[Patents] Re: 80,000 signatures for software patent free Europe

[tim@timj.co.uk (Tim Jackson)]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 21:29:20 -0400 Ronald J Riley wrote:

> Beyond that, I think that they should stop whining about other people's
> inventions and start inventing their own solutions.  That is what the
> patent system is all about.  

Mr Riley, you have stated this view before and it has been made clear that
this is NOT the situation.  You portray anti-software patent campaigners
as people simply out to use other people's 'inventions' for free who do
not have the intelligence or creativity to 'invent' themselves. But this
is not at all the case.

We do not wish to steal other people's creative work for free - rather,
many of us are creative people ourselves and in the course of everyday
work may spontaneously go through many so-called 'inventive steps' in
creating software.  And our concern is that many software patents are
simply monopolising trivial ideas which any programmer might 'invent'
without even realising it in the course of a normal day.  If such trivial
ideas are patented, this is a severe denial of our freedom and could be
regarded as stealing our freedom just as much as you may believe
anti-swpats campaigners wish to steal other people's inventions.

Of course, the whole patent system is about giving a monopoly to a
particular person or organisation and so it can happen that someone could
independently devise the same invention.  This is a problem, but society
accepts this small limitation of freedom (because it arguably happens
rarely) for the benefit that patents can bring by encouraging invention. 
However, with software patents the triviality of most means that the
chances of many people independently 'inventing' the same method is very
high, so you are denying a large number of people the right to what they
have invented, simply because someone else filed a patent earlier.

Being anti-software patents does not mean one is anti-invention or
anti-inventors.  Rather, we want to see a freedom of creativity in the
software arena which encourages innovation, not a stifling atmosphere
where a few large companies which can afford to file thousands of patents
can hold anyone they choose to ransom despite *nothing but genuine,
independent creation* on the part of the person on the receiving end of
such litigation.


As you appear to consider many software patents as 'inventions', you are
here with a large group of inventors, Mr Riley, and I really hope that you
will begin to see that nobody here wishes to take your or anyone else's
inventions from you.  We all wish to genuinely create, invent, innovate
and want to do that freely, without unfair restrictions.


In summary, we are not trying to take others' inventions from them, but
simply wish to safeguard our own daily creativity.  We do not wish to live
in daily fear of our own independent creation being taken away from us. 
Denying creators the right to their work does not benefit society or
assist the goals of inventiveness, it merely aids monopolisation of the
market by large players and discourages innovation.  As an inventor, I
hope you will appreciate what I am trying to convey, Mr. Riley.