Hi Folks,

Take a time to read about the very dangerous issue of the new patent law in Europe that is about to be voted. Click on the 'No ePATENTS' icon above and sign the petition against patent law.

More information on the subject can be found at: http://swpat.ffii.org

Vote NO!

Ok, did it! Hopefully everybody else on this baord will do so as well.

The vote in the EU parliament was delayed until Sept. 22. It looks like the public pressure is having some effect on the lawmakers! Read all about here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/32614.html

I wasn't aware that software is patentable here in the US.

Does anybody happen to know what the patent rules are for the US, regarding software programs?

Karin

You guys are not [browsing] reading enough these days :)
The latest are about SCO attempt to squeeze licenses out of linux... there are tons of issues related to patenting software, or how many times we see it, the "method to do" something.

The problem is that all these are so vague and US patenting office has absolutely no clue what the requestor is demanding that they grant patents on everything! Let's hope this "plague" does not reach europe...

I admit to being too lazy to browse the internet and hoped someone would give me a definition of what a "patentable" software is in the US ...


Karin

Look here: http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/past/how_the_us_got_there.html
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hendry/work/report/

Bottom line is that you can patent nearly everything, from a 200K lines of code application to a 10-line routine.

Thanks, Pat. Very interesting .... and totally nuts ....

Karin

Yes and that's why it such crucially important that we keep this junk law out of the EU.

The good site of this law: SCO can't claim anything anymore. :mad:

The bad site is that all people who make software are becoming outlaws. With this law all software they (we !?) make, may be copied, a little bit (or byte) modyfied and recompiled on an other system and it is a new product.

Wasn't that the old communistic idea? Everything from you is mine? But we are not communistic, we are democratic SO VOTE AGAINST THIS!!! :D

If you know who these guys are, you already know where I'm heading with this. If not, let me give you a small history lesson in personal computing.

Back in the stone age, when I was learning to write for-next loops and watch my name scroll over the screen 100,000 times, when hard disks were still optional (20Mb), disks were floppy and monitors came in green and amber (That 70's Show). Personal Computers were first introduced to the consumer market. Apple IBM and Tandy being the big players at the time.

PC's would never have been the hit they are today if it wasn't for these two IT Hall of Famers. That is because they invented the PC's first practical program. While other great minds were bending over blueprints for Space Invaders, Asteroids and the first primitive version of Frogger, Bricklin and Frankston came up with Visicalc, the world's first spreadsheet.

Visicalc was an eye-opener for many about the usefulness of this new machine. It brought down peoples workloads by hours. It is truely a milestone in computer-evolution.

Never did our two bearded heroes regret not patenting their software. It was a 70s faux-pas, they chuckle when asked.

It is unlikely that anything as big as Visicalc (later Lotus123) will ever again hit the market. But NOW greedy little men, who will never ever achieve the greatness of Bricklin and Franston stake their claims on code that they probably ripped from somebody else to begin with.

In the arts, it is not uncommon to "borrow" parts of somebody else's work to supplement your own, or even to create your own.
I have always seen programming as an art form, rather than a science. Anybody can learn to program, just like anybody can learn to play the piano. But knowing how to play "Chopsticks" doesn't make you Bill Payne.
There are laws against plagiatism in most countries. Although not always clear (or fair), these existing laws need to be applied to software code. This would give authors copyrights rather than patents, and that, to me, makes a lot more sense.

Looks like the penguinistas won :)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33016.html

Good news, I got to many blocked sites on the internet. :D

Today I got the following email about the petition:

FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
Petition Initiators Thank the European Parliament
Brussels 2003/09/29
For immediate Release

Last Wednesday the Directive voted against software patents and for
freedom of publication, freedom of interoperation and other basic
values of the information society, thereby reversing the thrust of a
directive proposal from the European Commission, so as to basically
satisfy the demands of a quarter million signatories of the "Eurolinux
Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe" and 30 eminent computer
scientists. The initiators of both petitions will speak before the
European Parliament's Petition Committee on tuesday 18.00 to express
their thanks and explore with MEPs what still needs to be done.

Details

The [12]Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe and the
[13]Scientists' Petition are being presented on Tue 30 Sept 2003 at 6
pm in the Petition Committee in the European Parliament Room A3G2,
Building Altiero Spinelli (ASP) at Brussels by Hartmut Pilch and
Philippe Aigrain.

On 10 Nov, software patents are possibly on the agenda for a meeting
of governmental patent experts from EU member states in the
[14]European Council. The software patent owner lobby and EU Internal
Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein are now counting on the Council,
whose "patent policy working party" has proven in the past to be very
responsive to patent owner wishes. Bolkestein and his supporters have
predicted that the Council will withdraw the directive or, if that
fails, give in to anticipated US pressure. Earlier this month the
[16]US Patent Office and [17]Frits Bolkestein issued statements
warning MEPs that they might ruin their chances of democratic
participation if they voted as they did last wednesday.

In this atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and distrust (FUD) campaigning
against the European Parliament, both [18]Mr. Aigrain and Mr. Pilch are
expected to strenghten the Parliament's position.

For attending the meeting, please send mail to [19]Benjamin Henrion.

Media Contacts

mail:
media at ffii org

phone:
FFII Munich office 0049/89/18979927

Benjamin Henrion 0032/498/292771 or 0032/10/454779

More Contacts to be supplied upon request

About the FFII -- www.ffii.org

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a
non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the
spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of
public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open
standards. More than 300 members, 500 companies and 40,000 supporters
have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy
questions in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in
data processing.

About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org

The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source
software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux
develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses
for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.

Permanent URL of this Press Release

http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/epet0929/index.en.html

Annotated Links

[...]

References

12. http://petition.eurolinux.org/
13. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/komp0305/index.en.html
14. http://swpat.ffii.org/players/consilium/index.en.html
16. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/usrep0309/index.en.html
17. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/deba/index.en.html#bolk
18. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/epet0929/paigrain-epet030929.pdf
19. mailto:epreg030929@ffii.org?subject=http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/epet0929/index.en.html