[Patents] FFII Database of European Software Patents and Press Conference

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> >.... Starting from mid of next year we will conduct large parts of our
> >.... software development in a country which does not yet have such a
> >.... highly developed patent law system ........
> 
> Actually, it doesn't matter where you develop your software, but rather
> where you sell your software, in regards to the threat of software
> patents.  So this person is wasting his time and money.

Mr Roedding knows that well.  Yet things are not so simple.  What matters
is not whether you are theoretically infringing or not.  What matters is
how to get yourself out of the shooting lines, i.e. how to make it
unlikely that you will be the one who is attacked first.

Today's software is modular and it is easy to supply a solution in which a
certain module can be exchanged for another one via Internet.  If that
other one is developped and marketed mainly in a place where software
patents don't hit, the odds are that a suer will search for another
target.

> For the most part, large numbers of (bad) software patents have little
> effect on the development of new software.  

I know companies that have decided to stay out of certain technical fields
because these fields are full of patents.

> It is only when you get into sales does the threat of patents become
> more real, and even then, only when you are making lots and lots of
> money to make it worth while for someone to try to get some of your
> money by suing you for patent infringement.

For a software entrepreneur it is irresponsible to rely on other people's
mercy.  If he is infringing, he is no longer getting the minimal legal
security that he expects his government to give him in return for the 50%
or more taxes that he is paying them.  Moreover, he has to think in long
periods of time.  If currently only big fish are sued, this may change
over time.  What happens once a year now may happen once a week ten years
from now.  What hits only big fish now may hit the little ones then.  The
patterns for maximising profit out of software patents are just slowly
emerging at the moment.  Strong portents are telling us that a new type of
company like TechSearch, Qualcomm, Priceline etc are the best adapted for
the maximal exploitation of software patents.
 
> If you all expect to win your arguments, it might help to better
> explain patent law to your supporters.  Comments like the above are
> just silly.

Daniel Roedding is one of those software entrepreneurs who have studied
the issue in depth.  He knows what he is talking about and he has taken
his decisions because he knows it and because he has a more long-term
perspective than those people who are just looking at what is happening
today.  If he wasn't so damned serious about it, I wouldn't have put his
comment into the press release, because I know that patent specialists
like you will tend to treat it as silly disinformation.

I wonder why your trouble with TechSearch hasn't changed your perspective.
Do you still insist on telling us that only big fish with large revenues
are in danger of being attacked by patents?

-phm