Re: [Patents] gnu & patents

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> >two alternatives for any good programmer:
> >1. to violate the patents openly, as a mean of 'civil disobedience'
> >2. to violate the patents after going underground first.
>
> In Europe, unless you are making a lots of and lots of profits with
> your software, and unless the patent is good, no one is going come
> after you with their software patent.  Loser-pays is a very good
> deterrent to people asserting stupid software patents.

Maybe "stupid software patents" in the sense of "so stupid that even
lawcourts will reject them".  Even there, a freelance programmer can
easily be scared merely by the prospect of having to go to court.

We recently sent a mailing to software companies warning them about some
trivial patents and pretending to want to pursue them for infringment.
Although the FFII was clearly visible as the sender of this letter so that
you couldn't even talk of "hoax", 2 companies phoned me in anguish, asking
me to tell them what to do and promising to withdraw any infringing
programs.

> Indeed, do some calculations. EPO has already issued lots of software
> patents.  What ones have been asserted against individuals and/or
> SMEs, and successfully asserted? The same question at the national level.

Nobody has ever asserted one in court AFAIK.
Some national courts have declared software patents invalid, saying that
the object of the patent is a non-invention (program for computers) under
Art 52 EPC.

So we are effectively being protected by a law, whose abolition GregNews
relentlessly advocates.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
140,000 signatures against software patents          http://noepatents.org/