LWN: Comments on "European patents approved"

Checking up on MEPs votes

hingo — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 11:07:14 +0000

An interesting sidenote seems to be that Arlene McCarthy has now
swinged over to our side:

Rapporteur MEP Arlene McCarthy (PES, North West) said the Parliament
has sent a clear message: "We do want strict limits on patentability of
software. All the amendments that were adopted were in this direction. We
have effectively rewritten the directive."
(http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe?204&OIDN=1506292&-home=home)

Apart from being an ambivalent politician, this might be due to the fact that
she wants to assert the Parliaments right to rule on this matter, when the
Commission is threatening to draw the carpet under her feet. Anyway, did
she become one of the good guys overnight?

From the same article we learn that commissioner Bolkenstein is speaking
the exact same words that this lobby group, who to me doesn't look like
having anything to do with SME:s...

European Industry Association EICTA President Anthony Parish said,
"Parliament has made a great mistake by proposing a number of
damaging amendments which will roll back patent protection for Europe's
inventors in sectors as diverse as telecommunications, motor vehicles,
information technology, machine tools and consumer electronics. As
Commissioner Bolkestein said before the EP vote, the proposal before
Parliament would only confirm existing European practice for patent
protection of inventions implemented in computer programmes. He said
that half truths and misconceptions fuelled opposition to the directive.
Commissioner Bolkestein was right. EICTA calls upon the Council of
Ministers to correct the damage done in Parliament and restore the status
quo which has served Europe well".

henrik

European patents approved

gadeiros — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 20:33:38 +0000

What was decided is a relatively good solution and was declared as a win by all those who have been against software patents in the EU parliament.

The point is, that software patents are a matter of fact in the EU since a couple of years and this decision will make it harder (some say very hard) to gain patents on solutions including software.

Look here (in German)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-24.09.03-000/

European patents approved

mmarq — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 18:34:56 +0000

Now, i belive Linux/OSS was granted the taking of rope out of its neck...

Watch out SCO & Ma$ter and other Filthy Liars,... you better step aside or be runned over.

(just reliefing,... because i belive the "BIG ANTI LINUX/OSS FUD" is to begin).

This defenitley will "cut under" any possibility of a world wide WAR against FLOSS based on patents;... becuase if FLOSS is stoped in USA, it will be double as fast in EU, and with Russia, China, India, Brasil applaudding!

Checking up on MEPs votes

fermigier — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 18:15:29 +0000

http://www.softwarepatenter.dk/dokumenter/oprop.txt

Checking up on MEPs votes

RobDavies — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 18:10:47 +0000

Is there a way to find out whether they voted on the right side? It seems
some follow up would be in order, to hold them accountable next election
time.

The stuff I clicked through from FFII, got into pdf, and with 70+
amendments, looks like it'll take some work to unravel, even if the
details on regional MEPs are present.

[ffii] Europarl votes for Real Limits on Patentability

jdthood — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:59:56 +0000

The transcript of the debate is a very interesting read.

Although I am still disturbed by accusations of "aggressive" behavior, some speakers defended the free software lobbyists as concerned citizens and others said that they understood why the lobbyists are passionate about the issue. Many of the speakers expressed astonishment at the amount of interest in this issue. It seems that the European Parliament hasn't seen the likes of free software activists before. :)

The result of this involvement was that parliamentarians thought about the issue. The transcript reveals that many of them had tried to grapple with it. It was beyond the comprehension of many of them, although only a few of them were willing to admit that.

The most pervasive problem in the thinking of the speakers is a failure to understand that a patent puts a lock on an idea. It is not the doodad-with-embedded-processor in your living room that is patented; it is the idea behind the doodad — how to build it — and the embedded computer program must be part of that idea. If the doodad is patentable then so is the program. Therefore it is puzzling to say that computer implemented inventions can be patented but not the software ideas behind those inventions. Arlene and friends repeat over and over that software per se won't be patentable. But if she is offering a patent exemption that says that you can use an idea, so long as you don't use it, then that is logically vacuous. The FFII tended to accuse the Commission and Arlene of dishonesty on this point -- of being self contradictory so that what looked like restrictive language would actually turn out to be vacuous in practice. However, another explanation is that those responsible for writing the proposals were collectively too stupid or confused to understand what they were saying. The latter seems more likely to me, but I don't know enough about the people involved.

I don't think that many MEPs understand that the innovative part of software engineering is the development of the algorithm — supposedly the non-patentable pure software part — whereas the application of the algorithm to a particular problem — supposedly patentable — is rarely innovative. It is innovative to develop a new algorithm for encrypting streaming data. Given this algorithm it is straightforward to apply it to streaming audio. Supposedly only the latter idea will be patentable, but it only takes a few seconds of thought to come up with the idea of using the algorithm for streaming video too. So what ends up happing is that the inventor of the algorithm is in a position to patent it for all those obvious applications very broadly defined, and thus, in effect, to patent the algorithm itself.

The concession that implementing something on a computer cannot be considered an innovative step is also worth little.

What is important is the exemption that the parliament has explicitly granted for software that needs to interoperate with other patent- protected software.

MEPs did not only think about the issue; they were almost unanimously convinced that freedom and the free software movement is important and need to be protected. Differences among them stemmed from their different understandings of how freedom can and should be protected.

Insightful commentary from Philippe Aigrain

fermigier — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:13:03 +0000

--- forwarded from philippe.aigrain ----

Contrarily to what you may hear or read from Reuters, this is truly a
victory against extension of patentability. Amendements have been voted
that completely overturn the original meaning of the directive to make
it a text that excludes from patentability any thing beyond the use fo
forces of nature to control physical effects and exclude explicitly any
form of information processing. In addition an amendment explicitly
stating than software claims can not be accepted has been voted.For
specialists 69-70-71-72 and first part of 55 + interoperability
exception have gone through.

I guess that the Green and GUE have voted against the global report
because they are afraid that this might be manipulated in the further
political and implementation proces (in particular they wanted another
version of the definition of technical - amendment 55 second half
instead of 6 to go through, but it was not even submitted to vote, based
on erroneous statement that 69 would be equivalent). I do not know teh
outcome on one important amendment (57).

This is nonetheless a historical turning point: for the first time, a
cross-party coalition has said no to the permanent extension of patents
and other forms of restrictions to free and open knowledge. Already in
1995 the Parliament rejected a first version of the biotech patents
directive, but this was a different coalition, much less clear, and
shortlived. TO measure the importance, see the detailed vote on
amendment 55 first half voted 300 to 223 with the PSE divided 2/3-1/3
and the PPE divided 1/3-2/3

The news releases announce the vote as a victory for patentability (see
Reuters). Let's hope that the truth will reach even the news.

Now let's get ready for the fights in Council. The voted amendments are
clearly unacceptable for those countries where the patent lobbies have
key influence, as well as for the Commission, so they will do anything
to get rid of them.

Philippe Aigrain
www.sopinspace.com/~aigrain/en/

_______________________________________________
Freesw mailing list
http://mail.conecta.it/mailman/listinfo/freesw

[ffii] Europarl votes for Real Limits on Patentability

hingo — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 15:23:25 +0000

Great job FFII, Eurolinux, EDRI, EFFI&cousins. Thank you!

henrik

**
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/deba/

12. 9.33 Cappato
...
"Don't forget, hundreds of thousands have got in touch with us on this.
That is a democratic contribution, and not something that should be
regarded as an annoyance. "

Good heise online article about the subject (German)

cpetig — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 15:13:35 +0000

heise online has a good article about the decision which gives much background information.

http://heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-24.09.03-000/

European patents approved

deatrich — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 15:07:54 +0000

Here is another link on quicken.com

"Big U.S. and European technology companies, such as Microsoft, Alcatel SA (ALA, news), SAP AG and Nokia Corp. (NOK, news), pushed hard for approval."

"But several amendments by environmentalists and socialists left these companies deeply disappointed."

[ffii] Europarl votes for Real Limits on Patentability

eru — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:58:57 +0000

Pilch: "It has become our directive which we must help the European Parliament to defend."

Amazing! Congratulations and thanks to you and everyone who have worked hard for this to happen!

1-0 to the good guys

hingo — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:48:55 +0000

In fact, this commissioner Fritz guy has threatened to simply withdraw the
proposal if he doesn't like it (see FFII text below).

In that case everything would return to as it were. The EPO would continue
to grant software patents, which would continue to be illegal.

(That last sentence is close to poetry ;-)

henrik

Or did we win after all?

deatrich — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:47:11 +0000

One of these threads that actually is interesting on slashdot this one.

[ffii] Europarl votes for Real Limits on Patentability

Carl — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:35:32 +0000

FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
See

http://swpat.ffii.org/#news

Now we will have to see whether the European Commission is committed to
"harmonisation and clarification" or only to patent owner interests.

Yesterday's threats uttered by Bolkestein against the European Parliament
suggest the latter.

The detailed results are available on our site

http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/

It will now be our job to help the European Parliament assert itself against
attempts by Bolkestein and patent lawyers wearing the hat of national
governments to crush the directive project.

The current text has some remaining contraditions in it, but basically the
thrust has been turned around. It has become our directive which we
must help the European Parliament to defend. This is also a question of
the European Parliament's role in an emerging democratic Europe. On the
whole this is very good news for the EU.

--
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation http://swpat.ffii.org/
270,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents http://noepatents.org/

Or did we win after all?

eru — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:32:52 +0000

According to that IT-viikko article, the directive will still go through a second session, which might result in more amendments. If so, the fight is not over yet!

I fear that if the Europarlament have now indeed adopted a version of the directive that puts limits on software patenting, intense lobbying from the pro-patent forces could still change things for the worse in the second session.

Maybe we really did win...

hingo — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:22:53 +0000

EU approves software patents directive
By Peter Williams [24-09-2003]
But not the patenting of software, apparently

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1143840

Or did we win after all?

hingo — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:19:29 +0000

Still undecided, but at least it's in English...

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/24/HNeupatent_1.html

Or did we win after all?

hingo — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:16:35 +0000

The first actual piece of news (Slashdot does not count!) I've found:

http://www.itviikko.fi/uutiset/uutinen.asp?UutisID=57388

...is in Finnish. In short it's an interview with Finnish MEP Reino Paasilinna,
who seems happy with the result. From an article yesterday we learn that
he was critical to the original proposal, so this at least bodes well.

Key quote: "The current status was accepted with changes that take into
account small business and startups. The sloppy and ocerly generous
handing out of patents by the EPO will end. What is patentable is now
more clearly defined."

Still waiting for a clearer story though...

henrik

European patents approved

libra — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:05:42 +0000

Be carefull with the babelfish translation, it says "Microsoft being named but probably not aimed" but it is indeed the contrary.

News at 11

corbet — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:51:55 +0000

"Will there be an analysis of this in tomorrow's LWN.net?"

I hope so. The timing is poor (why do big things always happen on Wednesdays?) and the kernel page is not yet begun. But if we can get the information, we'll do our best.

Or did we win after all?

hingo — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:51:37 +0000

Two comments on Slashdot claim that the amendments that were passed
were in fact the amendments backed by the FFII (the good guys, us). If
this is true, then it is a good thing that the amended directive was passed,
and especially encouraging that it was with such a big margin.

Holding my breath for confirmation though...

henrik

European patents approved

rknop — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:49:29 +0000

Will there be an analysis of this in tomorrow's LWN.net?

My instinctive reaction is that the sky has now fallen, but what those amendments are could make a huge difference. What is a "real invention"? What is a "program by itself"? Has the sky in fact fallen, or should we breathe a sigh of relief?

Almost certainly, though, this is worse than if they had done nothing. That's cause for sadness as is. What I want to know now is if it is a disaster, or if it is just a little bit bad.

In any event, so much for Europe being the last bastion of the free world.

-Rob