More patent nonsense -- Canadian, eh!

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

http://www.canada.com/montreal/specials/business/story.html?id=BE11890B-FFBA-4013-AE88-2A61F2623547

    Patent could be worth billions

    Legal fight ahead. Tiny Longueuil firm sparks firestorm in New Zealand 
    with warnings to pay up
 
    ANDY RIGA
    The Gazette

    Friday, July 11, 2003
    CREDIT: NEW ZEALAND HERALD
 
    After years of struggles, Edward Pool's tiny, little-known Longueuil 
    firm is hoping to finally start cashing in on controversial patents he
    says should give it royalties on every international e-commerce
    transaction


  I have every reason to believe this patent will be proven invalid, which
is a common problem for information process patents such as business model
and software patents where the basic useful,novel,unobvious tests are
impractical to carry out adequately.  In the unlikely event someone could
convince me that information process patents serve a useful public policy
purpose, they would have an even harder time convincing me that they could
deal with the patent quality problem which in itself should be reason not
to grant information process patents.


  I believe I have a further recommendation for Industry Canada beyond
those I made in my presentation last Wednesday
<http://www.flora.ca/patent2003/>.  This is a followup of the assertion
that it is far better as a point of public policy to deny questionable
patents and refer them to the courts than to grant them and pass the
considerable costs of this patent inflation onto the public.

  For subject matter where patent offices cannot bring the level of
validity to higher 90% or 95%, then patents should not be granted in that
subject matter at all. Software patents granted by the USPTO are at 5-40%
validity at the moment depending on which study you trust, and I suspect
that the situation is even worse for business model patents.



See also (and I expect/hope this list will grow as other media picks this
story up):

http://www.fightthepatent.co.nz/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0307/S00199.htm
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=technology&thesubsection=&storyID=201717
http://listserver.internetnz.net.nz/pipermail/public-discuss/2003-July/000082.html
http://www.detechnologies.com/press/release-2002-10-01.htm


  One of the best single sources of information on software patents is 
from the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) ( 
non-profit association registered in Munich).

   http://swpat.ffii.org/

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or
 electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than 
 politicians should be bought.  -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/