it was time for the second reading in the parliament. But since the parliament were obviously not going to let the thing pass unamended (largely thanks to being pissed off at being ignored earlier), they chickened out at the last minute, so the thing got killed.

    Hopefully they'll listen to the Parliament (you know, the ones directly elected by the people) more this time. I for one could've lived with the fully amended proposal.

  • software is not patentable, but copyrightable (Score:3, Informative)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @04:47PM (#14528230) Homepage Journal
    It is provable that by softwares very nature, it is not a matter of patentability. Only by ignorance and intentional deception is it granted patents.

    from http://wiki.ffii.de/IstTamaiEn [wiki.ffii.de]

    Physics of Abstraction (abstraction physics)

    Abstraction enters the picture of computing with the representation of physical transistor switch positions of ON '1' and OFF '0' or what we call "Binary" notation. However, computers have far more transistor switches in them than we can keep up with in such a low level or first order abstract manner, so we create higher level abstractions in order to increase our productivity in programming computers. From Machine language to application interfaces that allow users to define some sequence of action into a word or button press (ie. record and playback macro) so to automate a task, we are working with abstractions that ultimately accesses the hardware transistor switches which in turn output to, or control some physical world hardware.

    Programming is the act of automating some level of complexity, usually made up of simpler complexities, but done so in order to allow the user to use and reuse the complexity through a simplified interface. And this is a recursive act, building upon abstractions others have created that even our own created abstractions/automations might be used by another to further create more complex automations. In general, if we didn't build upon what those before us have done, we then would not advance at all, but rather be like any other mammal incapable of anything more than, at best, first level abstraction. But we are more, and as such have the natural human right and duty to advance in such a manner.

    There is an identifiable and definable "physics of abstraction" (abstraction physics), an identification of what is required in order to make and use abstractions. Abstraction Physics is not exclusive to computing but constantly in use by ... well... us humans. Elements or facets of abstraction physics include the actions of abstraction creation and use, such as defining a word to mean a more complex definition (word = definition, function-name = actions to take, etc.), Starting and Stopping (interfacing with) of an abstraction definition sequence, keeping track of where you are in the progress of abstraction sequence usage (moving from one abstraction to another), defining and changing "input from" direction, defining and changing "output to" direction, getting input to process (using variables or place holders to carry values), sequencially stepping thru abstraction/automation details (inherently includes optionally sending output), looking up the meaning of a word or symbol (abstraction) so to act upon or with it, identifing an abstraction or real item value so to act upon it, and putting constraints upon your abstraction lookups and identifications (when you look up a word in a dictionary you don't start at the beginning of the dictionary, but begin with the section that starts with the first letter then followed by the second, etc., and when you open a box with many items to stock, you identify each so as to know where to put it in stock.)

    Abstraction Physics has yet to be established/recognized in a broad "common acceptance" manner, similiar to the difficulty in the acceptance of the hindu-arabic decimal system (which included the concept that nothing can have value - re: the Zero place holder). It took three hundred years (from inception) for the innovation of the now common decimal system to overcome the far more limited Roman Numeral system. (NOTE: mathmatics and the symbol sets used are also abstractions and therefor a subset of abstraction possibilities and certainly an application of abstraction physics.) Though the act of programming is still younger than many who apply it, we are technologically moving at a much faster rate of incorporating innovations and better understandings of reality. There is a physics to abstraction creation and use which can be used
  • Can anyone ask the guy "How will a software patent held by SAP help SAP's commercial clients ?"

    Also "How will it help SAP to hire a programmer who knows what he or she is doing, to help SAP resolve a defect that may at some future stage be found in their product"

    (It won't. In fact it will make life difficult in both cases.)

  • Patents (and copyrights) are commercial tools; they are supposedly to help the 'right' person make money by commercialising something.

    However, with 'software', what matters is not really 'Do I have the right to sell it'; what matters is 'Do I have the ability to service it'.

    You can buy all the Windows licenses you like; but with no service ability, then they will be infected with worms and viruses within fifteen minutes of connection to the public Internet.

    Really, 'patents' get seriously in the way of bu

  • "Bridge Position" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Irvu ( 248207 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @05:10PM (#14528390)
    The concept of a "Bridge Position Both Sides could live with" is a fallacy. There is no "bridge position" between software patents and no software patents. There is only yes or no and only the CEO of SAP will benefit from yes, and then only for a while.

    His dialogue is disengenious this is a blatant power grab.

  • What I can live with (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @05:15PM (#14528418)
    Here's a position I can live with: no software patents. Period. I hope that people who advocate software patents don't know what they are talking about, or else they're pure evil. Why should an algorithm be allowed to be patentable? Allowing that would make mathematical proofs patentable as well, there's no way you can get around that.
    • Allowing that would make mathematical proofs patentable as well, there's no way you can get around that.

      That would be a disaster for our economy. Can you imagine if we were no longer allowed to prove that maps can be colored with 4 colors? We'd always need to keep 5 colors of ink in stock, or pay royalties for secretly having proof that 4 were sufficient.

  • My proposed rule (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ClamIAm ( 926466 )
    I propose that if you choose to patent your software, you must release all source code in the patented program/standard and disclaim all copyright on said program. I realize large corporations feel they are entitled to have their cake and eat it too, but this is not fair. And it would give them a taste of what people feel like when they release programs under GPL-like licenses and have others "borrow" the code.

    Alternatively, let's allow software patents, but for a much shorter time period, say five to eig

    • [blockquote]Alternatively, let's allow software patents, but for a much shorter time period, say five to eight years from when you release your product/standard. I don't think it's fair that something like LZW expired only like a few years ago in the US.[/blockquote] No, not 5 years, that's like a century in the software industry. Award them based on how complex the idea is in some way. Trivial patents should not even be awarded a year...
  • A "bridge position" must be reached, which both sides could live with.

    I understand that politics is largely the art of compromise, with a smidgen of malfeasance and self-aggrandization thrown in for good measure. But the reality of this situation is that the organizations promoting software patents are not in it for the betterment of society and economic growth and well-being ... they are simply in it for themselves at the expense of everyone else. Consequently, there really isn't a "compromise" that can

  • That was the plan all along (Score:5, Interesting)

    by linuxhansl ( 764171 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @05:48PM (#14528647)
    How the EU can call itself democratic is mystery to me.

    The "EU Software Patent Directive" for me was the first time where I followed its way through the different EU instances:

    1. The comission introduces the directive. This version allows unlimited software patentability
    2. The directive is serverly amended during the 1st reading of the parliament (in effect disallowing software patents and patents on business processes alltogether)
    3. Now it gets funky: The commission pulls the directive and presents the orgininal version to the EU council as a "compromise"
    4. Now begins a series of attempts that seem fit for any small banana-republic: The directly is placed last-minute on the agenda of the "farming and fishing" council. We have to thank Poland to block this attempt.
    5. After some more pushing and shuffing the directive is added as "A-Item" to the agenda of a meeting of the EU council (A-Item means: No further discussion necessary).
    6. The "compromise" is accepted over the objections of some of the council's members and in disregard of the parliament. Now the parliament needs the absolute majority to amend the directive (remember this a version almost identical to the original version introduced by the comission)
    7. There are various attempts by JURI to restart the process... All of which are denied.
    8. Now the parliament faces a dilemma: The majority needed is relative to all the seats, not the number of MEP who actually show up (which is typically less than 50%).
    9. The only way out for the parliament is to block the directive *before* the actual reading... Which, now encouraged by the patent-lobby (they could not have another amended version disallowing software patents), is what happened.

    (More information here: http://swpat.ffii.org/news/recent/index.en.html#co ns040408 [ffii.org])

    Now we were to supposed to celebrate this as some kind of democratic victory.

    The only elected body of the EU is the parliament. The results of the 1st reading in the parliament should have been the final word.

    The patent lobby is trying with all possible means to push software patents, past the fact that it will hurt EU business (most patents are owned by US and Japanese companies), past the general objection the parliament voiced...

    And... What we all new would happened after the parliament was coerced into blocking the directive alltogether: The next attempt.

    They will try until they succeed; bringing in new directives, retracting them if they do not like the amendments by the parliament, until they get lucky once. Then we'll have unlimited software patents in the EU, which will guarantee legal monopolies and hence guaranteed revenue streams to the owners of trivial patents.

    The likes of SAP and Nokia and all others who fund or participate in the pro software patent lobby would do well to look past the next few quarters of revenue, and see that there is much more money to lose in the long run.
    (Just look at Microsoft/Eolas, RIM (blackberry), etc, etc, etc)

    We'll find companies building patent arsenals to fend of patent claims of competitors with "cross-licensing-deals", which of course is ultimately doomed once we establish so called "patent trolls" on Europe as well (companies that have no business other then sueing for patent infringment).
    • I consider lawyers, judges and basically the entirely legal system as "overhead" to society; that is to say, it must exist, but since it does practically nothing for your economy except waste cash, it should be as small and as streamlined as possible. Laws should be clear so the legal system can do its job swiftly.

      How any government can advocate systems that would require company's to hire significantly more legal staff, disputing issues that are very vague to begin with and allows people to introduce hun

  • The bridge position is between having no copyright protection for software at all, and having no ability to write free software at all. Manufacturers should be happy that the government grants them a monopoly on software they've written. Using patents to get a monopoly on software OTHER people have written is over-reaching.
    -russ
    • The bridge position is between having no copyright protection for software at all, and having no ability to write free software at all.

      Bullshit! It is about patents and patenting. Not about software copyright.

      But in fact opponents of the patent system in the field of software think that copyright-style regulation could be needed for a conceptual protection of software.

  • Fuck them (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MattGS ( 898687 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:50PM (#14529311)
    Seriously.

    The EU has been stomping all over us citizens right from the start. Thanks to the data retention act we're all going to be under constant surveillance, non-European lobbyists fight to gain influence over our legislation and the clear rejection of the European constitution by several key member countries has been downplayed, ridiculed or straightly ignored by European politicians. The EU is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy. And it is the breeding ground of an aggressive elite of tycoons who dream of building a new feudal system. What hurts me most is that I do feel like an European. I love the idea of an European Union. I love the people of the European countries. I think we are truely getting close to becoming one nation. But I'm not playing along anymore. The EU has failed on every level. There is only one option - let the EU rest for at least 10 to 15 years and then let it all start over again. Let the countries recover from the complete fuckup that is the EU in it's current state.

    Sadly, the only political parties that actually propose leaving the EU are total nutters. I guess my only viable option is to sit back and watch a handful of neo-feudal megalomaniacs smashing everything to pieces that has been achieved after those darkest years that were the first half of the 20th century. I see a storm coming and it's not going to just go away. Let's just hope it won't be as bad as the last time someone tried to shape Europe after his lunatic vision.
    • The EU has been stomping all over us citizens right from the start.

      Actually, the EU wasn't so bad up until the turn of the millenium. After that the lobbyists sort of "discovered" the EU, and now we're slipping into a plutocracy.
    • "Thanks to the data retention act we're all going to be under constant surveillance, non-European lobbyists fight to gain influence over our legislation and the clear rejection of the European constitution by several key member countries has been downplayed, ridiculed or straightly ignored by European politicians. The EU is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy."

      Firstly, the rejection of the constitution was due to a few factors: 1. Content for Chirac, 2. Xenophobia against the new members (the polish plumber

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