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Patents Your Rights Online

Euro Software Patents: Stay Of Execution 44

Posted by michael from the try-try-again dept.
Mr. Adequate writes: "The European Patent Office finished its diplomatic conference in Munich today. According to the press release, the non-patentability of software will remain unchanged for another year. Then the fun starts again. In the meantime, European Slashdotters could do worse than to voice their concerns to their EU representatives, sign the petition, and of course support the fledgling FSF Europe." The process certainly didn't rule out software patents, just said they're still thinking about it.
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Euro Software Patents: stay of execution More

Euro Software Patents: stay of execution

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  • I'd like to say thank you for pointing to this list, as I was signing it and see the results I realised that the total number of signatures was increasing by the second. Was about 6035 at the time and rises steady like a for loop.

    It has to be the nicest Slashdot effect I have seen. :> And probably a chance, whatever tiny, to show a different point of view.

  • The Screen Savers on TechTV had a visit from Larry Tesler (developer at Xerox PARC and of the Apple Lisa) yesterday, you can see it in RealVideo here [techtv.com]. Seems the Xerox Star had windows, but not overlapping windows, only side-by-side ones. The screen they had on the Star was huge, big enough to easily fit two documents on one screen. The Lisa's screen, however, was much smaller... so, to do any windowing of any sort, there had to be overlapping. And it stuck with the industry.

    Ironically, this aired just after I gave a presentation in one of my classes on the Apple Lisa and its place in computing history....

    ---
  • I know this is slightly off topic (whack! slapping my wrist).
    I just bought Mirco$ofts (whack! slapping my wrist again)Flight Simulator. On the CD it says (translated from german):

    It is illegal to make unlawfull copies of this disc.

    So, even Micro$oft has to admit implicitly that there are lawfull ways to copy their CDs.
  • Actually, Xerox invented the mouse-based GUI. I'm not saying this just to be a historical nitpicker. Xerox never marketed GUI-based systems because they didn't realize how important they could become. The actual result would have been that Apple would have been deterred from making the Mac.

    No.

    The introduction of overlapping windows, as done by Apple, most probably would have been enough to qualify as a new innovation. Besides, Xerox, not being a computer/software company, would not have been very interested to go after innovations similar to its patents.

    Now, Apple having such a patent (on overlapping windows), that would be a completely different matter. If you're old enough, you'll still remember how aggressively Apple's legal department was by suing a whole lot of companies, just because they tried to learn from the Apple UI. Do you remember the discussions if UIs may be protected by copyright? I do - obscure lawsuits on every nitty-gritty details happened all the time.

    Now, imagine Apple let loose with the power of a patent, and not just with copyright claims. They would not only be able to go after those who learn from their UI, they could also go after those who do their own original work - it just needs to be similar enough by having overlapping windows.

    The advantage of not having MS Windows today would simply not outweigh the disadvantages.

  • I submitted a patent on "Posting to a weblog before all previous posters". Unfortunately the prior art research turned up an older application that said "First Patent"
  • The proposal has been put on ice -- where with any luck it will freeze to death.
    I say that's good news. I don't care whether it dies of apathy or whether it dies because I signed the petition, as long as it kicks the bucket!



  • I don't live in Europe, and I bet there are a lot slashdotters who don't reside in Europe too.

    So, what can we do to help?

  • I am a Canadian citizen, but I live in Europe, and I have not only signed the petition (without apology) but I have taken the initiative to explain in very simple, clear terms to every government official I can get hold of just exactly how much the open-source initiative in Europe would be hurt should the current attempts to legalize software patents be successful. The flip side of the argument is of course to emphasize how many billions of Euros Europeans can expect to pay in tribute to Redmond should the open source initiative be derailed. I think this small PR campaign of mine has already had some effect, and I'm encouraged. Linux conferences tend to be a very good place to corral and communicate with government officials, as they are keeping an attentive eye on the Linux movement at the moment, and at least in Germany, have announced official support. The Linux Kongress this year was addressed the deputy minister of Education. I explained to her that the one thing the German government could do to help Linux more than anything else is to ensure that software patents stay illegal in Europe. Actually, I was surprised that she didn't already know this - it seemed like news to her, but she took it very seriously. It shows the value of simple communication.

    The other thing I'm doing is encouraging the Linux company I work for to make their own voice heard in government circles, where the viewpoints of self-interested lawyers, certain U.S.software companies, and associated astroturfers are already more than adequately represented.

    What can you do if you're not European and you're not in Europe? Write about it - everywhere. Make sure everybody in U.S. and Canada knows about what we are fighting for in Europe, and how that can come back to benefit ordinary citizens in all counties (by weakening the U.S. software patent system, resulting in lower software prices and faster innovation). If you come across some useful information, forward it to somebody you know in Europe. Talk to Europeans. Stay in contact, keeping talking about it. Email or write by snail mail to EU government officials stating how much you admire the sensible efforts to keep software patents illegal in Europe, and how much you wish your own government showed as much sense.

    If you are Canadian, get hold of your MP *now* - write a letter - and ask what Canada is doing to make software patents illegal again, the way they were before. Canada in particular stands to suffer from software patents, and if Canada takes a stand it would not be the first time. Perhaps your MP just doesn't understand how much Canadian money is being exported *now* because of software patents.
    --

  • don't let the ineptitude of the USPO let you think that ALL patents are bad.

    We are taking the narrow position that all software patents are bad. If you think otherwise, then would you please name a few good software patents?
    --

  • Re:To issue patents or not.... (Score:5)

    by pointwood ( 14018 ) <jramskov@ g m a i l . com> on Thursday November 30, 2000 @12:51AM (#592700) Homepage
    There are several reasons why softwarepatents don't work, let me try to explain why:

    You can't do a search for prior art - you'll have to search the entire internet (and more). When searching for prior art, the Patent Office only uses their own database! At least that is what is the practice in Denmark.

    Patent's are supposed to give other developers access to your inventions, but have you tried to read a patentdescription? Patents are written in a languange which "only" patent lawyers understand, therefore the average developer will not be able to benefit from the patent databases - they simply don't understand it.

    Patents mostly don't benefit the small companies because the big companies often will have a many more patents, which you maybe are using without knowing it. Furthermore big companies has much more money and (probably) better lawyers I would also like to argue about whether a patent on "window display system" would have been good for innovation. What if the World Wide Web, the graphic click-able, interface of the Internet as we know it had been patented? im Berners-Lee who invented it, has said: "If the technology had been proprietary it would never have taken off. The decision to make the web an open system was necessary in order for it to become universal".

    For further information, take a look at these links:
    The EuroLinux File on Software Patents [eurolinux.org]

    Even though software patents mostly isn't possible in Europe, many softwarepatents exists anyway - take a look here and I bet you will be shaking your head: European Software Patent Horror Gallery [ffii.org]

    SSLUG (Skåne Sjælland Linux User Group) has written a good article here: Software patents - No thanks! [sslug.dk]

    Freepatents.org [freepatents.org]

    Greetings Joergen

  • The EU already issues patents on software, 15% of UK patents being granted now are software-base. The debate is about the critera for a patent.

    In the uk a pantent on software must be a new and non-obvious, this is a bit better in the rest of the EU where a technical effect must be demonstrated, so a disk cache program would be parentable, but a image view wouldn't be.

    find out more at the UK patent office [patent.gov.uk]
  • Here are two petitions[...]
    http://swpat.ffii.org [ffii.org]
    http://petition.eurolinux.org/ [eurolinux.org]

    Fortunately, the FFII is linking to Eurolinux [ffii.org] instead of starting their own petition.
    __

  • Re:To issue patents or not.... (Score:3)

    by lfourrier ( 209630 ) on Thursday November 30, 2000 @01:50AM (#592703)
    On Dec. 9, 1968, Engelbart and his research team unveiled the future according to Engelbart. For an hour-and-a-half, an amazed crowd of 2,300 at the Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco watched what's still called "the mother of all demos." Engelbart demonstrated a new way to work: personal computer workstations that could talk to each other, allowing collaboration from anywhere in the country.

    This was more than a vision; they showed off hardware and software, built by his team from scratch, equipped with some element of virtually every system we use today: the computer mouse, the graphical user interface (visual display of text and graphics), windows, networking, a Web-style browser to fish up information out of cyberspace, e-mail, even video conferencing. "It was one of the greatest experiences in my life," recalls fellow pioneer Alan Kay. "Engelbart was like Moses opening the Red Sea."

    from http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/special/ engelbart/part4.htm

    But what if, more interresting for the patenter, someone had patented the fact to use metaphor of the reality in a virtual system, covering windows, but also every computer model of part of the world, and as such, preventing everybody to do something useful with computer without thinking really laterally.

  • As in plan for reality.

    They also should account for the likelihood that patents won't be granted decently. The USPTO does a sorrowful job of researching prior art.

  • I'm not trying to stake out the most extreme possible position against IP laws. Actually, the status quo in the U.S. represents an extreme. Never has the balance between the private good and the commons gotten so out of balance in favor of the private good. Historically, there has never been a time when copyrights lasted as long as they do, and there has never been a time when patent examiners were so willing to approve applications to patent obvious business and software methods.

    I think we should go back to the 19th century as far as copyright: copyright terms should be on the order of 10-20 years. If that works OK, we could try reducing it to 5 years or 2 years.

    Of course this would be incredibly difficult politically, since, e.g. Disney believes they are permanently entitled to profit from the copyrights on Winnie the Pooh, whose author is dead.

    Business models in which a service is sold alongside the free information [...] can solve special cases, but not the general case. Suppose there is no service capable of generating sufficient profit margin to support the information-generating activity?
    No social system is perfect. The current, historically unprecented level of IP protection has its success stories and its failures. What we should keep in mind is that the concept of property is a social construct, not something ordained by God. Some Native American tribes had different concepts of land ownership than the European invaders. In the U.S., private property used to be a category that included human beings. Maybe someday our great-great grandchildren will look back with horror on the idea that in the old days, information could be owned.

    --

  • As well as signing the EuroLinux petition (there's a link in one of the posts above), you could have a look at, and respond to, the UK Patent Office's Public Consultation Exercise [patent.gov.uk].

    Note that if you live in the US, they explicitly ask "If you have any experience of the US position on patenting software or business methods, how would you assess it ?".

  • Compare the prices of original products (for instance a Gibson SG) with the prices of knockoff clone products (for instance Epiphone or Samick copies). You can't seriously be claiming that public reputation is worthless. It can mean thousands of dollars in value. Name recognition is a huge factor in marketing, and scrapping patents completely doesn't mean copyright and trademark would go away. You could copy a '61 SG down to the millimeter (as Samick did!) and in fact produce a product that in most respects totally equals the original product, and you still don't have permission to call it a '61 Gibson SG- and you still won't get a tenth of what a real '61 SG brings on the open market.

    Your argument seems to be totally baseless :)

  • They don't reward innovation as much as they encourage other companies to innovate.
    If one way of doing something gets popular (windowed GUIs, or gas powered cars, for instance), then every company will copy that way (Mac OS, Windows, X Windows on linux and bsd, did I miss anything?), since they're guaranteed to make some money. If that way of doing something was patented, then the other companies would either have to pay royalties or find a better way.

    The other companies would have to find a way to "put a square peg into a round hole" because they'd have to, otherwise they would lose profits to the first company with the patent.

    This works if patents are used decently. Companies who patent everything in sight, or patent the obvious (Amazon and Rambus) just hurt the industry by preventing companies from making or doing anything without paying royalties for the patents.

    The time limit for technology patents does inhibit the industry. Someone can file an obvious patent, some moronic patenter signs it, not really knowing what it is or means, and an entire section of the industry is paralyzed for 20 years. 1 or 2 years should be the maximum.
  • AMAZON
    One-Click Shopping was probably NOT already in common use. So what justification does a proponent of software patents have against Amazon getting this one? Obvious is a very slippery concept.

    WINDOWING SYSTEMS
    Okay, say Xerox Parc enforced patents on its windowing systems. Instead of being a good thing, consider that instead it may have stifled the eventual convergence of windowing concepts that we take for granted now. (e.g., Imagine Ford claiming patent rights on putting a steering wheel on the left and the gas pedal on the floor. Do you want all the other carmakers to think "laterally" and innovate their own man/car interfaces?)

    It is tough to justify intellectual monopoly rights when the details are considered.
  • This works if patents are used decently.
    Who said corporations behaved decently? Lawmakers should plan on a worst-case scenario, where people attempt to abuse the law to within an inch of its life.

    --

  • Re:Don't get too happy (Score:4)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Thursday November 30, 2000 @02:02AM (#592711) Homepage

    We're not really celebrating, just relieved that the situation has not gotten any worse for the time being. The European Patent Convention specifically excludes computer programs from patentability, but a few years ago the EPO decided to ignore this exclusion and start granting software patents anyway.

    What they did was to argue that a computer program with a technical effect is not a 'computer program as such' and thus the exclusion does not apply. Of course, any important algorithm or technique can be said to have a 'technical effect'.

    So we have the situation where patents are being granted, but possibly illegally. The enforceability of these patents is doubtful. The EPO would like to change the written law so that it matches the creative new interpretation, making software explicitly patentable (and making the patents already granted more likely to be enforceable). Any move to do this has been put on hold pending the European Commission's consultation [eu.int].

    The eventual aim is to reinstate the law as it is written, so that computer programs (whether 'as such' or 'not as such') are not affected by the patent system.

    What you can do: reply to the consultation (download the consultation paper in PDF format, you might also want to point out flaws in the accompanying economic study), sign Eurolinux's petition [eurolinux.org], and contact your national representatives. In some countries (eg the UK) national patent offices are holding their own consultations.

  • Re:To issue patents or not.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Don't stop at how they are issued, but question how long that patent may be enforced. A 20 year patent is ridiculous when applied to software methods! Within 3-4 years, that information should be released into the public domain so that all people may benefit from it (as was originally intended).

    But when biotech companies are being allowed to patent human genes, who really cares about software patents?

    Jeebus

  • Re:To issue patents or not.... (Score:3)

    by captaineo ( 87164 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @08:22PM (#592713)
    I know that the main thinking here on /. seems to be, IP=bad, patents=bad, business=bad. I would tend to disagree. Patents, when applied correctly, help innovation, rather than stifle it.

    I agree with you in principle, but there are severe problems with today's implementation of patents. Mainly, the time scale is way, way off.

    Instead of giving innovative companies a small head-start to recoup their R&ampD costs, 17-year patents give them a competition-crushing, innovation-stifling monopoly for the entire lifetime of their products.

    Consider that if Apple had patented the windowed GUI back in 1985, the patent would still be in effect today. That means not only no Windows as we know it, but no GNOME, no KDE, no BeOS, no 4DWM, etc. Un-licensed GUI efforts would have been utterly stifled until two years from now! I guarantee you that in such a world, graphical interfaces would not have advanced anywhere near where they are today. (Also note that Apple continues to make a hefty profit from its inventions without patent protection)

    I say we should return the patent system to its original purpose. Restrict patent terms to half of a product's projected useful lifetime: enough to give companies an incentive to invest in R&ampD, but not enough to stifle innovation in vital areas. Terms could vary according to the type of patent; I'd have no qualms with, say, two-year software patents, or six-month business model patents.

    Dan

  • Here are two petitions that allow you to voice your opinion. Please, sign them if this matters at all to you (especially if you live in Europe)... don't think "they'll have enough signatures without mine". Every signature counts! Also, here's an excellent information resource on software patents [mit.edu] that I found really interesting. Software patents and their evil brethren (UCITA, for example) must not be permitted if the consumer is to have any control over the software they are paying good money for!

    --
    "Give him head?" [pdqsolutions.com]
  • All right, but did anybody ever get forced to use the window paradigm in their GUI, just because it was not patented by Xerox ? Nowadays it's more or less compulsary to have windows (not Windows :) ) in your GUI, because people are used to it ; but back in the days when GUIs weren't commonplace, everybody could develop radically different GUIs and still hope that it would get widely used. Of course it was much easier to just borrow some ideas to the Xerox PARC design, since it was not patented, but still...

    My guess is that there aren't that many different, more efficient alternatives to windowed GUIs. If you disagree, please provide references to those "dream UIs" I don't know about, I'd like to give it a try...

  • Re:To issue patents or not.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about UNIX? I saw someone using it in Jurassic Park, and it used neither windows nor command lines.
  • This is a deeply questionable assertion for the following reason:

    Given person A who's come up with an innovative idea and person B who has not, you're claiming that patents are necessary because in giving A a monopoly on the idea, it will force B, who's shown no aptitude for coming up with innovative ideas, to start doing it.

    It makes more sense, logically, to disallow any and all patents. B then copies A's idea, and A, not B, is the one forced to come up with another innovative idea- A, not B, is the one who's shown an aptitude for doing just that- and A, not B, is the one publically credited with originating the idea that becomes widespread and popular.

    What on earth gives you the idea that granting A monopolies on ideas will produce more innovation? Nothing will make B innovate- not everybody _can_ innovate, see Microsoft as exhibit B- and giving A patents only gives A an excuse to _stop_ innovating and hire more lawyers. The whole concept is quite stupid and based on a nice friendly notion of 'everybody can do this if they only try' which is nonsense.

  • Oh. Oops!

    --
    "Give him head?" [pdqsolutions.com]

  • Investment (Score:3)

    by Paul Johnson ( 33553 ) on Thursday November 30, 2000 @03:39AM (#592719) Homepage
    [When copyright was abolished] the reason publishing ground to a halt was that it was expensive to publish something, and you couldn't justify the investment without a guaranteed monopoly. Now, publishing is potentially free.

    Its not publishing that is the deterrent cost, its creating the information in the first place.

    I've been following this debate for many years now. I have great sympathy with the idea that IP laws stifle innovation. But I have yet to see any explanation of how we pay people for creating information without them.

    Answers to this question generally fall into two categories:

    1. Business models in which a service is sold alongside the free information, such as your Galileo model. This can solve special cases, but not the general case. Suppose there is no service capable of generating sufficient profit margin to support the information-generating activity?
    2. Assertions that people will carry on generating information regardless. Again this is true in special cases (e.g. software), but does not cover the general case. Seen any open-source maps recently? The only ones I know of are generated by governments for other purposes. A good map is expensive to produce, and people do not generally make them for fun.

    Paul.

  • Just for fun, I'd like to approach this subject from a different direction.

    If the EU eventually rejects software patents, they could go one step further and contest US software patents as non-tariff trade barriers. In fact, any GATT signator anywhere in the world could bring such an action before the World Trade Organization.

    The proprietary software industry is attempting to standardize worldwide treatment of patents in their favor because, if they don't succeed, the pendulum could come back to bloody them.

  • I mostly agree with you on that one...but there are a couple of issues on that one which are going to be hard to solve satisfactorily. First, it is tough to come up with objective AND fair criteria which can be used to decide whether a particular innovation is worth giving a patent to. One might argue that the currrent set of rules is sufficient for the task, but see how much room it leaves for subjectivity. Second, to do a really good job, you need people from the relevant field who can provide an informed opinion without being biased themselves. Finding such people is awfully hard, since we all have some fixed ideas about what is good and what is not. This is also a big resource issue-- I don't think the patent offices have the kind of money to employ so many experts... However, having said that, I do agree with you that some sort of patenting is essential if we want to keep promoting innovation. I have been recently reading about a concept called "idea futures"(http://hanson.gmu.edu/ideafutures.html)in which it is proposed that scientific research evaluation be opened up to the market since this not only prevents an elite few to have the power to guide and shape current opinion but also allows markets to promote ideas which are more feasible, in the view of the market. I am not sure how this directly relates to patents, but I think a combination of the two might provide an interesting and refreshing perspective at the very least. Just my two cents....

  • Re:What can we do? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    IAAIPL (I am an IP lawyer) and here my quick take on it.
    The reason software patents are being promoted heavily in Europe (and elsewhere) is because the American (and Japanese) buseinesses and government are clamouring for it and applying pressure. Those governments are doing this because they feel it to be of benefit to the profits of their domestic companies.
    Therefore, the strategy for US /.er's is to make the case to their own government (and converse arguments to the EEC) that European software patents would raise costs and limit the technological competitiveness of US businesses. European software that becomes patented creates the cost of a patent licence that would be a new cost to the business, or indeed could shut you out of a market sector, at the moment you can at least take the idea and improve it or reverse engineer it.
    The point to make to the EEC is to point out that European SW patents would oblige you to stampede into the Europe and lock Europeans out with patents. That would be great for US/Japan but not for Europe.
    As for net economic benefit: who is likely to apply for the most patents? on current trends in other high tech sectors one would have to say, guess what, the US and Japan!! The net benefit to the European economy is thus likely to be negative overall.

    Maybe sign the European petition as a US citizen on that basis. Start a campaign targetted at the US Dept. of Trade asking them to shut the f**k up and kindly desist from pressuring other nations to adopt SW patents.

  • I am working on a social sciences report sadly titled "The social impact of legalisation of software patents within the European Union".

    It isn't finished, however I would appreciate comments, and I hope you can find it enjoyable in some way.

    Oh here is is. [helsinki.fi]

  • No, it's not true because it was in a movie, it's true because it happened. Maybe "stole" isn't the best way to describe it, but Xerox PARC did come up with it first, and Apple did get information and a couple of engineers from PARC to develop the Lisa and the Mac. Just because it was in a movie doesn't necesarily mean it isn't true to some degree.
  • I don't think "public credit" means much in terms of the public's buying decisions. Since B can copy whatever A does, B can obtain about as much economic benefit as A does from A's invention. So there is no incentive for A to innovate rather than to copy.
  • Big business likes patents because how else can you collect money for doing absolutely nothing? And what Big Business wants, Big Business usually gets, like it or not.

  • History (Score:3)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @07:08PM (#592727) Homepage
    Actually, Xerox invented the mouse-based GUI. I'm not saying this just to be a historical nitpicker. Xerox never marketed GUI-based systems because they didn't realize how important they could become. The actual result would have been that Apple would have been deterred from making the Mac.

    If you want more history, here's a cool factoid for you: Galileo invented open source. What I mean by that is that he invented a kind of analog computer (sort of like a slide rule), and instead of charging lots of money for each machine, he sold them cheaply, but charged for instruction in how to use them. Sorta like the business models of lots of Linux companies now, huh?

    Another example is that the French revolutionaries abolished copyright, leading to the total collapse of the publishing industry, except for scandal sheets and pornography. This is usually quoted as showing we need copyright, but the same conditions don't apply now. Then, the reason publishing ground to a halt was that it was expensive to publish something, and you couldn't justify the investment without a guaranteed monopoly. Now, publishing is potentially free.

    I think the morals of these historical facts are that (1) that society is not as dependent on IP laws as you might think, and with weaker or nonexistent IP laws, people would just find alternative ways of doing business, and (2) technology really has made a lot of IP law obsolete.

    --

  • To issue patents or not.... (Score:4)

    by Gen-GNU ( 36980 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @06:28PM (#592728)
    The main issue I have is not whether patents can be issued. It is how they are issued that concerns me.

    I know that the main thinking here on /. seems to be, IP=bad, patents=bad, business=bad. I would tend to disagree. Patents, when applied correctly, help innovation, rather than stifle it.

    Before you mark this down as a troll, or flamebait, let me explain. Imagine if the first windowing display system for computers had been patented. Most people I hear give credit for this to Mac, but not being a strong computer historian, I don't know. Whatever company came up with this, if they had patented it, would have had a large advantage over others. Some would say that this would mean the other companies would go under, and that Macs would dominate the desktop.

    I believe, however, that this would have forced others to think more laterally. Given the choice of giving in, or coming up with a new display system, (not windowed), it is doubtless that a myriad of display systems would be developed. Some would suck. Some would rock. But there would be new ideas tried, new technologies developed.

    My point here is that if people want to influence the outcome of all of this, start lobbying for how and why patents are issued. Patents for things already in common use, (i.e. 1-click shopping), don't help anyone. But don't let the ineptitude of the USPO let you think that ALL patents are bad.

  • Imagine if the first windowing display system for computers had been patented. Most people I hear give credit for this to Mac, but not being a strong computer historian, I don't know.

    I'd give credit to Xerox PARC. IIRC, Jobs stole the GUI from Xerox, and Bill stole it from Jobs.

    It's almost too bad the windowing display system idea wasn't patented. I'd like to see what sort of alternative UIs might be created. Now it seems the main innovation in UI's is packing more widgits into a window's title bar or putting more crap into a Windoze-like start menu or system tray (or whatever that gray bar with the stop menu is called).
    I'd like to see someone come up with a simple, fairly useful UI that doesn't use a window or a command line.
  • I got kinda worried reading this from the text ( what about software is not "technical"?):

    "As before, computer-implemented inventions can be patented if they involve a new and inventive technical contribution to the state of the art. Technical solutions for use in data processing or for carrying out methods of doing business therefore remain patentable.

    This follows from the concept of invention itself, which draws a clear distinction between technical solutions and non-technical methods. On this basis, patents cannot be granted for computer programs or business methods which are not of a technical nature."
  • Imagine if the first windowing display system for computers had been patented. ... this would have forced others to think more laterally.

    Patents strip us of a basic freedom. They do not reward innovation, they reward a large legal department. The legal minefield they create is as big an obstacle to innovation as I can imagine.

    I'm sorry, but your suggestion that patents encourage lateral thinking is absurd. The scientists in Apollo 13 put a square peg into a round hole because they had to, not because someone patented round pegs. gzip and bzip2 compress better than compress. PNG is superior to GIF. But they'd be better if they had been developed without regard to patents. bzip was created to do better compression. bzip2 was created because bzip infringed on a patent on arithmetic encoding.

  • Patents, when applied correctly, help innovation, rather than stifle it

    True. Unfortunately, lots of patents are applied incorrectly and hurt innovation deeply. The question then becomes wether the benefit of the correctly applied patents outweighs the pain done by incorrect patents. My position currently is that this is not the case, and I'm against patents because of that...
    -John

  • Don't get too happy (Score:3)

    by crucini ( 98210 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2000 @06:31PM (#592733)
    From the article:
    As before, computer-implemented inventions can be patented if they involve a new and inventive technical contribution to the state of the art. Technical solutions for use in data processing or for carrying out methods of doing business therefore remain patentable.
    Oh, good.
    Technical solution for use in data processing: Access a database from a GUI across a network. (The substance of an obnoxious patent discussed here previously).
    Technical solution for carrying out methods of doing business: One-click ordering.
    What are we celebrating again?
  • With patenting the window[s] idea you are striking a nerve. as far as i know the first graphical user interface - the mother of all windows - was developed by Xerox's famed Palo Alta Labs.
    Imagine they had taken out a patent on it. Not only would have Apple [then a tiny start-up] not been able to afford licensing fees, but M$ would have stuck to it's DOS for decades.
    Without a wide acceptance of a GUI, it is unlikely that PCs would have found such a mass market and it's likely that this in turn would have profoundly influenced the history of the planet.

    Whatever one thinks about M$, they certainly played a major role in the spread of PCs and in the 'ease' with which basic jobs can be done.
    Let's face it, the majority of users, private and commercial, mainly used PCs as a fancy type writer and advanced calculator or to complete empty fields in proprietary software systems without much knowing / or caring, what happened behind the screen.

    Without a move-there-click-here-open-that device, we would all be sitting in the basement next to huge boxes and follow Gate's [1980?] claim that 64Kb is all a user would ever need in Memory.

    The fact that basic uses of PCs were understandable by anyone with an IQ above the plastic potplant in the corner was what drove the rapid spread of PCs - which in turn started the race of manufacturers to cut design-to-market time in an ongoing push to be faster, better, nicer AND cheaper.

    So, while patents for specific fields should be granted, they should not enjoy the broad interpretation guidelines that are often applied.
    issue a patent on a specific process of datamining, but don't patent search technology.
    issue a patent on green shirts, but not on the idea of covering your upper torso with cloth.

    Finally, when a company applies for a patent, part of the application should be what they plan to charge royalties on and how much. The PTO should then determine if granting the patent will stiffle development and possibly require the royalties to be lowered...
    alternatively, grant patents only for short times, like, say 24 months. after which nobody can ever apply for a similar or related patent ever again.
    imagine what type of development explosion this would create - and how many lawyers would be out of a job... =P

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