03-02-2005 13:03									#1
	EU software patent process restarted Tired of ads?

Thanks to Poland's heroic efforts of stopping the European Council from sneaking software patent legislation through the backdoor, the process has retarted:

quote: It's true. JURI has voted to restart the procedure regarding software patents. From scratch. I heard it first from an email, and now Heise has it up online. Here is the FFII press release. Jan Wildeboer tells me that by invoking Rule 55 of the Rules of Parliament, JURI is now asking for a completely new directive. He says the proposed directive on so-called "computer-implemented inventions" was under heavy fire from the beginning of the intense meeting. By throwing away almost all amendments of the Parliament, the Council tried to push through a "compromise" that was not ultimately accepted, making a restart the only viable way left.

Groklaw

This is excellent news. I hope they will eventually scrap the entire idea of software patents.

	09-02-2005 23:53									#3
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Oops...

http://wiki.ffii.org/index.cgi?Pap050206En

quote: The Euro PAP web service of the Polish Press Agency (PAP) writes that the draft directive "on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions" (software patent directive) is likely to be adopted on the 17 February meeting of the Council of Ministers of Finance, because Poland will no longer block the vote. On February 2nd, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) decided with a large majority to ask the Commission for a renewed referral of the Software Patent Directive. However, the Commission is not obliged to comply to the Parliament's request and the Presidency may still schedule the vote on the Directive on one of the next Council meetings. Here is a summary of the Euro PAP's original article (in Polish): quote: On February 4th, 2005, Euro PAP (euro.pap.com.pl) announced in the article entitled "Patent Directive Likely Not to Return to 1st Reading but Revision Still Possible" that, according to the EU Presidency, the vote on the Draft of the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions will be scheduled on the 17 February 2005 meeting of the Council of Ministers of Finance. Euro PAP also wrote, basing on unnamed sources in the European Commission, that before the Council meets, the Commission will not reply to the European Parliament's request to restart the procedure, because it is waiting for the reaction of the member states when the Council will be adopting the Directive. According to Polish diplomatic sources, this time Poland will support the Draft. However, the Directive may still be revised during the 2nd reading in the European Parliament. Poland has been facing increasing diplomatic pressure from the Council of Ministers to say yes to a directive which it does not support. Polish Coreper diplomats have in the past already many times announced that Poland would not resist any longer. On the day of the JURI meeting, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy announced in his speech that he had received "written assurances concerning the re-instatement of the issue on the forthcoming EU Council meeting". The article by Euro PAP further strengthens these rumors. The two previous delays in the adoption of the Draft made it possible for the JURI to make the request to the Commission to restart the procedure. The official reason given by Poland for delaying the vote in both of these cases was that Poland was working on a statement that would present Poland's reservations to the current content of the Directive. The Polish government has however given instructions to its diplomats that they should support any other country's initiatives for delay or revision (B-item) of the agreement which, as everybody knows, Poland does not and did not support. So far it is not clear whether any other government will come to help. If the Directive is adopted on the EU Council, the Commission may avoid answering the Parliament's request for renewed referral and hope/pressure for a failure of the restart motion.

Since I knew UR would not post this himself.

	10-02-2005 00:36									#4
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quote: However, the Commission is not obliged to comply to the Parliament's request and the Presidency may still schedule the vote on the Directive on one of the next Council meetings.

Long live democracy in Europe!

	10-02-2005 00:44									#5
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Why is that funny, Asher? Software patents don't work -- I know you work for IBM and they've got truckloads of them -- they are a significant obstacle and major legal concern for numerous small players in the software field. A very large proportion of software patents are utter garbage: my current favourite bad example is the Microsoft patent on an administrative process which describes the *nix world's "sudo" functionality to a T. It absolutely never should've been granted. A patent-infringement case can easily run into the millions of dollars in legal fees. The worst part of it is, that the system discourages you from even looking for patents you might be infringing on, as you get hit for triple damages if you know about the infringement!

Even setting aside the viability of software patents, the idea that the EU commission can ram this directive down the throat of the EU parliament in the face of this opposition speaks volumes about a truly ****ed-up EU government system (they even tried to pass this thing at a meeting of Agriculture Ministers, for pete's sake). Poland must be getting leaned on awfully hard by one of the other players.

Everything about this process stinks no matter what way you look at it.

	10-02-2005 00:48									#6
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I think that software patents are pretty necessary to have a viable industry around software, and they are great in theory. The current implementation in the US is borked, they need more resources and further checking, and stricter standards.

It was funny because of the collective cheers of "We won!" and all the hyperboles surrounding the original story, and now they crashed back down to Earth...those same people are strangely silent and not posting this update.

	10-02-2005 00:58									#7
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Software patents remind me of the Seldon patient from the first decade of the 20th century. For those of you who don't know George B. Selden filed the first US patent for a combustion-powered automobile in 1879. Automobiles had already been built in Germany but no one had bothered to file a patent so Seldon quickly made a car and patented the idea of a self propelled vehicle. Seldon then went on to demand anyone who made or sold a self propelled vehicle (even if it used steam or electric power instead of internal combustion) pay him for his patent.

Of course none of those other cars had anything to do with Seldon or his primitive car nor did Seldon invent the idea of a wheeled self propelled vehicle but despite the dubiousness of the patent Seldon kept winning court cases. This patent retarded the growth of the automobile industry by two to three decades in the US and it wasn't until Henry Ford finally spent millions of dollars in 1911 (Ford filled his case in 1903 but the Supreme Court didn't settle it until 1911) that automakers stopped having to pay Seldon money for squatting on this patent.

Patents are good if they protect genuine innovations but all to often software patents look like some one trying to patent the word "is" and then demanding every publisher pay a royalty when ever they use the word "is" in a sentence. That's not useful and it retards growth in the industry.

	10-02-2005 01:01									#8
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Oerdin: You need to differenciate between being able to patent software algorithms your company spent millions researching, and a pathetic US Patent Office that is overworked and approves just about everything.

Software patents are necessary and viable, but are being diluted by poor US Patent Office standards.

	10-02-2005 01:07									#9
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I agree that genuine innovations and clear finished products (like say MS Word) should allowed to be patented but not the theoretical "if, than" statements most software uses. Yes, you're right as usual the patent office is behaving stupidly but Republicans tend to losen rules while in office thus letting more dubious patents through then say Clinton or Carter did. Clearly the US government needs clearer guidelines to be set to prevent abuse but those guidelines need to protect finished products not building blocks which are the language of software.

Last edited by Oerdin on 10-02-2005 at 01:41

	10-02-2005 01:29									#10
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Whoa there...

I don't think "clear finished products" like MS Word should be patented at all. I think they should be copyrighted, for sure, but not patented.

A patent to me is, say, a new compression algorithm that's 10% better than anything out there.

Or a new way to run parametric queries in a database with additional performance.

These are mostly innovations made by lots of R&D effort on behalf of the company, organization, or individual.

There is no point in patenting entire finished products like MS Word -- that's the point of a copyright.

Patents exist to protect innovative methods and ideas, not products.

I think you have a fundamental misconception on the purpose of patents.

	10-02-2005 01:43									#11
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Ok, you're right. I misused the word.

	10-02-2005 02:03									#12
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Oerdin's point still stands though - if the patent relates to something tangible in the marketplace that you're actively selling (not just some crap car you built but never sold), then fine. Otherwise it is theoretical - vaporware.

Imagine if sci-fi writers went out and patented everything they conceived...

	10-02-2005 02:04									#13
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I wonder when Linux will be illegal contraband that's downloaded only by FILTHY PIRATE CRIMINALS.

	10-02-2005 09:45									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Since I knew UR would not post this himself.

Why post about a non-issue that hasn't occurred yet?

	10-02-2005 09:59									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Why post about a non-issue that hasn't occurred yet?

Because you did when you made this thread?

	10-02-2005 10:33									#16
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dp

	10-02-2005 10:34									#17
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Theoretical software 'patents'
EU bureucrats restarting decision-making processes all over again and spending >2 years with our money over a decision which could easily be made within 5 minutes.

	10-02-2005 11:15									#18
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quote: Originally posted by dejon Oerdin's point still stands though - if the patent relates to something tangible in the marketplace that you're actively selling (not just some crap car you built but never sold), then fine. Otherwise it is theoretical - vaporware.

Okay. Take Adobe. They patented floating palletes that dock in tabs with other floating palletes. They then sued Macromedia and forced it to remove such docking from its applications.

Yay, software crappified with patents. Happy happy.

Honestly.


Humanity's uniqueness on Earth rests on one thing and one thing only -- easy learning and sharing of information.

Let's say there are three kinds of evolution -- chemical, biological, and memetic.

In chemical evolution, the environment influences the formation of chemicals and formed chemicals influence the environment. Slowly the biases build up until you get the self-perpetuating reaction we call life.

Life partakes in biological evolution. Subtle changes can happen in every generation. Genes appear and drift and punctuate. Species bifurcate and trifurcate. It's still slow and expensive.

Finally, lifeforms gain the ability to learn and instruct. The speed of advancement shifts to overdrive. What would take uncountable generations biologically can happen in minutes memetically. Chimps, parrots, dolphins.

And, on top of those, humans. Just as the condor has the greatest wingspan of all animals, so does the human have the greatest intelligence of all animals. We are born with our brains unformed and we learn from birth to death. Free exchange of information is what makes humanity humanity.

With it, we all learned how to use the fire and the wheel. With it, we built pyramids and aqueducts. And, with it, we shall forge a world of computation.


Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks are crimes against Nature. I am fine with outlawing plagiarism -- the taking of credit for the work of others. But no one has any right to control the flow any information external to their own brain.

	10-02-2005 22:42									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Asher I think that software patents are pretty necessary to have a viable industry around software

Fine -- name the software products that (a) only exist today because of patents or (b) are unviable due to lack of patent protection. Now compare/contrast that list with the amount of bullshit litigation that bogus software patents have caused -- how much did Microsoft have to spend in legal fees to fight off that garbage Eolas patent, for instance?

I can only think of a bare handful of patented algorithms that have borne out their usefulness, such as RSA, LZH, and MP3. The first two are now expired (and LZH collected zilch in royalties and even spurred the creation of the PNG format when Unisys announced they wanted to be paid for it), and you're quite keen to point out WMA's technical superiority to MP3. Not to mention the raft of other audio compression formats out there, including the open-source OGG. Even your example of compression algorithms: if patents were necessary for improvements in such areas, explain 7-zip being licensed under the LGPL.

The software industry has grown for over 20 years with copyrights only, no patents, and seems to have done just fine. Microsoft's profits were up again last quarter.

Your argument's a red herring.

	10-02-2005 23:09									#20
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quote: Originally posted by optimus2861 Fine -- name the software products that (a) only exist today because of patents or (b) are unviable due to lack of patent protection.

A far bigger list than you think. I work at a Software Lab -- as the name implies, the primary role of this lab is software research. IBM invests many hundreds of millions of dollars into this process, because they want to invent something that gives them a leg up in the industry. A head-start.

Once you don't offer protection for the inventors (and investors) in such things, there is far less incentive for the research to be done.

There are algorithms developed here in DB2 that are patented that no one else uses, because IBM spent years developing them.

Same with compiler optimization algorithms.

Both are very key attributes to distinguishing these products from the competition: no one makes a faster database, and no one makes a faster optimizing compiler. The exclusivity of these technologies to IBM products was the incentive for IBM to invest all that money and resources into research. If IBM invests all that money and resources and everyone else uses it too right away, what's the incentive for it?

quote: Now compare/contrast that list with the amount of bullshit litigation that bogus software patents have caused -- how much did Microsoft have to spend in legal fees to fight off that garbage Eolas patent, for instance?

Bogus software patents are not part of this argument -- that belongs into an argument of revamping the Patent Office with real standards.

quote: Even your example of compression algorithms: if patents were necessary for improvements in such areas, explain 7-zip being licensed under the LGPL.

There are always going to be exceptions.

quote: The software industry has grown for over 20 years with copyrights only, no patents, and seems to have done just fine. Microsoft's profits were up again last quarter. Your argument's a red herring.

It's absolutely not -- and I'm not sure what your point is about MS' proft being up.

It takes an incredible amount of investment these days to fund R&D in software to push the envelope. There is far less incentive for companies to do such R&D if there is nothing there to protect their investment.

This is a business issue more than a technical one.

You'll surely point out academia as an example of not needing companies to do it, but that would be a terrible example as well. Virtually all academic computer science research these days are funded or produced in association with large companies.

	14-02-2005 09:47									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Because you did when you made this thread?

Asher, it wouldn't be an issue until the patent directive was actually put on the meeting agenda.

BTW, you can take your foot out from your mouth now, for the umpteenth time, thanks to the Dutch

quote: "The Commission regrets very much that the software patent will not be on the agenda. It has been removed," Commission spokesman Olivier Drewes told a news conference.

	14-02-2005 11:50									#22
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Asher, I can only speak with knowledge on the issue of biological patents, i.e. genome squatting (mentioned in a previous thread). I agree with you for the necessity of software patents to protect genuine innovation. However, how to solve the flip side of the coin, i.e. patent abuse.

In the case of the agribusiness companies, for example, both Democratic and Republican administrations have happily let huge agri-businesses in the crop and seed areas patent basic portions of plant genomes. The people who are writing the laws are subverted by those companies who they are supposed to be regulating, in the US we call in campaign contributions instead of bribes.

How do you propose to prevent this, i.e. eliminating spurious or "idea-squatting" patents when so many large businesses are the worst offendors. Note also how are you going to pay for these reforms - patent fees already are freezing out small inventors, and the suggestion of any increase in business taxes is met with howls of protest.

	14-02-2005 12:00									#23
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Patenting genes is especially contemptible. Nobody should be able to patent discoveries.

	14-02-2005 17:48									#24
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UR, I mostly agree with you. However, you need to look at it from a true "discovery" paradigm. Let's assume you know of a small body of people with a certain trait. It's desirable, let's say immunity to AIDS.

No government is investigating these individuals. At great expense you obtain access to them, let's say on the trucking routes in Nigeria - and they exist, prostitutes who are immune. You take DNA samples, and sequence all of them, starting with areas that are suggested by the research to be the most likely involved sites.

After several false starts, and tens of millions of dollars, you discover the genetic sequence that provides that protection. Also please imagine that in 10-20 years viral delivery of these genes are possible, possibly via a bone marrow removal - replacement with the gene insertion in the lab.

They've "discovered" the gene. It may turn out that the gene leads to some partially effective drug therapies, and those are currently patentable. But they may not. Should that be patentable? I would argue yes. The problem is how to differentiate between that and genome squatting, the utter opposite.

Note that these patent issues are very germane. The Soviet Union pioneered the use of bacteriophages to treat ENT - Ear/Nose/Throat infections. When they fell apart, the labs and their very germane discoveries, with the wonderful side effect of cutting down antibiotic abuse (primarily for those types of infections) went by the wayside. Why? Because they could not be patented, and the cost of bringing them to market was simple not recoverable given that the viruses themselves are not patentable.

Now a strong, well-funded NIH could have done that - but that's an entire other thread about the implications of public health research versus drug companies, i.e. free markets DO have limitations. But here what is germane is that in the biological sciences the lack of patent protection has severely cramped research, just as genome squatting has done the same. Without a very expensive Patent Office, paying examiners what they could make in private business, I see no answer. No matter what the answers are going to be very difficult to implement.

	14-02-2005 19:55									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Asher, it wouldn't be an issue until the patent directive was actually put on the meeting agenda. BTW, you can take your foot out from your mouth now, for the umpteenth time, thanks to the Dutch

Okay, so they're not going to vote on this now?

Why is this a good thing for you?

	14-02-2005 21:22									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Nobody should be able to patent discoveries.

Returning to teh stone age.

Centralized (state) R&D will almost always be outdone by decentralized (read private enterprise) customer specific alternatives.

	14-02-2005 21:54									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Okay, so they're not going to vote on this now? Why is this a good thing for you?

Hasn't it been explained enough for you yet? The state of software patents as they are now in the USA, and how they would've been in the EU under this directive, is entirely too problematic to allow to go forward. 17-year monopolies on implementations of the most obvious, trivial ideas in computing such as single-click paying (Amazon), the sudo process (Microsoft), a help icon (Japanese firm), combining a game server with an IM client (Yahoo), selling overseas via a computer (some little upstart firm suing Dell), etc. -- hell, just pick your story.

Even The Economist notes the problems in the patent process today as they relate to software and "business method" patents.

	14-02-2005 22:06									#28
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The problem isn't with the concept of software patents, it's with a horrible implementation and a patent office that allows silly patents. If you're going to argue on software patents, you need to argue the ideas and not outrageous exaples (which is the fault of the PTO).

And I'm a bit confused with no time to read -- is the vote to abolish software patents, or allow them?

I'm not defending the current patent process -- I hope I'm emphasizing this for the last time -- I'm defending the concept of software patents. I agree that your examples are ridiculous and should never have been allowed, but that doesn't discredit the concept of software patents...just discredits the usefulness of the US patent and trademark office.

	14-02-2005 22:27									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Software patents remind me of the Seldon patient from the first decade of the 20th century. For those of you who don't know George B. Selden filed the first US patent for a combustion-powered automobile in 1879. Automobiles had already been built in Germany but no one had bothered to file a patent so Seldon quickly made a car and patented the idea of a self propelled vehicle. Seldon then went on to demand anyone who made or sold a self propelled vehicle (even if it used steam or electric power instead of internal combustion) pay him for his patent. Of course none of those other cars had anything to do with Seldon or his primitive car nor did Seldon invent the idea of a wheeled self propelled vehicle but despite the dubiousness of the patent Seldon kept winning court cases. This patent retarded the growth of the automobile industry by two to three decades in the US and it wasn't until Henry Ford finally spent millions of dollars in 1911 (Ford filled his case in 1903 but the Supreme Court didn't settle it until 1911) that automakers stopped having to pay Seldon money for squatting on this patent. Patents are good if they protect genuine innovations but all to often software patents look like some one trying to patent the word "is" and then demanding every publisher pay a royalty when ever they use the word "is" in a sentence. That's not useful and it retards growth in the industry.

Just a note that abuse of the patent system is hardly limited to software patents.

I think the central problem is that in our system we have ex parte prosecution, no opposition and a presumption of validity. I personally would recognize that ex parte examinations are not exhaustive and lead to problem patents. We should attach a presumption of validity only to patents that have been subject to an opposition and that an opposition must be conducted before a patent can be prosecuted in court.

	14-02-2005 23:13									#30
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Thank you Ned - a fairly simple, elegant solution.

Now a question for you - the biggest clunker. In either party could we find the constituency to push this? I have my own suspiciions, but I will admit that working for the government has caused me to become very jaded about large corporations and regulatory agencies, as in the big corporations like them because they can so routinely manipulate the regulation process to keep smaller companies out.