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Learned Quotes: Bill Gates of Microsoft
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. "
Bill Gates of Microsoft
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Memo 1991
Important Announcements on software patenting:
How did your MEP vote on the Softpat Directive?
This database has been compiled with the help of people credited at the bottom of it. The project has included
obtaining the roll call lists, and matches them to constituencies. The grade is based on how many of the amendments are voted for
in agreement with the FFII position.
The Patent Newspeak Translator Having problems understanding what certain "IP professionals" and patent lobby groups are trying to say?
The Newspeak decoder is a translator for the rest of us "mere peasants" who do not understand the gobbledygook. (I make no warranty for the correct functioning of this, but it is fascinating!)
Why are software patents illegal under international law? A short summary of the arguments that you probably haven't heard about software patenting and why it could place us in breach of Treaties.
The Origins of Software Patenting: The Fatal Presumption this paper debunks some of the myths about copyright and patent law overlap
"Computer-Implemented Inventions" and International Obligations: Legal Facts, Legal Fictions This essay shows the gradual decline into patenting of pure software and mentions the points about how selective interpretation of Treaties does not add up..
Read the full address to the FFII at the EU Parliament on the subject of "software inventions".
This contains hyperlinks to all relevant treaties so you can make up your own minds as to whether you agree. I also demonstrate why the Council document is flawed.
See Compliance chart of the Parliament Directive and the Council "Compromise"
The Dream Directive Explains simply why the Parliament proposals work
Pan European Softpat Brawl Erupts
posted on 08/07/04 10:40 AM by
There has been a surge in interest over the software patenting issue after articles were printed in the International Herald Tribune, Macworld and the European Commissions own Cordis news service.
The articles mention the very questionable circumstances surrounding the Council of Minister's meeting agreement reached on the 18th May.
Amongst the allegations raised in these reports:
* That the Danish minister was coerced into a yes vote.
* That National governments were misled as to the directive's contents, believing it to be a true compromise with the European Parliament rather than a wholesale legalisation of software patents.
* That Poland was not even asked for her vote
* That the German delegation accepted last minute purely cosmetic amendments then accepted the directive- contrary to the wishes of the goverment.
The resulting fallout in Europe is gripping the national governments in Poland, Germany, Portugal and Denmark all of whom's votes are looking less certain now.
The FFII - Campaigning for real safeguards for software authors
posted on 06/07/04 12:03 PM by
Since the advance of the patent system into areas of abstraction- (i.e. pure ideas with no real physical teaching) The web has been filled with organisations and individuals claiming to want to reverse the trend into trivial patentability.
I personally find that the FFII and their allies are the only ones I consider to represent my interests as a software author. Many other organisations like to preach about bad patents but offer no solutions except throwing more money at the patent system in the hope that one day inventions will be suitably non-obvious.
This however does not solve the core problem of trivial software patentability. The ideas in software are as abstract as the ideas in a book- this is why people who write software have always been known as authors. Invention law is supposed to be for physical products or processes whether they use software in part or not- even in the USA abstract ideas are not supposed to be patentable but of course they are under the guise of newspeak.
The term "Computer implemented invention" itself is an insult to democracy and is nonsensical. To be able to claim ideas in software are physical because they run on a computer is as ridiculous as claiming that ideas in a book are concrete and physical because they can be claimed with the paper and ink. Nevertheless there is no shortage of patent "professionals" who stake their reputations on this assertion.
Only when we insist that inventions must be physical teachings of applied science will logic patents that have proved so problematic subside- anything less is nothing short of claiming ownership of human logic. The non-obviousness criterium will not prevent the damaging effects of these types of patents; what is arguably a non-obvious thought to one person can be perfectly obvious to another. No one has the right to claim a mere thought or an idea as part of their intellectual property- it is time to open up the statute book again and remind people what is and what is not statutory material.
Dutch Parliament AXE Support for Council 'Compromise'
posted on 08/07/04 01:14 PM by
In an unprecidented move, the Dutch Parliament changed the nation's vote on the Council "Compromise" Directive from a yes to an abstention.
The Consilium proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions had removed all safeguards to prevent pure software patentability and replaced them with the usual drivel and pseudo-restrictions of the patent establishment.
The Dutch Parliament saw through these so-called "restrictions" and demanded a change in their recorded vote. The minister responsible then admitted that the "compromise" with the European Parliament proposal was not a compromise at all- containing none of the restrictions that the Parliament had drafted, and this earlier assertion was then blamed on a word-processing error.
There has been debate as to whether the minister is now obliged to change his vote in line with the wishes of the national parliament. The minister insisting that the parliament's vote does not oblige him to change the vote.
The Consilium draft now lies on a paper-thin majority and parliamentary proposals raised by the FDP in Germany could still sink it.
Beeb highlights 'Patent Trolls'
posted on 03/06/04 10:35 AM by Christian Beauprez
The BBC has published an article featuring the voices of E-bay executives and other software publishing head honchos who are crying foul over trivial patent lawsuits initiated by "Trolls".
Trolls are individuals or companies who inherit vastly over broad patents on software from defunct companies and then agressively persue their monopoly "rights" at the expense of software authors (the legitimate right holders) who actually work for a living.
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Wed Aug 4, 04:05 am
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