Software Patent Law Rejected

[Fish]

The vote, 648-14 with 18 abstentions so it\'s not going to happen.

648 votes to 14, that\'s how utterly wrong this bill was.

[Induane]

great thats excellent news.  Such a bill had me worried about Europe.  

P.S.  What code do you have in your signature so you can have that spreadfirefox icon link to the homepage?

[Keyaz]

that would be [.url=http://www.thewebsite.com][img.]normally text here but replaced with image tag[/img][/url]

i think

[Efflixi Aduro]

Yay, I guess...
Wasn\'t this in europe only or somthing. And does this mean no more of those banana things on seytras sigs?

[Leeloo]

And this is the how many\'th time it gets rejected? So, now they are going to change some words once more, make it even worse for european software companies[1], and reintroduce it.

[1] At the moment it basically says \"All your code are belong to Microsoft\".

[ramlambmoo]

And this is the how many\'th time it gets rejected? So, now they are going to change some words once more, make it even worse for european software companies[1], and reintroduce it.

[1] At the moment it basically says \"All your code are belong to Microsoft\".

Get real.  The bill isnt even about code.  Code is already protected, and is the property of whoever makes it.  The bill is about making software protected in the same way code is protected.  And since microsoft dosnt write all the software, then not all the software belongs to them.

[lynx_lupo]

And it\'s not just software.
Anyway, this was good, but the directive was rejected before they voted for the amendmends, so the status isn\'t fully clear.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by ramlambmoo

And this is the how many\'th time it gets rejected? So, now they are going to change some words once more, make it even worse for european software companies[1], and reintroduce it.

[1] At the moment it basically says \"All your code are belong to Microsoft\".

Get real.  The bill isnt even about code.  Code is already protected, and is the property of whoever makes it.  The bill is about making software protected in the same way code is protected.  And since microsoft dosnt write all the software, then not all the software belongs to them.

It\'s you who needs to get real. The bill was about patenting ideas, software is just part of it as it is written ideas, whether it is in source code or in any form of compiled code. It is about indirectly removing, or rather, outlawmaking, article 52 of the European Patent Convention which clearly and unmistakingly excludes software, scientific theories, art, etc. from patentability, for very good reasons, which I can state here if anyone wishes me to do so.

So while Microsoft may not write all software, it may very well patent all ideas. This way, you are not allowed to write software anymore, which effectively will make them write all software, because they\'re the only ones allowed to!

As for the bill reapparing: This bill will not resurface. Instead, the patent lobby will try to sneak in unlimited patentability by way of the so called \"community patent\" bill, which has been in the workings but stalled. The UK seems to be trying to push it back in motion, and they will receive plentiful support by the big corporations and the European Patent Office.

@ Efflixi: I have been thinking of swapping my sig, yes. However, since the main problems, namely the utter lack of democracy in the EU, and the determination of the EU council to sell the information society to the global players, are by far not solved, I cannot.

And yes, this bill was only in Europe. In the USA and other countries, such bills are law already, and they are already showing their detrimental effects. See This page for some examples.

[Platyna]

Yeeehaaa...anyway, as Seytra said, I wonder how many times it is going to be
rejected untill they underestand that they may go the hell with these Software Patents...
In other way I could patent latin alphabet or arabic digits so I would be paid by
all these greedy people. Torvalds would get a special discount. ;)


Regards.

[Fish]

To Induane

[img]http://www.spreadfirefox.com/community/images/affiliates/Buttons/110x32/get.gif[/IMG}[/URL}

 - the }} replace with ] ]

[ramlambmoo]

It\'s you who needs to get real. The bill was about patenting ideas, software is just part of it as it is written ideas, whether it is in source code or in any form of compiled code. It is about indirectly removing, or rather, outlawmaking, article 52 of the European Patent Convention which clearly and unmistakingly excludes software, scientific theories, art, etc. from patentability, for very good reasons, which I can state here if anyone wishes me to do so.

So while Microsoft may not write all software, it may very well patent all ideas. This way, you are not allowed to write software anymore, which effectively will make them write all software, because they\'re the only ones allowed to!  

Thats speculation on the implications of the bill.  At the present time, all your code does not belong to microsoft, and the bill does not say all your code belongs to microsoft.  As you said, the bill has already passed in the U.S.  Does this mean \"all your code are belong to microsoft\" in the U.S? No.  Im opposed to the bill, but im also opposed to people making stupid generalised statements and then defending statements which are wrong.  Code can already be copyrighted, and so all your code does not belong to microsoft.
On the link you provided, there were 38 items regarding to patent cases.  Of these, only 5 where instances where microsoft held the patents.  Thus it is abundantly clear that despite these laws passing in the U.S \"all you code does not belong to microsoft\".  The laws are bad, but that statement is still nowhere near truth.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by ramlambmoo
Thats speculation on the implications of the bill.  At the present time, all your code does not belong to microsoft, and the bill does not say all your code belongs to microsoft.  As you said, the bill has already passed in the U.S.  Does this mean \"all your code are belong to microsoft\" in the U.S? No.  Im opposed to the bill, but im also opposed to people making stupid generalised statements and then defending statements which are wrong.  Code can already be copyrighted, and so all your code does not belong to microsoft.
On the link you provided, there were 38 items regarding to patent cases.  Of these, only 5 where instances where microsoft held the patents.  Thus it is abundantly clear that despite these laws passing in the U.S \"all you code does not belong to microsoft\".  The laws are bad, but that statement is still nowhere near truth.

Alright, it is true that Microsoft is not the only patent abuser, yes. And the statement is not precise. However, it does have a point, in that it uses Microsoft as placeholder for the formulation \"Multinational corporations or companies like Acacia who focus on extracting money from patents\". Because that\'s what it is. The big players will and have already make cross licensing agreements with each other, so they won\'t need to bother with paying license fees. Who is left out in the cold is, as usual, the small enterprise and the individual programmer, be it FOSS or closed source / commercial software.

Because while you indeed hold the copyright in your code, making it not belong to Microsoft, this copyright is completely and utterly useless if the idea that the code formulates is patented by someone else.

I obviously misunderstood the point you were criticising, in that I was assuming you were defending the bill in saying that it would do no harm, instead of you simply saying that Microsoft is not the only patent abuser, and that you were referring to the code only. My apologies.
Nevertheless, I regard the statement as reasonably valid considering the effective outcome.

[ramlambmoo]

Alright, it is true that Microsoft is not the only patent abuser, yes. And the statement is not precise. However, it does have a point, in that it uses Microsoft as placeholder for the formulation \"Multinational corporations or companies like Acacia who focus on extracting money from patents\". Because that\'s what it is. The big players will and have already make cross licensing agreements with each other, so they won\'t need to bother with paying license fees. Who is left out in the cold is, as usual, the small enterprise and the individual programmer, be it FOSS or closed source / commercial software.  

Yes, i pretty much agree.  These type of laws need to be struck down else the freedom of the individual and small software companies will be severly restricted.  Especially given the ridiculously broad patents that have been awarded to some companies.   None-the-less, i get irritated when people make sweeping generalisations against the default enemy (microsoft) in these sorts of issues.  

I obviously misunderstood the point you were criticising, in that I was assuming you were defending the bill in saying that it would do no harm, instead of you simply saying that Microsoft is not the only patent abuser, and that you were referring to the code only. My apologies.
Nevertheless, I regard the statement as reasonably valid considering the effective outcome.

Cheers, and keep your sig the way it is for the time being  I doubt the issue will go away anytime soon...

[fken]

just a post to say I was enjoying when I saw this .... law has been rejected !

And really you are creating problem where there isnt : get the facts ( ) parliament refused the laws with an incredible majority, ministers council and the commission said something like as long as the parliament dont declare it needs a new law it wont speak about patent anymore.

So everybody : smile! it\'s a great victory! no need to be pessimistic for now!

the how to smile help of the day:
 : D  ->  

[Induane]

The problem isn\'t that Microsoft and other large companies WOULD, but that they COULD.  Many people in the US don\'t like the patriot act because it allows th Department of Homeland security to break into your house, search it and make it look like a robbery without ever telling you and without a search warrant from a judge.  The fact that they have yet to use this power doesn\'t mean its ok for them to have.  One thing history teaches us is that money and power corrupt.  Eventaully someone will use that power for their own interests.  Same with the software idea patents.  Who cares if what they do with those powers is just specuation.  I don\'t want a monopoly with more power to decide who can make competing products, as that isn\'t in the best interest of the end user.  The idea behind privitization is that competition breeds higher quality products and faster innovation.  With a monopoly companies can look to their own interests instead of me the user.  That is not what I want at all.