FSFE-IE February 2005

fsfe-ie@lists.fsfe.org

21 participants
43 discussions

Re: [Fsfe-ie] My comments on ENNs story of patents restart
by Malcolm Tyrrell 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

Why does the following point keep coming up? Do I misunderstand the issue, or is this just plain nonsense: From: http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=9587188 > Indeed, the big businesses that backed the directive -- such as Philips, > Nokia, Alcatel and Microsoft > [...] > also say, in somewhat ominous terms, that without patent protection, big > companies will be less inclined to spend cash on European R&D projects, > because the governments of Europe cannot offer any guarantees that > commercially useful technology will be protected. In the US, those > much-needed safeguards are in place, patent supporters note. I presume that these big companies will obtain patents in all territories where patents are available, regardless of where the R&D is performed. Unless they are threatening this merely as revenge (and I would think that there responsibility to their own shareholders precludes this), there would be no more or less reason to do R&D in Europe whether software is patentable there or not. Am I wrong? Perplexed from Dublin. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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My comments on ENNs story of patents restart
by Ciaran O'Riordan 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

Electricnews published... "Owning logic in Europe": http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=9587188 So I wrote this to the author... [My mail was a bit long, but my net connection was dead for a while and I just kept adding to it. I didn't send "as IFSO", but now I see I used a 1st+3rd person "us" in closing. I'll be more careful in future since I didn't run this by anyone else of IFSO before sending.] Comments/clarifications: In one place the article says the directive is going back to the drawing board, but in two other places it says the directive was killed. The former is correct. Unclear wordings in the current text of the directive would allow software ideas to be patented. With each stage of the legislative process, it becomes harder to modify the text. The Free Software community, as well as Europe's SMEs, don't want to move on to the next step until the recently-added unclear wording of the Council has been fixed. The textual problems with the current text include clauses of the form: "Software will not be patentable unless X", where on legal interpretation, X is always true. As well as statements that rely on the undefined terms "technical contribution", "industry", "technical field" and "invention". The Parliament added definitions for these terms, but the Council removed the definitions. We are glad that the JURI Committee has voted to request that the legislative process be taken back one step to a stage where the text can be fixed again. We hope Commissioner McCreevy will honour that request. The article implies that the Free Software community would be happy if the directive was killed, but the opposite is true. Due to the current lack of clarity in the European Patent Convention, the European Patent Office has accepted 30,000 software idea patents. Whether these are actually enforceable is debatable, but the only such debate that makes a difference is in a court room, and the average 200,000 euro cost of such a debate are prohibitive to individuals and the vast majority of European businesses. We need the clarity that this directive promised, and we're working hard to ensure it delivers that clarity. It is a bluff when peopls say that international businesses might decide whether or not to invest in Europe based on this directive. When a patent is applied for, the invention's origin makes no difference. Currently, the EU is a safe place to develop software because software writers in the EU are not open to patent litigation. At the same time, software writers in the EU can patent their software ideas in the USA. The effects of allowing software ideas to be patented in the EU would be that patent holders can decide who can write compatible software, and that software writers in the EU would become open to patent litigation lawsuits and threats. Thanks for including the quotes from Greve, and for mentioning free software. If IFSO can be of any future help, don't hesitate to email us at contact [at] ifso.ie -- Ciarán O'Riordan http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/ Free Software in Ireland: http://www.ifso.ie

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IFSO web site
by Glenn Strong 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

A couple of us are planning to give the IFSO web site (http://www.ifso.ie/) some TLC this weekend (whatever the equivalent of an NCT is for a web site I guess). If anybody would like to suggest changes (fixes, improvements, whatever) to the web site now would be a good time. Feel free to send them directly to webmaster(a)ifso.ie to keep this list undisturbed. -- Glenn Strong

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[Fsfe-ie] IFSO Meeting: Tuesday 15th February, 2000h, Mahaffey's Pub
by Malcolm Tyrrell 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

This coming Tuesday is the third Tueday of the month so, as usual, IFSO will be having their monthly meeting. See: http://www.ifso.ie/about.html#meetings Good luck, Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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Dutch will vote no
by Malcolm Tyrrell 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

Just noticed this on my morning news prowl: http://constitutionalcode.blogspot.com/2005/02/dutch-parliament-votes-again… Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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Re: [Fsfe-ie] Reply from Brian Crowley
by Malcolm Tyrrell 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

> He did say that he could try and get us extra contact or even a meetings > with the relevant minister(s) if that would help us get our message > across. This may be very useful. We'd have to get the timing and the people right, though. > * From a free trade point of view monopoly's and closed markets are > bad for global business, patents help to promote and in large > monopoly's and closed markets. You have to careful with points that sound like criticisms of the patent system in general (even if you believe them). Patents in all fields are monopolies. In some fields they may do more good than harm (you may or may not agree). In any case, we must argue that in software, they do more harm than good. > * I would also like to see some discussion on how these patents benefit > the common pool of knowledge after the patent expires, and if this > extra (?) knowledge is worthily of a 20 year monopoly. This point is rarely touched on. Can anyone think of an example of software innovation that would not have been reinvented within 20 years? RSA (the encryption algorithm) is often cited as a good example of a software patent, but it is now known that boffins in the UK had the idea four years *early* than the people who patented it. http://www.di-mgt.com.au/rsa_alg.html Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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Re: [Fsfe-ie] Reply from Brian Crowley
by Malcolm Tyrrell 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

> He didn't mention then why, on our understanding, he was the single > solitary MEP to vote against ? Is there confirmation of this somewhere? I had a look around the europarl site and, as usual, became confused. Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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McCreevey, juris, et al
by Barry Mahon 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:00:23 +0100, <fsfe-ie-request(a)fsfeurope.org> wrote: > 2. State of the patents directive, another win, hitch, and > letter (Ciaran O'Riordan) One important point, it is not, obviously, McC himself who acts in these matters but his 'cabinet' of officials who deal with the details. One or more of these will be in constant contact with friends/colleagues/pols., etc in Dublin so will be aware of pressures from M$ and Co. So, it would be useful if we can get the names of his cabinet people and try to identify who is habndling the softpat file. In addition, of course to sending the letter, etc. Bye, Barry

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The Register's take on the current s/w patent status
by Malcolm Tyrrell 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/10/ciid_more_wrangling/ Good luck, Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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A2K Treaty discussions & patents
by Teresa Hackett 09 Feb '05

09 Feb '05

A meeting last week in Geneva discussing a draft international treaty on access to knowledge included Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a panelist: "A panel where I was part talked about the effects of patents on the standards process - I described the chilling effects of patents disclosed during the standards process, as well as the issue of "submarine" patents and how the standards process is powerless to prevent those from happening. A specific proposal on "forcing disclosure" was on the table, but definitely "not baked". For more information on A2K see http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/ Extract from report by Martin Khor, Third World Network http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k The meeting also discussed how the existence and non disclosure of patents affect the development and use of standards. A participant [Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Chair of IETF] who is dealing with developing standards in relation to the internet explains that in the use of the internet, standards are needed to enable people to work together. Patents are having an effect on the development of standards because the use of a standard may require permission from the owners of patents on inventions the use of which are needed to meet certain standards. It was explained that patents have a chilling effect in discouraging standards from being established, as well as a chilling effect in the use of standards when they have been established. The standards development organizations (which are responsible for negotiating and establishing standards) concerned have to address two problems in relation to patents: it has to determine which patents (if any) are relevant to the standard, and if patents are involved it has to determine if there are acceptable licensing terms for the patented inventions. Part of the problem is that holders of patents on inventions the use of which are needed in the use of standards and protocols often do not disclose the existence of such patents when the standards are being developed. When companies or individuals attempt to comply with or use the standards, the patent holder may then disclose it owns the patent, and that the users of the standards have to pay for use of the patent or face being sued. This discourages people from participating in developing or making use of the standards, which in turn reduces the quality of standards. Some participants then proposed that that a protocol be developed within WIPO to set up mechanisms to manage the disclosure of patents relevant to standards. Members that sign on to the protocol would be obliged to support the disclosure process, and to prevent any patent owner who failed to provide disclosure from enforcing a patent against the implementation of the standard. -----------

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FSFE-IE February 2005