The European software patent vote [LWN.net]

The European software patent vote

Posted Sep 25, 2003 15:22 UTC (Thu) by cross (subscriber, #13601)
Parent article: The European software patent vote

> Readers in the United States may be interested to know that the U.S.
> government has chimed in with opposition to article 6a, which states
> that patents can not be used to block interoperability:

I find the US interference in the process troubling, especially having read the FFII's take on the matter.

""The US" is propagating conventional wisdom such as "the more patents the more property, the more property the more innovation", which is in sharp contrast to consensus of all serious scholars of software economics, as expressed in numerous studies conducted in the USA and in reports by the US Academy of Sciences. Moreover, "the US" has been ignoring the voice of its own software industry, which is, as shown by last year's FTC hearings, characterised by "continued animosity against software patents" and whose major players, including such companies as Adobe, Oracle and Autodesk, all opposed software patentability at the USPTO hearing of 1994. The same USPTO which is ghostwriting this paper in the name of "the US" today proceded to legalise program claims shortly after the 1994 hearing, thereby completely ignoring the voice of the US software industry."

As the United States is seeking to rewrite European law to their agenda, what steps can European Citizens take to help turn the USPTO agenda around into something approaching the spirit of the US Constitution and those who wrote it?

(Log in to post comments)