Re: [Patents] Finnish organisations against CEC/BSA DirectiveProposal

["Nick Fleming" <Nick@bigfatpanda.fsnet.co.uk>]

Ok.. I'll bite.. just this once.

> Software is all process - the expression (such as the variable names,
> the indenting style, the comments) is irrelevant.  Copyright laws around
> the world explicitly ban copyright protection for processes, processes
> such as software.  Courts in the US for thirty years struggled to find
> something about software that wasn't idea and process to be granted
> copyright protection, and couldn't.  In that same thirty year period,
> other courts set the terms to then protect software with patents.

For the purposes of  patent protection, I agree (!),
the form of the claim, be it wood, metal or 
some other form of matter, is irrelevant. 
Otherwise you could circumvent a patent
just by using different materials :-)

However, written text,(including source code),
music, artwork, movies, books, etc are all protected 
- very well - by copyright, (which the Americans 
seem hell bent on extending to infinity - 
that in itself is part of the problem). 
Its important to bear in mind that these 
copyrighted works can appear in digital form.
If you ban copyright on software, I have
no doubt several large hollywood
movie studio's (+ the Disney Empire)
would have something to say about it.

The problem therefore, is that the author 
of a computer program, in obtaining a patent, 
effectively gains a total monopoly on use and 
copyright, being able to dictate whatever terms
they see fit - which has the undesirable effect
of stifling creativity within the software 
industry and more importantly.. 
any other industry that uses software - 
which is just about all of them I believe.


To solve this, you could say.. remove 
copyright, only allow patents on software. 
However, the problem then is that it would
leave an enormous amount of computer
software unprotected and open to all
sorts of abuse by patent holders. 


> You know, some of the tactics on this list are so idiotic that there are
> times when I wonder whether some of you are secretly being paid by the
> big companies you claim to be fighting.  But for the most part, none of
> you understand US software patent policy or history, because of your
> contempt for actuall researching any of these issues.
 
Sometimes I'm sure you just write this stuff just to
provoke a reaction Greg - surely such a tactic
is beneath you :-)

Just because someone works for a large multinational
doesn't mean they have to agree 100% with everything
the chairman of the board says (I will not sing the IBM song!)
:-)
 
I think in the original conference on software patents in 
the UK a government official said that the majority of the
software industry was made up of firms of 100 or fewer
people. Im sure that figure is probably accurate for the
vast majority of software firms across Europe. So it is
misleading to say that it is a fight against only large 
companies. It is true though, that the patent system
is skewed in favour of the larger multinationals -
there is no level playing field for all. 

 I think most people in Europe don't actually want
to be thought of as an extension of America thankyou 
very much. Most certainly, we should not 'harmonise'
our laws just to match the American legal system. Im sure
that would just give the USA more economic power than
they already have at the expense of jobs and 
wealth in Europe. Thats not to say that the entire system
is worthless, but maybe not an appropriate system
for Europe :-)

Regards,

Nick Fleming.
(This email's not a hoax - i promise :-)