Re: [Patents] Retroactivity of the law

[Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com>]

> This is if they change the law. If they just reaffirm the current law
> that prohibits swpats there is no retroactive effect. Swpats will be
> invalid after that hipothetical directive, but they are already today.

Yes. If the current law is reaffirmed like proposed by the Parliament, there 
is no retroactive effect. On the contrary, if the Commission enables 
unlimitted patentability with retroactive effects, there is a clear problem.

> But I think this thread is way too hipothetical

Not in my opinion, this threat is not hypothetical.

The question of retroactivity was simply forgotten in our discussions. The 
question of "date" is the main concept of validity in a contract AND in a 
law. It must be studied. By the way, this is where a first year student would 
start studying any problem, so why shoundn't we do the same.

Every legal system includes some deeply burried rights (like "property" and 
"non-retroactive effect") that can hardly be neglected, unless you pay a 
compensation for the loss. Otherwise, our world would be comparable to the 
world of Kafka. You would never know what are the laws and how to reach the 
castle...

Nowadays, the legislation is becoming so complex that even the writters of 
the 
law forget about the main concepts that they learned during their first month 
of study at the University.

Or maybe that our legislators are simply employed by some large companies - 
some would say "sponsored". I don't think so. In my opinion, the answer is 
more simple: patents on software are designed, implemented and accepted by 
fools. The real power of these people is indeed very low, because they have 
no political backup in the society at large and were not elected.

A joke, all this is nothing but a joke...

Cheers,
Jean-Michel