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

[Jean-Marc Libs libs@cybercable.tm.fr]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

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

I am not a lawyer but this does not reflect my experience.
I do not think the issue starts with sales, but rather with distribution.
You do not have to make any money at all, it is enough that you reduce
income for someone else, and then it is also worth while for them to
make you stop.

Plus, the mere existence of software patents *does* stop people from writing
or improving their software, even in the absence of litigation.

For an obvious example illustrating my point, I cut/paste the following
part of http://www.boutell.com/gd/

----------- begin quote -------------
Existing code will need modification to call gdImagePng or gdImageJpeg 
instead of gdImageGif. Please do not ask us to send you the old GIF 
version of GD. Unisys holds a patent on the LZW compression algorithm, 
which is used in fully compressed GIF images. The best solution is to 
move to legally unencumbered, well-compressed, modern image formats 
such as PNG and JPEG as soon as possible. 
------------ end quote --------------

This is relevant because the gd library is not sold, yet it is widely
used by itself or in other packages (like the very successful PHP 
web scripting langage)

There are plenty of other examples out there (some of them have been 
mentioned on this very list, so I won't bother with looking them up).
I just choose this one because I suffered first hand from having to
deal with the gif -> png switch, which broke all existing code using
gd until all references to gif were replaced by references to png.
A perfectly tedious, unproductive yet long work which cost a lot
of my time, as well as my employer's and clients' money.

Jean-Marc Libs
speaking for himself