Re: [Patents] Voice of patenting business

[Francois PELLEGRINI <pelegrin@labri.fr>]

Hello all,

Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 09:25 -0700, Justin Mason wrote:
>
> > is there a good web page that outlines this theory (the programs =
> > literary works under TRIPS = non-patentable one) in a manner that is
> > comprehensible to newbies?   I ask because it's a very interesting new
> > angle, IMO, and I doubt many people outside of the anti-swpat community
> > know about it yet.
>
>
> It is not theory, as explained in
>
> http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/trips/index.en.html
>
> and more exactly in TRIPs Article 10:
>
> http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/trips/index.en.html#art10
>
> TRIPs Article 10: Computer Programs and Compilations of Data
>      1. Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be
>         protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971).
>      2. Compilations of data or other material, whether in machine
>         readable or other form, which by reason of the selection or
>         arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations
>         shall be protected as such. Such protection, which shall not
>         extend to the data or material itself, shall be without
>         prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or material
>         itself.
>
> What fun!

Not so much. What the pro-patent lobby says, as in
the recent "Italian" lobby letter, is that although
copyright protects programs, whether in source or
binary, the underlying concepts are not protected,
and thus require patent protection.

The EU Commission and Council do not say anything
else, too. They want *both* : coipyright for the
codes, and patent for the algorithms.

So, the key point is that one must prove that swpats
are beneficial to have them enforced. Period. (Not
to reverse the charge of the proof and say that one
must prove that they are detrimental to have them
banned. Any burden must prove its efficiency before
being adopted).


                                f.p.