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UK Patents Office complaints email addressUK Patents Office complaints email addressPosted Jul 8, 2004 10:10 UTC (Thu) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474)In reply to: UK Patents Office complaints email address by copsewood Parent article: Europatent preview: Godado patents search engines
d. Denial of human rights of programmers to freedom of expression through creative construction of semantic relationships in program source code through software patents monopolising connections of this kind. Rights to freedom of expression in languages of choice are guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. That's an interesting and new approach. I wonder did you think up this yourself, or has it been used successfully (or otherwise) before? Rich.
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patents deny freedom of speech Posted Jul 8, 2004 11:10 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] I guess this connection is as obvious as the patent I'm complaining about ! There have been interesting cases in the US linking freedom of speech with rights of programmers to create code, so it's an obvious idea to connect this to software patents. In practice, if as a programmer, you have to check a million semantic relationships registered as patents to avoid risk of expensive litigation before you write a line of code, this will restrict freedom of thought and expression as well as impact upon innovation.
Previous case Posted Jul 8, 2004 15:10 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] Ed Felten has done a lot of work in this area.
UK Patents Office complaints email address Posted Jul 19, 2004 1:25 UTC (Mon) by Wolfbone (guest, #23135) [Link] It's not a new idea; it's just an aspect that has been downplayed, as a matter of policy, by the major opponents of software patentability in Europe, especially the FFII. I believe it was thought that the economic arguments alone were strong enough to demonstrate the foolhardyness of allowing software patentability in Europe and they are much easier arguments to explain to politicians and journalists etc. This was probably the right approach - it certainly proved successful in convincing the European Parliament, though that may turn out not to have been enough of course.If you look at the history of opposition to software patents you'll find that the earliest arguments, such as those by Salin, were often fundamentally freedom of expression arguments and just as it is arguable that software patents were (and still are) unconstitutional in the USA, in Europe we have Article 10 of the ECHR (European convention on human rights). In the U.K, the adoption of the EHCR into U.K. law in 1998? makes it unlawful for any public body to act in a manner incompatible with any of the convention rights. Article 10 states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority...". It is that last phrase which is interesting: Is not the E.P.O. or the U.K. Patent Office interfering in the expression, imparting and reception of information and ideas when it grants a software patent? I think it is but I have no idea what a court might think. If the U.S. constitution can be conveniently ignored, why not the ECHR too?
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