[Patents] questionnaire

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

>     2. Whether computer programs should be patentable depends mainly on
>        the effects this would have on the European economy and society.
>        These effects have not been sufficiently studied. Europe should
>        not change the law this year but allow itself a 2 year moratorium
>        to further discuss the issue.


  most people will have no idea whether this is true or not, and their
IP specialist, if asked, will not tell the truth.

  So the question should be phrased differently, so as to state the
situation, rather than assume it is known (which it is not).


  2. Whether computer programs should be patentable depends mainly on
     the effects this would have on the European economy and society.
     Given that official bodies have conducted, or at least published, no
     official study on these issues, Europe should not change the law this
     year but allow itself a 2 year moratorium to further discuss the
     issue.

  This cannot be construed as a biased question, since what it asserts
is factual, and obviously relevant to the question.


for question 3, the subquestions should be numbered a. and b., to
avoid confusion.

 Bernard


On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 01:20:10PM +0200, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> The following questions should be asked in any survey that pretends to be
> investigating the opinions of European software companies on swpat.
> 
> So far the surveys that were conducted contained only questions that were
> geared to patent attorneys, such as how the law could be reworded and how
> some conflicts between legal concepts could be solved.
> 
> The following is just a first draft.  Proposals are welcome.
> 
> http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/preti/indexen.html
>     _________________________________________________________________
>                                                                          
>    
>                                Questionnaires
>                                       
>       These questionnaires will be used to find out what people in the
>           European software industry think about software patents
>                                       
> How would software patentability affect your company?
> 
>     1. Have you ever been approached or attacked by a patent owner for
>        infringement of his patents?
>     2. How many of the 20000 European software patents could be relevant
>        for your field?
>     3. How many of these do you own?
>     4. How much money do you expect to spend on
>          1. patent research
>          2. patent applications
>          3. patent license fees (subtract the fees you expect to earn
>             yourself)
>          4. patent infringement lawsuits
>        once software patents become enforcable in Europe?
>     5. How many patent specialists are working in your company now?
>     6. How much could your company gain by being able to fight off
>        imitators?
>     7. How much could your company lose by having to program around other
>        people's patents?
>     8. How does the availability of open source software affect your
>        company?
>           + It takes money out of the software market and threatens our
>             revenue stream
>           + It enables us to provide better solutions to our customers
>           + It provides a good infrastructure for our own software to
>             build on
>     9. Do you ever disclose source code of your own?
>          1. No, we do not write software at all.
>          2. No, in general it is our principle to distribute binary files
>             only.
>          3. Yes, customers can obtain the source code if they sign a
>             non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
>          4. Yes, we sooner or later release much of our source code to
>             the public under an OpenSource license or similar.
>    10. How would the enforcability of nx10000 European software patents
>        affect your willingness to disclose source code?
>          1. to customers
>          2. to the public
>        
> What should be decided in November 2000?
> 
>     1. Computer programs should be patentable, and such patents should be
>        as fully enforcable in Europe as they are in the United States.
>        The European law should be changed according to the Basic Proposal
>        of the European Patent Office without further delay.
>     2. Whether computer programs should be patentable depends mainly on
>        the effects this would have on the European economy and society.
>        These effects have not been sufficiently studied. Europe should
>        not change the law this year but allow itself a 2 year moratorium
>        to further discuss the issue.
>     3. Computer programs should not be patentable
>          1. Software copyright is quite sufficient to protect the
>             legitimate interests of software companies
>          2. Copyright alone isn't sufficient either. A third paradigm
>             property scheme is needed to better reward innovation
>      _________________________________________________________________
>    
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Patents maillist  -  Patents@liberte.aful.org
> http://liberte.aful.org/mailman/listinfo/patents

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