Software Patent Debate Over in Europe For Now? 187
Anonymous EPA writes "The website of the European Patent Office is running a story about a recent agreement not to revive the debate on software patents in Europe nor to promote new legislation. To quote: 'All speakers welcomed unequivocally the opportunity to discuss the issue at a high level and made clear that a new CII (computer-implemented inventions) debate followed by legal modifications was neither necessary nor desirable.'"
Europe ??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Europe ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The current European Parliament members have learned what soft patents mean, and know their consequences.
Hence these guys are going to crawl back under their rock and try to make themselves forgotten until after the next elections.
crawling under a rock (Score:5, Informative)
The current European Parliament members have learned what soft patents mean, and know their consequences.
Hence these guys are going to crawl back under their rock and try to make themselves forgotten until after the next elections.
That'd be my take on it, too.
Alternately it's just a PR move to get everyone to drop their guard so that the pro-sw crowd (aka MS) can try fast tracking it through some agriculture and fisheries committee or other unexpected venue. It'd be a clever trick to get suckered in to giving up just as we're about to finalize the victory. So, if it's the pro-swpatent crowd saying the debate is over, I'd recommend extreme caution.
It'd be very unwise to consider the debate over until even the very possibility of sw patents has a wooden stake in it and is buried upside down at a Crossroads with garlic and holy wafers in its mouth. One way to do it would be a re-affirmation of the 1974 European Patent Convention which, in Article 52, explicitly excludes "schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers" [european-p...office.org].
Currently there are parts of Europe which, rather than follow EU law, style themselves as a 51st state and take after US law instead. That occurs in spite of being member states in the EU and not in the US. Sweden, for example, is one which has a patent office promoting software patents [www.prv.se]. For that matter the European Patent Office is still granting (invalid) patents on software. Until these and the others actually start following EU law by refusing further patents on software and annulling any previously granted software patents, the danger is not reduced. If anything, complacency increases the risk.
Re:crawling under a rock (Score:4, Insightful)
IBM - a much larger corporation than Microsoft and with a similarly larger patent portfolio - is certainly taking some productive steps, especially regarding 'gifting' patents to open source projects [slashdot.org] and clearing projects using open-standards from IBM patent threat. Companies like Adobe and Apple however are still very pro software patents, unfashionable as that is to say.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Protected by U.S. Patents 337,604; 338,907; 371,799; 454,582; 4,667,247; 4,837,613; 5,050,103; 5,185,818; 5,200,740; 5,233,336; 5,237,313; 5,255,357; 5,546,5
Re: (Score:2)
IBM - a much larger corporation than Microsoft and with a similarly larger patent portfolio - is certainly taking some productive steps, especially regarding 'gifting' patents to open source projects [slashdot.org] and clearing projects using open-standards from IBM patent threat. Companies like Adobe and Apple however are still very pro software patents, unfashionable as that is to say.
IBM is currently centering its business model around selling hardware, support services, and consulting. From that perspective, proprietary software ranges from an inconvenience to a substantial threat (i.e., MS). Perhaps IBM actually agrees with /. that software patents are toxic to software innovation and is supporting them in hopes of undermining the entire proprietary software market? ;)
After all, IBM's own influence can insure the safety of the open-source software that their business model can mor
Very misleading - beware the trojan horse! (Score:2)
Please be aware that IBM has recently started attacking companies, via bogus software patents. This includes companies who are using Linux in their products. One example is Platform Solutions Inc., who is IBM's only competitor in the very pro
Re: (Score:2)
One of my local MEPs (I'm in the UK) actually seemed pretty clued up about this debate. He considered at least one of the proposed versions of European software patent legislation to have a genuine benefit, in that it would standardise what was and wasn't patentable, and fix the problem with the EPO and a few national patent authorities granting things that others wouldn't recognise and that were dubious under the current system anyway. I'm pretty sure he voted against that specific proposal in the end, bec
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, the purpose of the CII was to codify existing practice of the EPO.
No, existing practice of the EPO allows inventions implemented in software to be patented, as long as there is a technical contribution. As for existing EU law, which EU legislation are you claiming forbids the curren
Re: (Score:2)
That covers algorithms specifically and software in general. SW patents are neither valid nor enforceable in t
Re: (Score:2)
The current practice [epo.org] of the European Patent Office, supported by the Administrative Council, is to interpret the EPC to mean that software in itself is not patentable, but a patent
Re: (Score:2)
A small group of people float an opinion. They will of the people is expressed. There is nothing immoral or unethical or illegal about the outcome. What's not to like?
Granted, the majority finds the idea of software patents abhorrent, but the majority might feel the same about my Motorhead collection.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You could, in a way, make a point in favor of software patents in the US because of who holds them there (though ultimately they are counter-productive. But that's another debate).
As a citizen of the EU, I know that SP are not only a basically bad idea, they'd also gut European IT in favor of the US's.
Also, from a broader point of view, though they do exist here as well, lobby groups have yet to be accepted as a normal way
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The point I'm making is that every interest is "special" in the eye of its proponent.
There is a good news story to be had about rule of law and political process, about which all can be happy.
The bad news has to do with the lumpenproletariat who can't be bothered to weigh in.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
On the outside, you could say that it's only the 'anti' lobby who got its way. But when you look at it a bit more closely, you see that although it was 'led' by the people you could say were the lobby, among other things they worked through involving a not insignificant of 'common citizen' (though those who have an interest in such things.
I firmly believe that's the way democracy should work. Nobody can take an interest in ev
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing I hope to see (maybe around Web3.0 or so) is automated systems to pull in proposed legislation, slice it, dice it, analyze and index it, and make it accessible to the commoners.
Fact is, no one human is capable of deciphering more than a tiny fraction of the legislation oozing its way through that giant large intestine we call government. However, it's all the law of the land, and the politicians are adept at sliding in all manner o
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Eva Lichtenberger is one of the EU parliament members with the best insight into this issue.
On June 10th, I saw her speaking [fh-stpoelten.ac.at] at a public conference in Vienna, held as part of the first international conference of the pirate parties [pp-international.net].
One of the things she said was about the importance of contacting parlamentarians to let them know what you think. Even if you get no reply (rarely happens) or a standard form letter in return, the politician you contact learns that somebody is caring about the issue and tha
Ulterior motives - a risk of a total ban (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution? We just have to work to establish more and more GPLv3 software, written in patent free countries, which uses whatever is the best technique for the job. Eventually patent based countries will not be able to compete effectively.
Re:Ulterior motives - a risk of a total ban (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Tor adds that plausible deniability angle.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is, not even the patent officers want the thing, they drown in work, and currently are
Re: (Score:2)
Why can they still file unenforceable patents? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Who's to say software patents won't be needed in the future though, as the software industry changes?
Re:Why can they still file unenforceable patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
because software patents can still be filed in Europe
Well, I interpret the treaty as saying they aren't valid, and when they try using the patents the courts may well take the same view (which is why Microsoft et al are so scared of testing software patents in court over here), which may only make them useful for FUD. Although, they don't even need patents for some people/journalists to believe their FUD (they'll just say "we have an undisclosed secret new form of intellectual property in Linux"/"a new magical OS-destroying dragon"). Now I can ''file'' my
Re: (Score:2)
because software patents can still be filed in Europe
Well, I interpret the treaty as saying they aren't valid, and when they try using the patents the courts may well take the same view
Which way does the treaty work? Is it saying that national s/w patents can't be applied across the EU (in which case the national s/w patent legislation would still stand) or is it saying that s/w patents can't be a barrier to EU trade (in which case national s/w patent legislation would /not/ stand)?
Re: (Score:2)
The treaty [european-p...office.org] is not an EU treaty. It is a multilateral treaty signed by all EU member states, and some european states outside the EU.
All signatories to the treaty have harmonized their patent laws to the treaty. While the treaty itself only have legal effect on the signing states, the local patent laws can be enforced in court.
Article 52.2 [european-p...office.org] in the treaty clearly states that software as such cannot be patented.
To extend their business the European Patent Office (EPO) has reinterpreted this several times
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
there will always be the threat of passing some kind of legislation in the future that will enforce European software patents
There is already EPLA [ffii.org], pushed by the EPO and currently being processed in the Council. In practice, this would give the EPO judiciary power, so they could enforce the patents they granted erroneously in the first place. Great, isn't it?
The problem is not the wording of the EPC, it's the EPO's twisting of it. But -
Re: (Score:2)
As an example of this problem, suppose I implement an invention in hardware and patent it. If you then re-implement it in software, is that a violation of the patent? If so, then why would an original implem
Re: (Score:2)
The position of the EPO would seem to be that a computer program is not itself patentable, but that an otherwise patentable invention does not cease to be patentable simply because it is implemented in software. I think this is a reasonable and consistent approach.
If it is "implementable in software", then it is software, period. I don't think you can implement, say, a water turbine in software. Conversely, how else would you implement a word processor other than in software? If you can make a wooden word
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What is it you're actually patenting? Let's say you invent a really compact word processor built from tiny copper and steel elements. Sure, you've probably done something rather innovative there, making such tiny and intricate machinery actually work. You can go ahead and patent those ideas. because you've found new ways to work with the forces of nature. That's technology. But the rest, how it pushes characters/bits/numbers/whatever around, is just information processing, just like
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that in order to be patentable, an invention implemented in software must still meet the same requirements as any
Re: (Score:2)
Let's just hope that.. (Score:5, Funny)
You can patent the click (Amazon)
You can patent the letter i (Apple)
You can patent a number (AACS)
You can patent software written by someone else, and then sue them for it. (Microsoft, Linux)
Awesome... awesome..
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Patently wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Day job shouldn't quit you (Score:3, Informative)
No debate, thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
They would much rather have EPO create new case law without debate and without those pesky MPs.
Re:No debate, thank you (Score:4, Insightful)
There's an old joke about the former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson who, it goes, falls in a river and cries for help. Two members of the public go to his aid but the three politicians he was with immediately start debating what he means by 'help'. As in Orwell's world, words do not NOT mean what the public think they mean. Nothing as obvious as the made-up words of doublespeak but instead an insidious corruption of the meaning of words to the point where what a normal person would consider to be plain and obviously of one meaning is taken by those inside the system to mean more or less the opposite.
So when they way that they don't intend to have another computer implemented inventions debate, don't believe a word of it. At face value it probably does mean that there won't be a computer implemented inventions debate. But nothing prevents an automaton implemented inventions debate or a computer assisted implementations debate or anything else the sleazy scum decide to come up with. There is a SERIOUS sickness at the heart of modern western politics but unfortunately there is no sign yet that the patient realises he's ill.
Re:No debate, thank you (Score:5, Informative)
The European Courts don't use an English Common Law system of precedents, so so there is no such thing as "new case law". ECJ Judges will often use prior decisions as a basis for their opinions, but are in no way obliged to, so the fact that one group of judges interpreted laws in a particular way doesn't mean that a different set of judges will do so. One can therefore have a situation where one software patent is upheld while another similar one gets rejected on the grounds that software patents aren't valid due to the fact that two panels of judges interpret the spirit of the existing laws differently.
Re: (Score:2)
Ouch (Score:4, Insightful)
The US grants too many patents and of too low quality which are cheaper to obtain and often quite trivial.
Is there a chance that the US is stung and works on a quick overhaul of its broken patent system? I, for one, am not holding my breath.
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU parliament members stated fairly clearly how they see the current global competition among the major ecomomies (US, EU, China): The US grants trivial patents cheaply, while the Chinese system even funds patents, making them much easier to obtain.
One interpretation is that the EU is therefore worried that if software patents were legal, a torrent of cheap and trivial patents from the rest of the world might stifle EU productivity. Therefore by not allowing such patents they hope to stimulate their economy.
In this interpretation, it doesn't matter how patent law helps businesses within your economy compete internally with others, it matters how it helps your entire economy (comprised of businesses) compete with other economies. That is, the decision to not allow software patents isn't because the EU 'gets it' (in the geek sense), but rather a response to the US patent strategy, a counter to it. For example, if the US didn't allow software patents, the EU might have thought to do the opposite, if they thought it might give them an edge (as the US currently does).
Disarming the patent trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
not merely that they are a debasement of science and culture and an attempt to allow the patenting of mathematical process itself, but that they are unworkable in practice. No programmer can ever write a single line of code if they must spend time looking over their shoulder and hoping to know which methods are patented and which are not. It's simply impossible. And no PHB is going to stand behind each and every coder checking their work against a list of allowable statements and algorithms. It just won't work in practice because the PHBs are universally clueless about code, which is why they hire programmers in the first place. And do you think anybody is going to come down from the legal department and oversee the programming? Be real! And even more to the point, since most commercial code is closed source, whoever is going to disassemble and study every piece of code and be able to prove that it infringes? There aren't even enough technically qualified judges to hear the cases so decicions are arbitary insomuch as they allow the courts to save face and appear to know what they are doing. It's a complete and utter unworkable disaster from end to end.
This gives us the power, and in no small measure. Ultimately the best defence against software patents is for us not to recognise them. If every ordinary programmer (that's you and me) states clearly to a colleagues and any potential employer as a simple unbiased, unemotional matter of fact, that they do not recognise software patents the whole fucking evil game is tumbled. Nobody can force you to do the research...and nobody can afford to idemnify you against not doing the research... because no software engineering project is tenable under those conditions. Who is going to stand there and scrutinise every line of code you write? Nobody, nobody can. Try even finding people who are of sufficient skill to read through stacks of patents written in pseudo legalese and at the same time understand the code implications enough to direct a team of programmers, you won't find many.
What we need to understand is that software patents are like fairies or psychosomatic illness, they only exist to the extent you allow them to, by recognising their legitimacy. If programmers elect to not recognise software patents they will cease to exist. Just add one line to the bottom of your resume...
"I do not recognise the validity of sofware patents"
I don't beleive there's a programmer on this planet who actually supports the idea (unless they're one of the crooked ones who is already making a fortune out of patents). There are almost no legitimate (read useful) businesses that support them either. The big guys unwittingly got into an arms race that even they admit is wholly destructive and counterproductive. Given a chance the major corporations would sink software patents just to be rid of them but since they are locked in a stand-off of mutually assured destruction nobody wants to be the first to put down their weapons. The situation only persists because of money grubbing lawyers who throw fuel on the fires of conflict for their own profit. I don't believe there are many bosses or recruiters out there that care for them either, I've never heard any manager or project leader talk about them as anything but an absurd and time consuming obstacle to development. They are uniquely anti social(ist), anti-capitalist and anti-progressive.
Nobody with an iota of sanity likes or supports the idea. So who are the those who support them? No more than a very small and very vocal minority of opportunist patent troll companies who will hopefully die very quickly once their oxygen and food are cut off.
As programmers YOU have the power to bury this obscene squandering of human endeavour. Next time someone mentions software patents to you just laugh and say that nobody who is serious recognises them and that you won't tak
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could use that same argument against ALL patents, not just software patents. Engineers aren't going to do patent searches, either.
Re: (Score:2)
So... if engineers are against patents, then what inventors are left in the "for patents" camp?
Re: (Score:2)
That patent then also belongs to the company, so when the researcher who actually did the work leaves the company, he might find himself in the rather odd pos
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't do it, man.
--
impossible is nothing
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What if they gave a war, and nobody came?
Your proposal really comes down to that, no?
Stay alert! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is a threat to national security (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Quite frankly the idea that the US could simply kick the ass of the combined militaries of the European nations without difficulty is rediculous.
You also fail to take into account the difference in character - there are nations in Europe you don't want to back into a corner. The Finns are a good example - look up some of their history
Re:This is a threat to national security (Score:5, Funny)
Patents aren't bad... (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider the h.264 video codec. It cost millions of dollars to develop, and is protected ONLY by software patents. Europe wants to play the prisoner's dilemma to their own advantage. They want companies in the US and Japan to keep developing high tech, leaving US customers to pay for it, so that they can use it for free themselves (and they certainly do).
Everyone knows the kind of outrage there would be if US drug companies developed multi-billion dollar treatments for major diseases, then Europe decided to just use them without paying anything. The only reason the opposite happens with software patents is that the US patent system is in such a ridiculous state that everyone laughs at it. That doesn't mean patents are bad, and doesn't mean software patents are bad.
Consider the alternatives. If software patents didn't exist in the US, the only option would be to sell a closed-source codec, and keeping the format a trade secret. This would be very, very bad. Everyone would be limited to a few supported platforms, with a poor performing codec, and no opportunity to modify or improve it. Things would be like the bad old days of RealPlayer and 4DTV.
And that's only the start of it. Reverse engineering is too easy for that strategy to work for long, so instead of one big h.264 codec, you'd see each company roll out their own codecs, with only incrementally better quality than the last, and each one being regularly obsoleted... Something similar to Yamaha's attempts at TwinVQ (predecessor of AAC) or Quicktime's use of Sorensen SVQ1/3 codecs.
You'd think I'd be of the opposite opinion, since I'm quite active in a few open source multimedia projects, but I more of a realist. For technology to be developed, someone needs to pay for it. Those who think the technology will just develop itself, whether there are any incentives or not, are unbelievably naive. The US patent system needs to be fixed, without question. But it's a terrible situation we're currently in, to have the US always picking up the tab for the rest of the world... Is it any wonder brain-drain is so much of a problem?
Re:Patents aren't bad... (Score:5, Informative)
and as far as i know (which may not be much), h.264 was developped in an international context, by the ITU-T and MPEG, a subgroup of ISO/IEC. The "I" in each acronym stands for international. The ITU-T is actually based in Switzerland. It doesn't sound like the US alone developped it, and that now Europe wants to steal hard-working americans' money to use it.
Re:Patents aren't bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
-You are arguing based on a nationalistic view. Yes this way you capture US based minds, but you loose everyone else. "No patents = Bad for USA, Good for Europe" is an argument for the USA to abolish software patents, not for Europe to adopt them.
-You believe that the main reason for technological evolution is patents. No my friend the main reason for evolution is need. There would be no H264 codec if there was no need for it. If there is a need for it, then it will be done. And it is better if it will be done by a consortium (in a standardized way), so as for all to benefit. At the beginning MPEG, JPEG were NOT patented. Why? Because everyone needed it in order to sell more hardware. Same is with H264. They need it so as to have a way to transmit video to small devices with little bandwidth available to them.
An example of your delusion is where you say this:
"
Consider the alternatives. If software patents didn't exist in the US, the only option would be to sell a closed-source codec, and keeping the format a trade secret. This would be very, very bad. Everyone would be limited to a few supported platforms, with a poor performing codec, and no opportunity to modify or improve it. Things would be like the bad old days of RealPlayer and 4DTV.
"
From this i guess that you are either too young or too misinformed:
-What about PNG, why develop it so as to be sure that NO patent applies to it?
-What about JPEG, why did the JPEG committee investigated the patent claims in 2002 and were of the opinion that they were invalidated by prior art?. If the committee liked patents as much as you claim they are, why did they try to invalidate them?
Patents are not a silver bullet. There was major technological evolution some thousand years before them too.
What is a silver bullet is a need, and someone to recognize it and find a way to monetarize it. And with patents the second part is getting more and more difficult every day.
Re: (Score:2)
So... you think it's a good idea to create a government granted monopoly that causes a hundred times that much economic damage in order to possibly create an incentive for that development? I'd rather just have that money come out of my taxes as a government grant to some University.
I don't even think we need to go that far though - I think the basic premise that patents promote innovation *at all* is incorrect. For the argument I would
Licensing (Score:2)
Look at the GPL... It protects the code by licensing it in a specific way, so companies can't just throw it into their products without fulfilling some specific conditions. What stops the developers of a video codec from doing the same thing? They can just make a license that s
Re: (Score:2)
That's the critical question, isn't it?
But really the question is what 'pay' means. Obviously development requires effort, but not necessarily monetary payment. But you might say that the effort is a sort of payment; "someone needs to make the effort." I won't argue semantics.
The issue is how the effort should be motivated. Patents are just one way to create incentives for effort, but there are other ways. Overall, I do not think that soft
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even on copyright, of course, the US was happy to ignore such legalities when it suited them earlier in its history. Even if your post were a fair reflection on the current situation, it would not apply to the past and may well be irrelevant in t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, PO clerks are usually not engineers. More often than not, they are not even able to discriminate between a trivial patent and a serious one. It's also fairly hard to create a sensible standard for patenting. So what happens today is pretty much that they can at best check whether the patent is formal correct.
Then, there's FUD patents. Patents deliberately worded so broadly that they cover anything. Again, granted by clerc
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
--
It's different in Europe.
In Europe they made even Einstein work in the patent office.
Re: (Score:2)
You'd actually need people who're engineers AND lawyers to work sensibly in a patent office. But if they're engineers AND lawyers, they can usually make a killing in the industry. So...
Re:Patents aren't bad... REALLY? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If everybody just 'ignored' the patent there wouldn't be any HIV drug worth giving to the people.
Oh really? So you think that the need for medicine will go away without patents, or what?
As long as there is a need, there are people willing to pay. In particular when those who have the need know they are otherwise going to die.
There are actually strong arguments for stating that there would be more and better innovation in medicine without patents on medicine. But this is off topic in a discussion about software patents.
Knowing our crooks... (Score:2)
Last time we were lucky.
Oh no it isn't (Score:5, Informative)
http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2007/07/fallout-from
http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-computer-
The EPO, however, have said that they don't even want to address the questions:
http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2007/06/epo-please-s
The debate will rumble on for a while yet.
I spoke at this conference... (Score:5, Interesting)
Those who want software patents and business method patents are: the patent industry, and specific software firms like Microsoft and SAP, and some consumer tech firms like Philips. The EPO is in a bind because the explosion of demand for software patents is destroying it from the inside: internal strife over the money is now breaking the EPO apart little by little.
Politically, there is a big fight between the EPO and the EU over who controls the patent system. The EU wants a Community Patent and the EPO (esp. Switzerland) has been sabotaging this because it means the end of a good business. The pro-swpat lobby has been trying to get software patents in via the back door through an EPO plan called "EPLA", but this is failing because of the EU vs. EPO fight. The UK courts meanwhile are rolling back patent law to discard pure software patents (which annoyed Mr Beresford immensely). Within the EPO, national patent interests try to weaken the EPO's management, and try to inflate the patent system so they can pump more money out of it. The EPO management gets all the flak, and lobbies hard to make friends in Brussels. MEPs are still sensitive from the Software Patent Directive, especially those who lost.
It is intensely political, and almost the only thing all parties can agree on is that it's not the right time to attack the question of software patents again. That is basically what came out of the conference.
However - this is not a closed matter. IBM recently came out on the side of the FFII (my association) with a proposal that calls for a "European Interoperability Patent", which basically is a patent that does not damage open standards and (maybe) open source. The EIP is immature and just one idea among many but it's part of IBM's realignment with the FOSS economy, and away from the old industrial economy that so loves patents.
And when IBM moves, the patent world follows.
What was most interesting from the EPO conference, and what is missing from their report, is the way the EPO is getting ready for change. With a new president - Alison Brimelow - and a huge set of problems to deal with, there is a good chance that the old EPO, which sold patents as the cure for everything will start to become a kinder, gentler kind of parasite.
Of course, the FFII, which fought against software patents from 1999 to 2005, is still here, and growing stronger. The question of how to stop the patent system from destroying the FOSS economy is still there and it will come back onto the agenda in a big way, when the time is right.
Re:I spoke at this conference... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you need real information on the state of software patents in Europe, without the lies and half-thruths we see from the patent establishment and some politicians, FFII [ffii.org] is the place to go. These are the people who have done most of the hard work to avoid software patents in Europe.
We still have problems with software patents in Europe. The main problem is that the European Patent Office (EPO) is still issuing of thousands of software patents, although the European Patent Convention (EPC) clearly and explicitly states that software as such is not patentable. But EPO has reinterpreted EPC several times over the years, and now their interpretation basically is: "If the software works it is no longer software as such, and can thus be patented."
So now we have tens of thousands of software patents that have been issued by EPO. These software patents are illegal according the the law, and if a patent holder tries to assert such a patent in a court of law, it will be ruled invalid. This creates political pressure from the patent holders to get their patents legalized. And of course the EPO wants to have the text of the EPC changed so it fits their perverted "interpretation".
EPO has twice called for a diplomatic conference where they asked for this change in EPC. Both times their request was denied. A diplomatic conference is the only proper way to change EPC, as this treaty is not an EU treaty.
When that failed, they tried lobbying the EU to create law that would force all EU member states to change their patent laws to legalize software patents. This was the infamous CII directive, and was voted down by the EU parliament in the second reading.
When trying to force the EU member states to change their patent laws failed, they tried another backdoor. This was the EPLA. Basically this was meant to be a new specialized european patent court, with judges appointed by the EPO. This new court was meant to be above all other courts, including the European Court of Justice and the supreme courts of all the member countries. The idea was that the EPO could then make their "interpretation" of EPC case law. Fortunately this is off the table (for now).
But the pressure to legalize software patents is still there, and the EPO is still issuing illegal software patents. Even the EU Commission (who have been on the side of EPO since a few years before the CII directive was proposed) has had to acknowledge that EPO is outside any political or administrative control. And the EPO has nothing to fear, as they are above the law. (Really: If an EPO employee commits a murder, he cannot be prosecuted unless the EPO accepts it.)
Murder at the EPO (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What I said here was of course a bit simplified. The exact rules can be found in the Protocol On Privileges and Immunities of the European Patent Organization [european-p...office.org].
What you say is in Article 1.
If you look at article 3, you will see what I mean. It is limited to official activities. For some strange reason there is an exception for civil damages after traffic accidents.
Re: (Score:2)
Just kidding! We LOVE the EPO!
Re: (Score:2)
From a now "read only" wiki http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn [ffii.org]
I wrote that and later created a wikipedia entry in part due to someone having created a wikipedia entry on me that was in error regarding related project. It was removed with the general claim that it was original research along with the distroted wikipedia entry someone else created on myself.
Now I've expanded upon ffii wiki here http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html [threeseas.net] And as anyone can read the notes and references, I've bee
Wait.... (Score:2)
rhY
Re: (Score:2)