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[News] RMS Explains Why Software Patents Are Evil, Monopolists Love Them

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Business of Software 2008 - Richard Stallman

,----[ Quote ]
| He [Richard Stallman] pointed out many of the problems with software patents 
| and the difficulties with being able to develop software independently. If 
| you have any sort of success, you might easily run afoul of someone that 
| claims a patent on your idea. He games examples of the gzip/pkzip fiasco and 
| a few others. He showed how hard it is to find a patent, decipher the 
| filings, and even the problems with patents that are under consideration. All 
| pose problems and Mr. Stallman is right, we need to do something.      
`----

http://blogs.sqlservercentral.com/steve_jones/archive/2008/09/17/business-of-software-2008-richard-stallman.aspx

Software patents: How bad they are, and how big companies love them

,----[ Quote ]
| This post on software patents and copyrights and everything else in between 
| is a means of letting off steam caused by reading news that Apple is taking 
| ideas from commercial softwares being actively sold and trying to get patents 
| for those ideas posing as concepts of their own. Yes: Ideas and concepts 
| Apple has not conceived themselves but would like to legally call their own 
| and demand, if and whenever they like, a royalty from anyone building on 
| those ideas — or, in the worst case scenario, sever competition. Patents are 
| considered evil and bad, and there are good reasons why.       
| 
| Apple is not the only company who is doing it. Most big companies do it; have 
| done it in the past. It has almost become a trend: big companies openly 
| filching ideas from commercial softwares not their own, and attempting to 
| patent those ideas as their own. For example, here we see Microsoft finally 
| being granted a patent on “Page Up” and “Page Down” keystrokes. As another 
| example, Microsoft owns a patent on the “Tree-View” mode we have come to love 
| in many file-system applications. These are merely examples, and Microsoft 
| and Apple are not the only big companies indulging in such practices.       
`----

http://ayaz.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/software-patents-how-bad-they-are-and-how-big-comapines-love-them/


Recent:

Software Patents

,----[ Quote ]
| However, with the addition of software and business method patents in the
| 1980’s, the statute has been the subject of dispute. Until about 1981, the
| U.S. Patent Office held that steps performed by a computer were unpatentable
| under at least § 101. However, in Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981), the
| Supreme Court overruled the Patent Office and held that, though an algorithm
| and the like are abstract and unpatentable, the fact that an otherwise
| patentable process is carried out on a computer does not make it
| unpatentable.
`----

http://economiavazi.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/software-patents/


Stop European Software Patents (Again)

,----[ Quote ]
| It is now over three years since the European Parliament threw out a
| controversial bill that would have brought in software patents.
|
| It was a victory of sorts for those trying to preserve some sanity in the
| world of computing, but only a partial and temporary one. Those in favour of
| intellectual monopolies are hardly going to give up, and already have a
| number of irons in the fire that they will doubtless deploy in due course.
|
| In preparation for that day, people on the other side are beginning to
| mobilise their forces...
`----

http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?RSS&BlogId=14&EntryId=1179


Under the Radar: Two Tales From the Secret Life of Patents

,----[ Quote ]
| During the impassioned debate over a proposed European directive on software
| patents, opponents of software patents mounted a graphic demonstration of the
| problem, entitled the Patented European Webshop. The website showed that
| despite official proscription of patents on "computer programs as such" in
| Europe, patents were nonetheless granted for common website functions. This
| propaganda coup elicited anxiety among small businesses and played an
| important in defeating the directive, which would have legitimized those
| patents.
`----

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kahin/under-the-radar-two-tales_b_115022.html


FSF: Urgent: Send comments to USPTO opposing software patents

,----[ Quote ]
| Tell The United States Patent and Trademark Office that software and business
| method patents should not be part of the EU-US patent treaty.
`----

http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-69124/fsf:urgent:send-comments-to-uspto-opposing-software-patents


Term Extension “will damage Commission’s reputation”, top legal advisers tell
Barroso

,----[ Quote ]
| Today, the leading European centres for intellectual property research have
| released a joint letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso,
| enclosing an impact assessment detailing the far reaching and negative
| effects of the proposal to extend the term of copyright in sound recordings.
| [...] “This Copyright Extension Directive, proposed by Commissioner Mccreevy,
| is likely to damage seriously the reputation of the Commission..."
`----

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/06/18/term-extension-will-damage-commissions-reputation-top-legal-advisers-tell-barroso/


[ffii] McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty

,----[ Quote ]
| Brussels, 13 May 2008 -- European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a
| bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in
| Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a
| tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of
| the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on
| software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.
|
| "TEC talks are the current push for software patents. The US want to
| eliminate the higher standards of the European Patent Convention. The
| bilateral agenda is dictated by multinationals gathered in the
| Transatlantic Economic Business Dialogue (TABD). When you have a look
| who is in the Executive Board of the TABD, you find not a single
| European SME in there", says Benjamin Henrion, a Brussels based patent
| policy specialist.
|
| The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) which comprises EU and US high
| level representatives put a substantive harmonisation of patent law on
| its agenda. Substantive patent law covers what is patentable or not. The
| attempt to impose the low US standards on Europe via the Substantive
| Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) process utterly failed at the World
| Intellectual Property Organisation. Also progress in the WIPO B+
| subgroup (without development nations) could not be reached.
`----

http://lwn.net/Articles/282000/
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