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

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

>... 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.

Hartmut,  Are your addicted to always insulting people you disagree
with?  I didn't imply that this guys comment was silly disinformation,
but rather silly financial strategy.  It doesn't matter where you
develop software, you can be on the Moon for all it matters, but
rather where you sell your products and services.  So running away
to a country that doesn't have software patents changes nothing,
that is, someone interested in your new software faces the same
liability in purchasing/using your software no matter where you
develop it.

Second, his flight strategy, as a preventive strategy, also is a
waste of money.  You state that there are 30,000 software patents
in Europe, which is more than enough to cause all sorts of legal
problems and headaches.  But I see little actual financial losses
occuring, especially in terms of court judgments, partly because
you have a strong "issuance" policy that we don't have in the US,
i.e., that the loser pays.  This will always be a big deterrent
to holders of crappy software patents in Europe, because they know
that if they try asserting their crap, that the defendants will
hire killer patent litigators, who will hire killer patent busters,
who together will get the patent killed, all at the expense of the
patent holder.

So I see little reason for European software developers to either
move their operations to a software patent free country, or to
decide not to develop software in some particular application area.
At least in Europe (unlike the US), they have little to fear in 
either the short term or long term.  Between having an opposition
period, and making the loser pay, most crappy software patents are
rendered impotent.

So again, it seems to me easy to clean up the patent examination
process to get rid of most of these crappy patents, than to try to
come up with some artificial distinction between software and
all other forms of technology.  The latter requires that you play
the same word games that the patent lawyers play (and dueling word
games is always a losing strategy).

In fact, if you were really serious about these issues, you would
figure a way to sue EPO in some European court to force them to
stop issuing patents until they can prove that they can do a good
a job as required by the EPC.  The problem isn't the laws (though
I agree that 52c should be changed), but the hypocrisy of
governments passing laws that they don't take steps to make sure
are well implemented.  These types of battles are easier to fight
because the issues are fixed, relate directly to the main driving
force of the patent system, money, and don't require arguing
semantics.

Greg