Re: [Patents] Re: Re: community patent

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> > "the acts allowed pursuant to Articles 5 and 6 of Directive 91/250/EEC
> > on the legal protection of computer programs by copyright, in
> > particular, by its provisions on decompilation and interoperability."

> I'd say this does not imply by itself that software would be patentable,
> just that if it was, decompilation would not be forbidden (publishing
> interoperable programs written from decompilation information maybe
> would).

Right.

Also, decompilation would not be forbidden by means of patents anyway.

Patents are about use of products or processes, not about copying or
deciphering texts.  The decompilation ban is a special extension to
copyright in the field of software, and nobody would think of linking it
to patents.

Or has anyone ever heard of decompilation being prosecuted on the basis of
patents in the US or elsewhere?

Thus Art 6 as conceived by CEC/McCarthy and praised by "the industry" is
imho nothing but a deception maneuver.

Its real meaning is to ensure that there is no right to interoperability.
If it wasn't for Art 6, lawcourts could construct such a right from
constitutional principles or by analogy with copyright.  This is what CEC
and even more so Arlene McCarthy and Graham Taylor want to prevent.

If you understand that single point and make it clear to your MEPs, that
may be enough to open their eyes and let them understand the depravity
behind this directive proposal.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
145,000 votes 400 firms against software patents     http://noepatents.org/