Re: [Patents] The Dream Directive

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> http://beauprez.net/softpat/dreamdirective.html

Indeed this bridges all the gaps, although the wording may still be 
improved.

A similar dream directive was published at

        http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/directive/

a few years ago.  The EP was forced to debug a directive that was designed
to ensure unlimited patentability, with 4-5 levels of safeguards for
achieving this goal.  The "ffii counter-proposal" 

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/prop/
        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/prop/mini/

helped the EP in arriving there, but it was of course also much more 
complex than any "dream directive", due to the need of dealing with the 
CEC proposal.

Yet Art 1-6 of the EP voting result are nearly perfect, in some respects
better than the "dream directives", since they also address freedom of
publication and interoperability.  OK, your proposal addresses freedom of
publication indirectly by postulating an inalienable right to have the
programmer's work appropriated through copyright, which already has
freedom of publication as its built-in limitation.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
300,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/