jeanackle Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 Hello everyone, I got this yesterday: FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Plans Brussels 2003/08/19 For immediate Release The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision on September 1st, giving rise to another wave of protests. Various groups in Belgium and elsewhere are mobilising for a rally in Brussels on August 27th and are calling on web administrators to temporarily block their web sites. Details The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision on September 1st, giving rise to another wave of protests. The Eurolinux Alliance is calling for participation in a rally in Brussels on August 27th, comprising a street performance at 12.00 on Luxemburg Square and conference at 14.00 in the European Parliament, and for accompanying online demonstrations. "The directive proposal as prepared by Arlene McCarthy MEP would impose US-style unlimited patentability of algorithms and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping" says Benjamin Henrion, who is heading a local organisational team with the backing of a coalition of organisations representing 2000 software companies and 160,000 individuals, mostly software professionals. In an appeal, the organisers call on European citizens to stand up for the public interest to defend freedom of creation against logic patents, to defend copyright-based software property against patent-based software piracy, to defend software innovation against patent inflation, to defend software users against reduced choices and monopoly pricing. They call on the European Patent Office: Stop littering Europe's information highway! and on the European Parliament: Punish the polluters, don't legalise the pollution! The program in Brussels is approximately as follows, more details will be supplied soon: 12.00-14.00 | Place du Luxembourg | Performance, balloons, patent chain, speeches, ... 14.00-16.00 | EuroParl[13][1] | Conference "In May a [14]two-day software patent conference in and near the European Parliament attracted 200 participants. Leaders of the scientific commuities and software business world condemned the directive proposal in every respect. Yet in June the EP Legal Affairs Commission endorsed this proposal with further amendments that make it even worse", explains Henrion. "More and more people are now seeing this very clearly. We expect even more participatants this time." Yet the vast majority of our supporters will certainly not be on Luxemburg Square on August 27th. "Those who can not come to Brussels should demonstrate online, using their web servers or other internet services", says Hartmut Pilch, president of FFII. "We have [15]proposed a series of ways in which this can be done. There is certainly a way for everyone. Better make access to your webpage a bit more difficult now for one or two days than lose your freedom of publication for the next ten years. Note that if the McCarthy report is approved without drastic amendments, programmers and Internet Service Providers will be regularly sued for patent infringement, if they publish programs on the Internet. If the Parliament votes for the McCarthy proposal now, there will be no more chances for democratic control later." Annotated Links -> [16]AEL Big Demo 27 aug Wiki Hints on how to participate in the demo, needed equipment on site, who provides what, etc -> [17]FFII BXL 2003/08 Wiki Holger's editable auxiliary pages for the 2003/08/27 demo and related events. Includes hints on hotel/hostel rooms, t-shirts, banners etc -> [18]2003/08 Letter to Software Creators and Users The European Parliament will, in its plenary session on September 1st, decide on a directive proposal which ensures that algorithms and business methods like Amazon One Click Shopping become patentable inventions in Europe. This proposal has the backing of about half of the parliament. Please help us make sure that it will be rejected. Here are some things to do. -> [19]2003/08/25-9 BXL: Software Patent Directive Amendments Members of the European Parliament are coming back to work on monday August 25th. It is the last week before the vote on the Software Patent Directive Proposal. We are organising a conference and street rally wednesday the 27th. Some of our friends will moreover be staying in the parliament for several days. Time to work decide on submission of amendments to the software patent directive proposal is running out. FFII has proposed one set of amendments that stick as closely as possible to the original proposal while debugging and somewhat simplifying it. An alternative small set of amendments would "cut the crap" and rewrite the directive from scratch. We present and explain the possible approaches. -> [20]Online Demonstration Against Software Patents We can show our concern by physical presence as well as by more or less gently blocking access to webpages in a concerted manner at certain times. -> [21]European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Software Patent Directive The European Parliament has postponed the vote on the software patent directive back to the original date of 1st of September, thereby rejecting initially successful efforts of its rapporteur Arlene McCarthy (UK Labour MEP of Manchester) and her supporters to rush to vote on June 30th, a mere twelve days after publication of the highly controversial report and ten days after the unexpected change of schedule. -> [22]JURI votes for Fake Limits on Patentability The European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) voted on tuesday morning about a list of proposed amendments to the planned software patent directive. It was the third and last in a series of committee votes, whose results will be presented to the plenary in early september. The other two commissions (CULT, ITRE) had opted to more or less clearly exclude software patents. The JURI rapporteur Arlene McCarthy MEP (UK socialist) also claimed to be aiming for a "restrictive harmonisation of the status quo" and "exclusion of software as such, algorithms and business methods from patentability". Yet McCarthy presented a voting list to fellow MEPs which, upon closer look, turns ideas like "Amazon One-Click Shopping" into patentable inventions. McCarthy and her followers rejected all amendment proposals that try to define central terms such as "technical" or "invention", while supporting some proposals which reinforce the patentability of software, e.g. by making publication of software a direct patent infringment, by stating that "computer-implemented inventions by their very nature belong to a field of technology", or by inserting new economic rationales ("self-evident" need for Europeans to rely on "patent protection" in view of "the present trend for traditional manufacturing industry to shift their operations to low-cost economies outside the European Union") into the recitals. Most of McCarthy's proposals found a conservative-socialist 2/3 majority (20 of 30 MEPs), whereas most of the proposals from the other committees (CULT = Culture, ITRE = Industry) were rejected. Study reports commissioned by the Parliament and other EU institutions were disregarded or misquoted, as some of their authors point out (see below). A few socialists and conservatives voted together with Greens and Left in favor of real limits on patentability (such as the CULT opinion, based on traditional definitions, that "data processing is not a field of technology" and that technical invention is about "use of controllable forces of nature"), but they were overruled by the two largest blocks. Most MEPs simply followed the voting lists of their "patent experts", such as Arlene McCarthy (UK) for the Socialists (PSE) and shadow rapporteur Dr. Joachim Wuermeling (DE) for the Conservatives (EPP). Both McCarthy and Wuermeling have closely followed the advice of the directive proponents from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission's Industrial Property Unit (CEC-Indprop, represented by former UK Patent Office employee Anthony Howard) and declined all offers of dialog with software professionals and academia ever since they were nominated rapporteurs in May 2002. -> [23]Why Amazon One Click Shopping is Patentable under the Proposed EU Directive According to the European Commission (CEC)'s Directive Proposal COM(2002)92 for "Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions" and the revised version approved by the European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI), algorithms and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping are without doubt patentable subject matter. This is because 1. Any "computer-implemented" innovation is in principle considered to be a patentable "invention". 2. The additional requirement of "technical contribution in the inventive step" does not mean what most people think it means. 3. The directive proposal explicitly aims to codify the practise of the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO has already granted thousands of patents on algorithms and business methods similar to Amazon One Click Shopping. 4. CEC and JURI have built in further loopholes so that, even if some provisions are amended by the European Parliament, unlimited patentability remains assured. -> [24]FFII: Software Patents in Europe For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents on computer-implemented rules of organisation and calculation (programs for computers). Now Europe's patent movement is pressing to consolidate this practise by writing a new law. Europe's programmers and citizens are facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic documentation, starting from a short overview and the latest news. Contact mail: media at ffii org phone: Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927 [25]Benjamin Henrion +32-10-454761 More Contacts to be supplied upon request About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows. About the FFII -- www.ffii.org The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 250 members, 300 companies and 15,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions in the area of exclusivity rights (intellectual property) in the field of software. Permanent URL of this Press Release http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/demo0819/index.en.html _________________________________________________________________ Notes [1] Room number to be announced tomorrow. External visitors, including journalists, need to register in advance. Please contact bxl030827 at ffii org for this purpose. References 14. http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl...5/index.en.html 15. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html 16. http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/BigDemo27aug 17. http://offen.ffii.org/bxl/ 18. http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/parl038/index.en.html 19. http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl...8/index.en.html 20. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html 21. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/index.en.html 22. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0617/index.en.html 23. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat02...h/index.en.html 24. http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html 25. http://bh.udev.org/ _______________________________________________ News mailing list (un)subscribe via http://petition.ffii.org/ News@ffii.org http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 hi, I didn't read all but I'm a little aware of that. If I understand well, in US, Software Patend become just as a weapon race: IBM rushing for patent just to be able to counter attack if SUN attacks it, SUN rushing for patent for the same reason, and both be able to kill any new competitor not rich enough to defend itself. silly ! When US first go to patents software we could think why not ? But now any sensible technician must reccon it was a mistake. In Europe we are lucky to see the US experience. We would have no excuse to do the same mistake. It is so evident. Unfortunately it is lawers who push at it and they can have the last word. Me as programmer I will never have a lawer on my back. I will continue like that. Will they put me to jail ? F**k them ! roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 For clarification, and to over-ride a little of the socialist propaganda, patents came into existence for a profitable free-enterprise environment. If an individual or a business entity spends time and money to develop an idea into reality, then that person or entity should benefit monetarily from the development. In a free enterprise environment, that means the person can make money from their invention. Others imitating the invention or stealing it, must pay the patent holder. It didn't matter if the patent holder were a rich person or a poor person, they held the patent. In time, the rights to hold the patent expire, and then the invention becomes the property of the public domain. That means anyone can use the invention for their own benefit, without paying the patent holder. In later years, the intent of patent law dissolved into mediocrity. Patents get issued for minor mundane notions rather than real invention. Also, entities like sco, who invested no time or money into development, gain rights to patents, without earning it. (sco has rights to nothing, but they are a classic case of broken business!) These concepts hold to copyright and intellectual rights as well. So your understanding of it is a little off. The rights of individual and the liberty to sell your product is what started the law. But then you would have to understand free enterprise to appreciate the original intent of the law. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted August 23, 2003 Report Share Posted August 23, 2003 As someone educated in the law (Juris Doctorate, Rutgers, School of Law - Camden 1993), I would have to agree with lxthusdan. His explanaition was a tad simplistic (anything less than a treatise would be, really), but essentially correct. Patents are all about rewarding genius. It doesn't matter if it's a multimillion dollar corporation or a guy in his garage who invents a thing. Patent law give those people the oppurtunity to benefit from that invention. It's a reward for having a good idea, an economic "atta boy." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted August 23, 2003 Report Share Posted August 23, 2003 Just a warning: i'm not well aware of all that, it is just how I understand it and will be happy to be corrected if necessary. Ixthusdan I have nothing on the principe of patent ! Patend are basically made to ease inovation and creation witch is good. For that we have to let the creator be ables to enjoy the benefits of his invention for a certain amount of time before anybody else can use it as well witch in turn favor competition. OK, good, no problem here. The problems IMO are: 1- the way it is implemented, 2- Patend on software. 1- the way it is implemented, I thing we agree: In later years, the intent of patent law dissolved into mediocrity. Patents get issued for minor mundane notions rather than real invention. Also, entities like sco, who invested no time or money into development, gain rights to patents, without earning it. (sco has rights to nothing, but they are a classic case of broken business!) nothing to add here It didn't matter if the patent holder were a rich person or a poor person, practically it is not the case: patent are expensive, even more expensive to defend, 2- Patend on software: Software is different to hardware: it is an intelectual construction, an idea, like a book. You say Copyright. Software are still copyrighted in Europe and it fits perfectly with software. Like copying pieces of an existing book on a new book, you can't cut and past pieces of an existing software on a new one. This is perfectly normal. But to Patend an algorithm, an idea, it is a problem. Imagine dichotomy search algorythm is patented. - First you have to know it is patented. There is so many good idea that you have to pay somebody to read you code and check if it use patented algorythm: wast of time and money, bad for innovation, - Suposing you know dichotomy search algorythm is patented and have no money to pay for it: you have to find an other algorythm or use a less adapted one: wast of time, your product will be less good. - Taking the analogy with the book: Imagine you can patent a story of Prince and Princess that get maried and have a lot of children ? That is exately the same with software patent, - Imagine Pythagore had patented his theorem ? what if mathematics algorythm hadf been patented. Do you think the US had been to the moon the 07/20/1969 ? I don't think so Copyright Yes, Patent: at this time seems silly to me cheers roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted August 24, 2003 Report Share Posted August 24, 2003 roland I do agree that the application of "awarding genius" (I like that phrase!) has gone sadly astray. And I adamantly oppose the protection of "ideas". For myself, I find almost everyone I know and everyone I meet has ideas, some good, some bad. So the awarding of genius should not reflect the mere thought of something. The activity, the action, the completed praxis is expressing the idea into reality. Arguably, this means that one must be willing to invest, or risk, in order to acheive the creation of a new whatever. And risk is business. I do not think that thought in and of itself is risky. Action is risky. Now, worthy action begins with thought, but thinking that leads to reality is worth something. Otherwise, it's just day-dreaming. (I find that socialist ideology tends to remove the desire for action, and even the complacent have thoughts! Rewarding this is nonesense!! But, that's another thread. :wink: ) I wanted to clarify the concept of patent because our world tends to go off course and rather than correcting the course, we throw out the map and then wonder why we aren't going anywhere! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted August 24, 2003 Report Share Posted August 24, 2003 I think the problem rests with the degree of what you can patent if you have enough money. Micro$ have petented Windows ... something they certainly didn't invent... for example. On the book analogy, its like The Brothers Grimm patenting the idea of 'Fairy Tale'. Yes, you can patent a story about a frog and a princess but there are so many frog/priness stories it isn't valid. If I patent a book idea: say using Mandrake Linux that shouldn't mean noone else (including Mandrake) can write that book. Unfortunately we seem to have got to the point where in software people think they can. If you have enough money you can pay for better experts to defend your claim, even if its ridiculous. You can also abuse the system to spread FUD, knowing that you won't win but using it as a lever for your stock price. BT tried to patent hyperlinks a while ago. (2-3 years?) ... They weanted a royalty from every site using hyperlinks... I can't syupport that kind of patenting becuase its an ideal. It would be like Ford retro-specively patenting the idea of a production line or the Chinese patenting paper money.... If I understand property the European initiative is to draw a line between what is patentable and what isn't rather than allow big industry to define it as happens in the US. I think this is a good thing.... not everything coming out of the US is good. Just because of a lot of it is doesn't mean Europe should follow suit blindly. In time the US may even re-import some ideals. To look in a different perspective take US litigation. I don't think anyone except the lawyers thinks its a good thing that some terminally stupid woman can sue McDonalds becuase their coffee is boiling .... The European perspective is we don't like the idea of a Dr. refusing to treat us because he's afriad he'll be sued. This is an area that Europeans don't think the US has it right. We don't want it although its coming! Anyway, im drifting ... Back to patents .... Take a good ole American company like Disney. Most of their big hits were historically fairy tales adapated (or sometimes copied directly) from European folk tales. Disney took the ideas and made film from them. Pinoccio, Cinderella etc. But so what. They were just general ideas. The whole thing is in reverse with music. It seems anyone can sample a song without even waiting for it to die naturally. Hey, there are only so many notes you can use they cry.... Oh well. Its a difficult subject .... I think the European idea is to try and simplify it and draw lines, if that is the case then its good. I don't think the idea is to stop software patents altogether, just to rationalise what can and can't be patented. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanackle Posted August 25, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 Hi everyone, I appreciate your comments on this. I know it's not an easy topic... And, as I am not an expert on the question (go to FFII for that ;), but did do some homework (a few months ago, I confess, no time...), I'll just reread your posts and freely comment along the way. Roland, your small example about IBM and SUN is right AFAICS. Wile the big guys play their 'dimes', the little ones can't even afford a patent (an european patent costs between 50000 and 150000 Euros (about the same figures in US Dollars)). Now, the minimum allowed wages for a portuguese worker is about 350 Euros (I don't recall the estimated average wages, but it shoud be near 1000-1500 Euros (optimistic ;). I remember Bill Gates comming to Portugal some 3-4 years ago, and it was said that the value of our Brute Internal Product (sorry for the translation) was less than uncle Gates' personal earnings on that year!!! And yes, unfortunatelly, with this directive, lawyers will have the last word (if not the only one). By the way, I read somewhere that one thing is SUN's Developpers Department, a completelly different one is SUN's Patent Department... Well, lxthusdan, maybe you can clarify me on this one: WTH has "socialist propaganda" to do with all this? In case you didn't notice, the *official* pusher of the directive is a UK's Labour Party representative (a socialist 'alias'). And please remember, the EU is not the USA. E.g. there are not 2 but 7 political groups + 1 group of non-affilliated MEPs (8 in total) currently in the Europen Parlament (though you usually place them somewhere in a left-right line). And, in Portugal, 'Republic' and 'Democracy' mean basically the same - in latin and greek, respectivelly, 'Public Reason' and 'Public Will'. And so on, etc, und so weiter... As for what it was 'meant' and what it 'turned out' to be... well, you can learn with your mistakes... And if what you said apllies "to copyright and intelectual property as well", we already have that - and also a thing called Munich Convention that forbids patents on "computer implemented inventions". JaseP, as you said, only a something *as big as* a treatise could give a thorough explanation. I respect your education, but remember what I said to lxthusdan, and also that the US law derives from the Common Law style. Inside the EU we have the Roman style, the Germanic and the Common Law as well. The EU state-members are not the United States (of America) - try and compare histories. Then do the same but using history books from another EU country... Laws, politics, economics, culture, etc are all linked in formal and informal ways - in the present and over time. roland (again ;), point 2 is a good point. You're trying to explain the process of inovation as it most often occurs in the software industry - "sequecial and complementary", meaning, one innnovation requires a prior one (or ones) (e.g. Amazon One Click requires Internet, and lots more, I can imagine ;). It also often complements the prior innnovation, making this one more valuable. lxthusdan: Again "socialist ideology"!? There are many ways of thinking and acting, you know... There are more colors than just two. Actually, Karl Marx wasn't the only socialist (or the first AFAIR). And in sociology, you'd be teached there is the "scientific socialism" and the "utopic socialism". And guess what, Marx gets in the first group... Gowator It would be sweet if the European initiative would really be intending to "draw a line between what is patentable and what isn't". But you can't really put it like that. Tying to keep it simple: the European Comission (who actually writes the laws), procedure is pushing the directive - they are not elected but nominated. But it won't become effective unless the Europen Parliament approves it - the MEPs are directly elected byt the people. The European Union Council (representatives of the nationally elected government) also have a saying on the (non) approval of laws. Then there are several consultive organs (less political) - at least three of them are against the directive. So, who really wants what?... And, *get this*, the European Patent Office[b/] has been ilegally granting patents for over 20 years. And why? Because the Munich Convention (among others) already states what can and can not be patented!!! And "computer implemented inventions" can not be patented. On the other hand, the TRIPs agreement (signed later on) could actually induce the opposite. It really is one big mess! Ok, bye for now, sorry for the so long post. On doubt, smile... :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 I will respond to the questions concerning "socialist" ideology and patents for clarification. I do not wish to draw the thread off its intended discussion. First, I wanted to state a position that was not black and white, but in between concerning patents. I am not against patents, but am against the application of a "modern" concept of patents. Yes, the modern interpretation of any concept can indeed move away from the concept to the extent that the original is no longer recognized in the interpretation. It becomes a new concept, and not an interpretation. Socialists tend to do this, take a notion and interpret it into a new concept, while claiming to only be interpreting. It is the heart of the ideology within the critical theorists. I simply find the postition to be dishonest. If you do not understand Marx, you will not understand socialism or any of the critical theorists. All imagined flavors of socialist ideology start with Marx, period. If you were not taught that in your classes, then you did not receive a complete education! :wink: The socialist propaganda is the notion that awarding the genius of the individual needs to be done away with. For the socialist, the word "individual" means a person related to the whole organism or more specifiacally, the government. People living in liberty define the individual as an independent person. Individuals determine governments; governments do not determine individuals. Awarding the individual is precious to liberty, while awarding the individual is meanigless to the socialist. I know that I have no doubt expressed some views that may be challenging (or challenged!) in some ways. If anyone would care to discuss "political" stuff further, I would entertain a pm or a different thread. This thread really is not about socialists per se. Oh, and a final thought about language. I have noted with great interest that words have different meanings in different countries. Language is alive and changes over time. I gather what you mean by your words in the context of how you use them. Ex, "liberal" in the us means left wing socialist, where as "liberal" in England apparently means someone who believes liberty and personal rights. It makes for some amusing distinctions, but I am not about to refer someone to a dictionary because they use the language differently form me! :lol: I might ask for clarification! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 Staying carefully away from political terms ... I think lots of things need reinterpreting into a modern context regardless of political ideals. This can be something as simple but deep seated as etiquette. What is the etiquette for cell (mobile) phones. We really aren't sure. You give the guy a bad look for instance for answering a mobile phone in the resteraunt because it seems impolite but we really haven't dealt with the whole thing yet. Same goes for answerphones ... is it rude not to leave a message ... when we first got them it seemed rude because the tape would just be blank then answerphones got more sophisticated and just erased blank messages. Then came call tracking and missed calls. "Yeah you rang me - what did you want" "Oh yeah, I wanted to see if you wanted to come to the game with me last night, I had a spare ticket." "You didn't leave a message" "No point, I was already on my way ..." So that is a simple case, nothing legal, just plain politeness only as technology advances we need to change it to keep it current. So when looking at patents we need to keep the patents current to technology in the same way. Take this board. What if someone patents the concept of a Bulletin Board? Its a valid concept .. perhaps. Who knows? The point is patent's were not designed for software. Someone could patent the idea of a customer database or order database but these are generic ideas they lack the concept of originality. Computers and the Internet in general open up a whole field of ideas. We are building on foundations just a few decades old. Within conventional patents we were looking at building new and innovative ideas on centruaies old building blocks. A suspension bridge may have been a new and innovative idea but it was just using steel and concrete which had been available for a millenia or more. Within this field the concepts are more tangible. You can touch them and see a design whereas software is a more esoteric concept. When Henry Ford made the model T he didn't seek to patent the process, just the car. What seems to be happening is sites like Amazon etal are trying to patent the concept or process. The whole idea seems to be that if you have enough money you can patent almost anything. We are living in a different time. A time where toothpicks come with instructions. Forget the fact that a chimpanze can work out how to use them they need complex instructions like 'don't put it in your eye or ear'. Kitchen knives come with warnings etc. so noone can sue the manufacturer when their 6 year old stabs their sister. This to me is the same level as the patents are getting to. The same laws that said if someone makes a product that can injure you then you can sue them has grown into an industry. The original concept has been lost ... how many years went by before some bright lawyer decided to sue the stove manufactuer for not warning that the stove can get hot and burn you and the law being passed. I guess it depends where you live but its probably measured in centuries. If you tried to sue for this a hundred years ago you'd have been laughed out of court but today its common, in fact its become a sperate legal industry. This is the same for patent laws. The original idea has been lost ... the lawyers are pushing the limits further on a yearly basis and if it isn't stopped stagnation will occur. Many patents are now about keeping lawyers in business rather than protecting truly original ideas. My own brother has several patents in Engineering products but when I compare these to software ideas like patenting 'one click shopping' I don't see the connection. Nor is the time scale similar. 25 years is a VERY LONG TIME in software. Just think if 25 years ago the idea of a disk operating system was patented. This would have stopped the development of linux, windows, MacOS etc etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 JaseP, as you said, only a something *as big as* a treatise could give a thorough explanation. I respect your education, but remember what I said to lxthusdan, and also that the US law derives from the Common Law style. Inside the EU we have the Roman style, the Germanic and the Common Law as well. The EU state-members are not the United States (of America) - try and compare histories. Then do the same but using history books from another EU country... Laws, politics, economics, culture, etc are all linked in formal and informal ways - in the present and over time. I am well aware of the differences between American law and European law, having taken a course of comparitive law when in law school. And while the American system is largely a common law system and the European one a Civil law system, there is such a degree of overlap that things often get worked out the same way. As you point out, the European system has a common law component to it. The American system has faced a large amount of codification. The end result is that many things are more similar than they are not. In the American system, for example, and activity that is illegal in one state, may not be in another. Additionally, procedure differs quite radicallyt from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (sometimes even within a state). Louisiana, for example, is a Civil Law jursidisction, not a common law one. What that means for patents is not clear. By repudiating treaties and changing the code, the European system can adopt the American viewpoint of permitting software patents. I would personally rather have Europe stand apart in this, but I have no say in European affairs, and only one voice in 250,000,000 in the USA. As for socialism, there has never been a truly socialist system. Any that would be attempted would likely fail as it runs contrary to human nature to give of yourself according to your talents and recieve according to only your needs. If you are extraordinarily talented, this is a bad arrangement for you. If you are under-talented it is an overly rewarding system. It never encourages people to do more than the barest minimum to get by. Before you compare the open source software movement with this, remember that with open source software, if I am extremely talented, I will also be extremely likely to gain access to more and more of the tools that are available without limitation as to resources. The same is not true of an economic system, except when it involves a resource that is extremely plentiful (like air). If I use a lot of air in repiration because I am extremely physically active, no one gets upset. If I use unlimited quantities of freely available software, then nobody (in the movement) gets upset. If on the other hand, I use too much of a resource that is limited in quantity (food, land, etc.), then there is likely to be a large number of upset people. Capitalism is a system that deals with compensating people for the use of resources and the efforts they go to create them. So if a thing is plentiful and easy to produce, I should have to make a lot of it to equal a thing that is hard to produce and rare. Socialism will always create a situation where resources are incorrectly distributed to achieve particular goals. For basic sustainance, in small communities, it might work. However it cannot succeed on a grand scale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanackle Posted August 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 lxthusdan: First of all: I am NOT a socialist! Second of all: The official "bad girl" in this european patent story (in my eyes) IS a socialist! Third of all: The socialist partys in the European Parliament are DIVIDED about this question. Fourth of all: Considering points 1, 2 and 3, I still don't understand how this "socialist" discussion came up in this topic!... Fifth of all: I think it could be interesting to discuss "socialism" in another topic. But I will probably not come around this forum until the end of the next week (due to lack of time). So, if you prefer to pm me, you know when you'll get the answer... Sixth of all: I will NOT use the term "socialist" in this topic again! I gather what you mean by your words in the context of how you use them. I thank you for your good will. :wink: Gowator: Staying carefully away from political terms ...I think lots of things need reinterpreting into a modern context regardless of political ideals. First line: Wise :wink: Second line: I call it 'pragmatism'. What if someone patents the concept of a Bulletin Board? Its a valid concept .. perhaps. Who knows? The point is patent's were not designed for software. Someone could patent the idea of a customer database or order database but these are generic ideas they lack the concept of originality. Computers and the Internet in general open up a whole field of ideas. We are building on foundations just a few decades old. That's exactly the point here. Go and see the directive proposal on the EU's site ( http://www.europa.eu.int/ ) or on FFII's site ( http://swpat.ffii.org/ ). It's messy, it's ilogic, yet psychologicaly effective (Yeah, I thought I was getting paranoid too when I got to that conclusion). You have to remember, politicians are just human beings linke any other, and can not be experts on all subjects - their judgement often depends on other people. You can also go and look on the FFII's "Gallery of Patent Horrors". Some are rather comic! Thank you for your post. You brought up some good points. :wink: JaseP First of all, let me apologize for maybe having come too strong on you on my last post. Thank you for the infos on the american legal system. I had no idea about Louisiana. I did now about you having different laws in different states. But when it concerns to repudiating treaties, well... a "break of contract" is not something I, personally, take lightly. And, in this particular matter, you can't just put it in terms of "Well, both parts agree on that" because you'll be thinking of the governments, not the individuals who planned their lifes based on the current law. As a note, I will not comment on you know what, for the reasons mentioned above. But I found your words about Capitalism a bit confusing. But I would rather we were not going there, because it's both off-topic and a lenghty subject. We can go on about it in another topic, maybe the one we mentioned before or maybe another. Still, coming back to your first topic, the patent system being an economic "atta boy", you must also remember that the economy shoud serve the public first. It makes no sense to support a product or business which were to be useless, nor to charge irrealistic prices for a given product or service. You get the idea.. You can't boost the economy on nomatter what costs... :wink: Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 I followed the link to the gallery of horrors: Its even worse than I thought! For once I'll try and be concise: The exploitation of the system seems completely against rewarding genius and completely in favo(u)r of rewarding immoral business practice and making money from someone elses work. Its that simple. You take something that everyone uses and is so common that noone else thought to patent it. You paint it a different colour and give it a new name and HEY PRESTO ... patent someone elses idea. I take some RANDOM examples fort hose who haven't follow the link. The last one This covers all digital language learning systems that allow a user to compare his pronounciation of a selected piece of text to the right pronounciation. As a byproduct, the claim also seems to include the learning function of voice recognition systems like ViaVoice. Hey, Ive been doing this for years .... I even went so far as using wav analysis to visually compare but all I did was extend the idea thats been used on audio tapes for years. Or hopw about taking a US patent and simply applying for that patent in Europe. With some good patent lawyers you could probably just do a search and replace on their company name ... Claim 1: A network-based sales system, comprising at least one buyer computer for operation by a user desiring to buy a product; at least one merchant computer; and at least one payment computer; the buyer computer, the merchant computer, and the payment computer being interconnected by a computer network; the buyer computer being programmed to receive a user request for purchasing a product, and to cause a payment message to be sent to the payment computer that comprises a product identifier identifying the product; the payment computer being programmed to receive the payment message, to cause an access message to be created that comprises the product identifier and an access message authenticator based on a cyptographic key, and to cause the access message to be sent to the merchant computer; and the merchant computer being programmed to receive the access message, to verify the access message authenticator to ensure that the access message authenticator was created using said cyptographic key, and to cause the product to be sent to the user desiring to buy the product. Thus it seems patents are not about the idea 'per se' but the idea to patent something no-one else thought patentable and the cash to back it up. So lets all get together and patent the idea of a operating system that is developed around the world. We'll call it $ux. Whilst were at tit and we engage some full time patent lawyers ... I'm just casting round my office .... Hey ... how about a redial function on a phone. Or handsfree ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 jeanackle: don't blame lxthusdan I think that as I wrote in an other thread something like "this F**g comunist system" speaking about the French/European social system, it makes lxthusdan curious and he wanted to provoque me a little ;-). But after I say I didn't want to speak about that. So I will try not to .. Sorry I don't have time yet to continue. Let's see tonight .. roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 jeanackle 8) In America, (the word we are not using) was at one time a negative political position. It still is, except that the beliefs of (the word we are not using) permeate the political practices of the country! A rose is still a rose by any other name. I find the "failures" of capitalism in the us to be the result of mingling (the word we are not using) ideologies with concepts founded upon personal liberty. My only point in "bringing it up" was precisely the patent problem. (the word we are not using) believers have no problem telling people what they can and cannot do on a rudamentary level! That is how I perceive the patent issue in Europe. I have no idea whether or not anyone here lables themselves as a (the word we are not using):shock:. My post was not targeted at determining such things. In this day, the lingering effects of a mediocre German worker with serious family issues (Marx) are extracting a heavy toll on personal liberty, everywhere. For myself, if I express an opinion that brings me into the company of people that I do not odinarily associate with, I re-evaluate my opinion. :lol: I think it has already been stated several times that patents are not necessarily the issue, but how the law is being applied today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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