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Will patents pillage open source? (News.com)
News.com looks at
software patents and how they might effect open source software.
"Software patents sometimes cause legitimate controversy not because
computer programs somehow differ from other patentable technologies, but
because patents on software are relatively new. Undergirding every patent
is faith that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has performed a
competent literature search, and awarded patent protection only to subject
matter that's "inventive"--i.e., new and different from prior work. That
faith has been sorely tested in the software arena." (Thanks to
Richard Jones)
(Log in to post comments)
Will patents pillage open source? (News.com) Posted Apr 21, 2003 17:06 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] I think I will write a rebuttal for CNET. This fellow misses a lot, perhaps deliberately.Why does this come up now? A critical vote in Europe in May could allow software patenting across the EC, and proponents of that want to dispel fears that software patenting will hurt Free Software. But, indeed, it could kill us, not just hurt us. He misses the fact that when patents are embedded in industry standards, there is little chance to work around them. Implementors of standards may have no choice but to license the patent, for royalties. This may cut Free Software out of being able to implement many industry standards in a way that is interoperable with other software. Thus, patents embedded in industry standards could turn Free Software into a non-communicating island in the computer marketplace. He also misses that patent holders can sue for other reasons than to collect damages. The main reason patent holders will sue us will be to restrain us from creating free software so that their product has a better market, not to get money out of us. How can we defend ourselves? It takes so much money, often US$500,000 in legal fees, to defend an infringement case that the Free Software developer will have to settle within days of the start of a trial. And thus the patent holder doesn't have to spend much to put any free software developer out of business. People who settle will probably be compelled to sign over the copyrights of their software. Unfortunately, we won't be able to count on help from our friends in the business world. IBM has been a major force in driving software patents into Europe, and royalty-bearing patents into standards organizations. We really need to see a change on their part. They are joined by Motorola (owner of Lineo and Metrowerks), Philips (maker of the Linux-powered Pronto++), and a number of other companies that make use of Free Software in their business. HP, Sun, and Apple seem to be on our side most of the time, but I'm told that HP has negotiated a non-agression pact with Microsoft, the #1 threat as far as patent infringement suits are concerned. And even in the case of companies that are on our side, it's not terribly likely that they will help us fight one of their business partners. It's important that we watch, and start to score, our business friends on how much they assist with, or worsen, our patent problems. Bruce
may damage _western_ FOSS Posted Apr 24, 2003 7:15 UTC (Thu) by guybar (subscriber, #798) [Link] I believe that the potential threat is mostly to western (US+EC) FOSS: As a demostration, let me missquote your argument (my additions in boldface): "He misses the fact that when patents are embedded in industry standards, there is little chance to legally work around them. Implementors of standards may have no legal choice but to license the patent, for royalties. This may cut Free Software out of being able to legally implement many industry standards in a way that is interoperable with other software. Thus, patents embedded in industry standards could turn Free Software into a non-communicating island in the legally bound computer marketplace." My intention in this somewhat childish word-play is to illustrate the implicit assumption (1) that the US(+EC) judicial system must be abided on the entire earth like some law of nature(2); This is, AFAIK, a false assumption. In fact, I would venture to suggest the DMCA is widely and daily being breached even in the US itself ... So, if large-scale legal attacks of FOSS projects will occur, then places outside US laws will initially function as mirror-sites for FOSS projects, then perhaps will become the devellopment centers themselves. Should things run on a serious collision course then, in the long run, the real loser will probably be the US, not FOSS. -- But as usual, my crystal ball is as opaque as the next guy's ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) It is an assumption many law-abiding people implicitly make; when one attempts to live lawfully, one often forget other people may have other rules. (2) Notice your usage of "fact" to describe a local legal situation.
affect not effect Posted Apr 21, 2003 17:07 UTC (Mon) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] That's all :)
Subliminal messages? Posted Apr 22, 2003 11:26 UTC (Tue) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] This phrase caught my eye: Software patents sometimes cause legitimate controversy not because computer programs somehow differ from other patentable technologies, but because patents on software are relatively new. Did the author hope to sneak that past us? It's untrue, and misrepresents the actual concerns people have with software patents. They cause controversy both because computer programs differ from other patentable technologies, and because patents on software are relatively new. With one small word, the author tries to discredit most of the arguments against software patents. Furthermore, the problem with them being new is not just because it makes the patent office's prior art searches ineffective, but also because it demonstrates that the industry was doing just fine (much better than today, in fact) without the burden of patents.
Subliminal messages? Posted Apr 22, 2003 23:54 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] > This phrase caught my eye:heh, I also had that sentence picked out for comment but my head has been stuck in code all weekend. Stallman's essay[1] gives good reasons why software patents *are* different to other patents. (different in effect, and it's effect that matters) Also note how he implies that the discussion is about patents on "computer programs" rather than patents on individual algorithims. Ciaran O'Riordan
another stallman-on-patents post Posted Apr 23, 2003 0:07 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] while looking for the URL I gave above, I came across another speech RMS gave about patents. Here's a good snippet from the Q&A afterwards[1]:"before software patents - if you wrote the program yourself there is nothing to sue you about. Today you can write the program yourself, it may even be an useful and innovative program but because you didn't reinvent the whole field, you use some ideas that were already known, other people sue you. Of course, those people who wanna go around suing you, they are going to pretend that this extortion is protection for them, protection from what, protection from having competitors, I guess, they don't believe in competition, they want monopolies. Well, to hell with them. It's not good for the public that they should get what they want, this is the question of public policy. We have to decide what is good for the citizens generally." Ciaran O'Riordan
Re: another stallman-on-patents post Posted Apr 23, 2003 2:41 UTC (Wed) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] The even scarier problem is thinking that you invented something and not worrying about it and then later discovering that it is patented. Sure, if patents worked the way they were intended it wouldn't usually be a problem.But there are tons of patents on minute variations of well known algorithms, and on blatantly obvious algorithms. Some fields like audio/video compression are so littered with patents you have to go out of your way to avoid them. And even then you may step on one. It's a patent minefield.
Will patents pillage open source? (News.com) Posted Apr 25, 2003 22:29 UTC (Fri) by cdmiller (subscriber, #2813) [Link] I for one don't believe that mathematical algorithms should be patentable.
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