[Patents] patent vampires

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

The following page was written by a leading BSD developper and software
consultant who is living in Munich and has some knowledge of the patent
system & people at the EPO.

http://bim.bsn.com/~jhs/txt/patents.html


              The Move To Introduce More Software Patents
              Is Not In The Public Interest & Should Be Reversed
                                       
     I am a software consultant observing vampire patent professionals
       preying on the software industry, & also harming free software.
     I am not a patent proffesional paid to impede public software use.
     I don't have the paid time they do, to polish my case .... so read
       it rough, or swallow the full time PR men's glib case for patents,
       if you'r sucker enough to believe them :-)
       
Other References

     No Software Patents Petition directed to the European Parliament 
     FSF: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/savingeurope.html
     http://www.freepatents.org
     League for Programming Freedom has more polished pages than I do,
       albeit LPF is more USA oriented, (whereas I am European).
       
Who I Am (IE what my bias is)

     ( Don't believe anyone involved with the Patent Business until
       you've found out what their bias is, who pays their salary, etc !
       (Do Not be naieve & assume that patent offices are impartial
       arbiters working for the common good - they are not ! & as for
       patent lawyers, well, we all know plenty of jokes about lawyers
       ;-) 
     This view on Software Patents, is from a Computer Industry
       Developer, who objects to the Patent Professional's attempt to
       parasitise & degrade the industry I work in.
       Time was, when software could not be patented (as such), but
       recently the profits in the software industry have excited an
       avaricious gleam in the eye of the Patent Professionals !
       They are telling anyone who will listen, how they can `help' the
       software industry, & unfortunately they are filing far more patent
       applications in the software area than they used to.
       The Patent Professionals might possibly improve some individual
       corporate profits, beyond the extent of their associated
       professional & official fees, but they will damage the software
       industry in the process, & a somewhat higher percentage of a
       market of more limited total size, is not necessarily good news,
       even for the Patent application obsessed companies. (The argument
       could be seen as philosophically similar to the debate between
       free trade & protectionism).
       
Software Copyright - No Problem -

     I see no problem assigning copyright to clients, where custom
       software is written for their requirements. Obviously where (to
       speed development & reduce costs) modules of pre-existing public
       code are used (mine or other peoples), pre-existing copyrights
       remain unchanged.
       
- But - Software Patents Are BAD For Society !

     Patent lawyers are pushing Patent Offices to extend the range of
       patent grants permissible in the software area.
     Software Patents are against the public interest. They are an
       un-warranted extension of a patent system, that already in many
       cases hinders human progress more than than it enhances it; (but
       they divert resources to pay money for Patent Proffesionals).
     Software Patents are an unwarranted, un-necessary infringement of
       the public's right to create & use software with new ideas.
     Patent Offices are foolishly &/or lazily allowing themselves to
       grant more patents in the software area, which in the long run
       will discredit the patent offices, & expose patent offices as an
       un-necessary drain on society, & a hinderance to human progress
       (at least in my industry (computing) they are) - Patent Offices
       are organisations overdue for re-definition of objectives, &
       requiring more public control.
     European Patent Examiners have told me
          (A) Software patents do not restrice people's personal Private
            use of software.
          (B) So ... Software patents will not hurt free software.
       Well ...
          (A) May be true, (but use of free software should be allowed
            for business too).
          (B) They have overlooked the fact that free software is used by
            commercial companies such as Yahoo & Walnut, & if their right
            to use free software is robbed by software patents, it raises
            their costs, (& reduces need for consultants such as me, who
            can do a better job when we can work on free sourced
            software, rather than the normal inferior binary-only
            commercial stuff).
          I know programmers who will not add features to free software,
            because they believe the features are patented by others.
            Trying to convince them that they should be free to add
            features, & its up to users to determine usage & liability to
            pay for patent usage, is impossible. Free software is simply
            impeded by patents.
          We all know about stupid avaricious companies, like the ones
            that patented & taxed use of the .gif image, the compress
            algorithms, & British Telecom with its new avaricous claim on
            the URL clickable idea that all the web uses. The patent
            world is full of greedy unscrupulous usually large companies,
            damaging progress & stfiling innovation & growth of smaller
            companies.
            Rarely does one hear of benevolent companies granting of the
            occasional patent to the public domain (EG AT&T & Unix SUID
            bit).
    How The Patent System Tries To Justify It's Immoral Intrusion
          On the basis that companies will not be willing to invest in
            research unless they can ensure a return on their investment,
            by enforcing fees be payable to the inventor who invested so
            much time & money to develop the new patented technique.
    Why The Justification Of Software Patents Is Rubbish
          It takes a minimum of time & effort to dream up a new software
            idea, & there's often no other easy way round the many
            trivial techniques that now languish under patent
            restriction. The rest of the industry, apart from each
            licencee, are thus burdened with the consequent un-necessary
            bureaucratic & legal costs for each granted patent. Of course
            all this un-necessary cost is born by the consumer - Us the
            public.
          It takes a maximum of time to write the software to implement
            even simple patented ideas. The development effort can be
            better protected with copyright, the `invention effort' is
            minimal, software patenting is not warranted, & is
            inappropriate to the public interest. Public use of the
            original no-cost/low-cost ideas should not itself be legally
            restricted.
          Thousands of free software packages in the public domain, &
            particularly the major Free Software Projects could be
            hazarded from predatory patent lawyers, to the detriment of
            the public.
          The Patent Offices permitting further intrusion of more
            Software Patents, is manifestly against the public interest.
            There is no need for software patents - the public do not
            need to be ripped off with higher costs consequent on the
            costly un-invited infliction of lawyers & patent offices.
          The industry is booming without need of Software Patents. If
            the patent examiners & lawyers move further in on this market
            sector, they will raise prices, & steal creative time from
            developers who should be developing, not wasting time on
            software patent application, & fighting the patent
            applications of others.
    Patent Offices Do Not Serve The Public Interest
          Patent Offices might once have served a useful function, but
            they're now out of control, patenting trivia in far too many
            technologies, burdening design engineers with a morass of
            trivial patents, restricting design & raising cost to
            society.
          The formal definition of the European Patent Office (& perhaps
            other too ?), that guides the management & examiners, is
            apparently biased toward granting patent applications, rather
            than impartial review of the public interest.
          Perhaps an imbalance is understandable when one consider the
            EPO also function as government tax collector, (the EPO pays
            it's owners, the various European states, large amounts of
            money).
          One cannot expect impartiality to decide the public good, from
            organisations required to extract the maximum amount of
            patent application & renewal fees possible. Impartiality can
            only come from a fee structure providing equal revenue to the
            patent offices, regardless of grant or rejection of
            applications.
          Perhaps one reason (apart from inertia) that the goverments
            tolerate the patent offices, is that they are equipping the
            nation states &/or continents, with the basis for future
            wastefully inefficient trade disputes, in which intellectual
            property will be increasingly significant.
          Nobody represents the public interest in the patent system,
            obviously not the applicant companies & their lawyers, but
            also not the Patent Offices either. The examiners are just
            protecting their jobs, extending their dominion, & hindering
            progress, burdening designers with an ever increasing pile of
            time-wasting restrictions.
          Patent examiners have told me they are under pressure to
            adjudge a patent appl,ication in the electronics/ computing
            area in about 2 days: not long to make the right decision, &
            they get more quick points by a quick grant, than a studious
            rejection of patent application. They tell me I as a member
            of the public am entitled to object to a patent if I think
            it's not new & inventive, & is a standard technique we've all
            been using for years .... but they also tell me I have to Pay
            personally if I want to object to a patent application ! But
            why should _I_ an individual have to pay, to do the job they
            should be doing, but are failing to do ? They don't try hard
            enough to reject patents.
          Patents discriminate against small new companies, companies too
            small to afford to waste money on cross licencing all the
            patented trivia. Patents infringement cases can & are used to
            help kill off &/or coerce lack of competition from small new
            competitors in the field. New start-up companies provide the
            future life blood of society, why discriminate against them,
            in favour of the older mature companies ?
         EPO (European Patent Office) Article 53 * - Exceptions to
            patentability
             European patents shall not be granted in respect of: (a)
                 inventions the publication or exploitation of which
                 would be contrary to ``ordre public'' or morality,
                 provided that the exploitation shall not be deemed to be
                 so contrary merely because it is prohibited by law or
                 regulation in some or all of the Contracting States; (b)
                 plant or animal varieties or essentially biological
                 processes for the production of plants or animals; this
                 provision does not apply to microbiological processes or
                 the products thereof.
    Vampire Proffesionals ? A Cynic's Analysis ?
        I believe Patent Proffesionals are contributing Nothing useful to
            the software industry, in fact they are vampires, sucking
            away at the cash flow & time of creative developers,
            contributing nothing, & impeding progress.
    My Bias ?
        Here's my personal bias &/or declaration of interest:-
          Software Patents could be a considerable future hazard to the
            the Free Software Projects I support & use, (but Software
            patents will not raise my personal software purchase costs,
            as I do not use commercial binaries).
          As a developer, patents can only limit my creativity, make my
            work less interesting, & more expensive for the public to
            purchase. If designers of software & electronics were to
            conform to all the stupid, trivial, obstructive & parasitic
            patents granted by irresponsible patent offices, we'd need a
            handful of lawyers permanently advising each designer; the
            patent system is ridiculous, outmoded, old-fashioned,
            bureacratic & stifles the growth of new firms - it should be
            scrapped.
       
         Fight Software Patents - They're not in the public interest !