Showing posts with label epo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label epo. Show all posts

20 July 2013

Software Patents Storming Up the Agenda Again

As regular readers of this column will know, software patents have never really gone away, even though the European Patent Convention forbids them, and the European Parliament explicitly rejected them again in 2005. Fans of intellectual monopolies just keep coming back with new ways of getting around those bans, which means that the battle to stop them crippling the European software industry has to be fought again and again.

On Open Enterprise blog.

31 March 2013

Why the Unitary Patent Will Harm European Innovation

Regular readers of this column will know that I am not overly enamoured of the European Patent Office, since it has effectively introduced software patents by the back door, in direct contravention of the will of the European Parliament. No surprise, then, that the EPO's Annual Report has plenty to worry about. For example, in his foreword, the EPO's President writes:

On Open Enterprise blog.

09 March 2013

European Patent Office Gives Staff Bonus For Issuing Bumper Crop Of Patents: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The European Patent Office (EPO) is a curious body. Despite its name, it is not the patent office for the European Union (EU) in the same way that the USPTO handles patents in the US. As its history page explains

On Techdirt.

13 October 2012

EU Unitary Patent Vote: It's On, Again, Probably

This is getting silly. Over the last year I've been warning about problems with the EU's plan to bring in a Unitary Patent system, culminating in a call to write to your MEPs a few weeks ago about an imminent vote that was taking place in the crucial JURI committee. That didn't take place, but word is that the committee vote will now take place this Thursday:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why ECJ Must be Ultimate Arbiter of the Unitary Patent

As I've noted a couple of times, one of the key issues that has yet to be resolved concerning the proposed EU Unitary Patent system is which court will have the final say. Will it be the European Court of Justice (ECJ), or the main Unitary Patent Court? Or, put another way, will Articles 6 to 8 of the Unitary Patent Regulation to be adopted by the Council and the European Parliament be deleted or not? If they are removed, ultimate power rests with the Unitary Patent Court; if they remain, the ECJ has the last word.

On Open Enterprise blog.

30 June 2012

Stop Software Patents in Europe [Updated]

As I wrote yesterday, one of the most pressing problems the open source community faces in the near future is the Unitary Patent proposal, which is likely to bring in software patents to Europe. Here's the background, and what we can do about it.

On Techdirt.

06 December 2011

Flood of EU Software Patents on the Way?

The idea of bringing in a unitary EU patent system has been rolling around Brussels so long most people have assumed it will never happen. But there is a clear push on at the moment to realise these plans once and for all. That's hinted at in this very low-key press release from yesterday [.pdf]:

On Open Enterprise blog.

28 November 2011

Coming To Plates In Europe: Patented Vegetables, Produced By Conventional Breeding

The European Patent Organization (EPO) is a strange entity. Despite its name, it has nothing to do with the European Union. Instead, it was set up on the basis of the 1973 European Patent Convention to grant patents under that Convention. 

On Techdirt.

Patent Scandal of Laws Made Behind Closed Doors

The ACTA saga has been grinding on for years now, distinguished by a wilful lack of transparency that is a clear sign that you and I are being right royally stitched up. If, like me, you were wondering where we are in the UK with this charade, the Open Rights Group has put together a useful summary:

On Open Enterprise blog.

10 December 2009

Why Does Amazon Want to Be Evil?

I like Amazon's services. Indeed, judging by the amount I spend with the company, I'm probably a suitable case for treatment for Amazon addiction (whatever you do, don't sign up for Amazon Prime, which makes getting stuff *far* too easy).

And yet despite the fact that it offers an incredible service, Amazon seems hell-bent on proving that it is not a cuddly new-style company, but just as rapacious and obsessed with "owning" commonplace ideas as all the bad old ones.

Specifically, it is *still* trying to get a European patent on things that are both obvious and manifestly just business methods, neither of which can be patented in Europe:

The Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has recently heard an appeal against revocation of one of Amazon's "one-click" patents following opposition proceedings. The Board of Appeal found that the decision to revoke the patent should be set aside and that the patent should be returned to the opposition division for further consideration of an alternative set of claims.

Here's that brilliant "invention" that Amazon is so keen to claim as its very own:

The particular patent in issue is concerned with allowing a first individual to send a gift to a second individual when the first individual knows only the second individual's email address but not their postal address.

Wow, you can tell that Jeff Bezos and his crew are geniuses of Newtonian proportions from the fact that they were able to conceive such a stunningly original idea as that.

Undettered by its rejection, Amazon is now trying an even more pathetic track:

The Appeal Board decided that revocation of the patent as granted was correct, but that more limited claims relating to details of technical implementation of the invention should be considered further.

That is, having failed to patent the idea itself, it is now trying to claim that a "computer implementation" of the idea is patentable - as if implementing an obvious, trivial idea in a computer stops it from being obvious and trivial.

*Shame* on you, Amazon.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

11 November 2009

Why SAP is a Sap

There's some interesting turbulence in the blogosphere about the following call from Dr. Vishal Sikka, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SAP:

To ensure the continued role of Java in driving economic growth, we believe it is essential to transition the stewardship of the language and platform into an authentically open body that is not dominated by an individual corporation. Java should be free of any encumbrances to permit fair competition between compatible implementations for the benefit of customers. By preserving the integrity of Java, the IT industry can ensure a vibrant developer community and continued innovation for enterprise software customers. This ensures the continued global economic success brought about through open innovation.


Matt Asay rightly calls him out on this:

Irony, thy name is SAP.

SAP, after all, is hardly the most open-source or open-process friendly company on the planet. Despite early involvement in Eclipse, some interaction with MySQL (MaxDB), and a new commitment to the Apache Software Foundation, SAP remains a firmly proprietary company.

Even Microsoft, which arguably has the most to lose from open source, has consistently and continually experimented with greater open-source involvement.

SAP? Not so much. In large part, SAP hasn't been forced to embrace open source because it hasn't been threatened by it. ERP (enterprise resource planning) is such a complex beast that it has remained largely impervious to open source (with the exception of open-source start-ups like Compiere and Openbravo, to which I'm an adviser).

Now, Dirk Riehle is stepping into the fray:

I don’t think that this is a fair critique. SAP has always provided the source code of its main business applications suite to user-customers as part of a commercial license, and users have always customized SAP’s business suite to their heart’s content. In fact, it is the only way to make it work for their needs.

That may well be the case, but I think it's irrelevant.

The real reason SAP's call is hypocritical is this document [.pdf], essentially a love-letter to software patents, submitted as an amicus curiae brief to the European Patent Office. Software patents are simply incompatible with free software, because they are government-granted monopolies designed to *stop* people sharing stuff. They also prevent hackers from writing new code because they represent an ever-present digital sword of Damocles hanging over them.

SAP simply cannot claim to be a true friend of openness while it also supports software patents in any jurisdiction, in any form - the same applies to other companies, too, I should note. They can share as much code as they like, but until they repudiate software patents - for example, by placing their patent portfolios in the public domain - that's little more than window-dressing.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

09 June 2009

A Different Point of View on Software Patents

One of the fears that I and others have voiced is that the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) - an attempt to set up a unified European judicial system for patent litigation - might be an attempt to get software patents in through back door. Often, though, these concerns are dismissed by supporters of software patents as unwarranted. But here's someone who disagrees:


The industry-based driving force behind the EPLA comes from the pro-software patent group as a way of ensuring that their software or potential software patents are fully enforceable across Europe. The EPO is fully supportive of the EPLA, and some national governments and patent registries have voiced their support.

More whining from the anti-software patent lot? Well, not actually. These words were written by Alison Crofts, who:

provides specialist IP advice and expertise in both litigation and commercial matters. This includes advising on: the creation, protection and exploitation of IP rights, including trade secrets, confidentiality issues, technology transfer agreements and licensing; the enforcement and defence of IP rights, including the conduct of litigation and arbitration proceedings; and IP aspects of joint ventures, co-ownership and transactions. Alison has an engineering background and has particular experience in the semiconductor, oil and gas, hi-tech and telecoms engineering industries.

In other words, she's likely to be for rather than against software patents. Don't say we didn't tell you.... (Via FFII.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

04 June 2009

Knuth: Every Algorithm is Sacred

One of my computer heroes, Donald Knuth, has sent a message to the head of the EPO, hoping to convince her that every algorithm is sacred, and should not be delivered up to become the personal, exclusive, proprietary possession of any one person or company:

Basically I remain convinced that the patent policy most fair and most suitable for the world will regard mathematical ideas (such as algorithms) to be not subject to proprietary patent rights. For example, it would be terrible if somebody were to have a patent on an integer, like say 1009, so that nobody would be able to use that number "with further technical effect" without paying for a license. Although many software patents have unfortunately already been granted in the past, I hope that this practice will not continue in future. If Europe leads the way in this, I expect many Americans would want to emigrate so that they could continue to innovate in peace!

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

11 May 2009

Patent Differences: Canonical vs. Microsoft

I make no apologies for returning to the subject of the European Patent Office's referral of a “point of law” concerning software patents. Dull as many might find the intricate theoretical arguments, the outcome will have very real consequences. If software patents become easier to obtain, it will have a hugely negative effect on free software, which will find itself subject to more attacks on the legal front....

On Open Enterprise blog.

06 May 2009

EPO: FSFE Does It by the Numbers

Yesterday I was praising Red Hat's submission to the EPO in its pondering of the patentability of software. Today, it's the FSFE's turn. They've produced a fairly short but sweet document, which has a sentiment close to my heart:

4.(a) Does the activity of programming a computer necessarily involve technical considerations?

No. The reverse is almost invariably true. Any software program is the result of programming, which is in essence combining a series of algorithms, and algorithms are matematics.

Got it in one.

05 May 2009

Red Hat Makes its Position Patent

Six months ago I noted that the European Patent Office had embarked upon a fairly abstruse process....

On Open Enterprise blog.

24 March 2009

Patently, There's Something in the Air

Yesterday I was writing about the latest moves in the TomTom saga, and its involvement with the Open Invention Network patent commons. But beyond that specific case, patents – particularly software patents – really seem to be in the air at the moment....

On Open Enterprise blog.

27 October 2008

The EPO's Reductio ad Absurdum

I've written a lot about the danger that software patents pose to open source. The problem is that intellectual monopolies like patents are fundamentally incompatible with the idea of unfettered exchange of ideas, and the possibility that software patents might be strengthened within the European Union is a serious concern....

On Open Enterprise blog.

15 September 2008

Why Patents Are Broken, Part 4783678

The European Patent Office (EPO) is warning of "Global Patent Warming" in light of the growing number of patent applications it is receiving. At the AIPPI (Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle) Congress that closed today in Boston, EPO head Alison Brimelow said that the increasing number of patent applications is currently the biggest problem that patent offices face and is slowing down the issue of patents.

..


An EPO spokesperson told heise online that the increasing number of patent applications does not mean that the world is coming up with more innovations. Rather, inventors and companies that already hold patents in one country are lining up at many other national patent offices to get patents for other markets.

In other words, more patents that are even more worthless.

28 July 2008

EPO Wins Patent for Jesuitical Casuistry

Wow, there are some clever bunnies up at the EPO these days. Try this for size:


Relying on a well-known and widely used definition, a computer-implemented invention is an invention whose implementation involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus, the invention having one or more features which are realised wholly or partly by means of a computer program. The term software, on the other hand, is ambiguous. It is generally understood as the implementation of an algorithm in source or object code, but without distinguishing between technical and non-technical processes.

As with all inventions, computer-implemented inventions are patentable only if they have technical character, i.e. solve a technical problem, are new and involve an inventive technical contribution to the prior art.

Right, so let's just go through that.

As the EPO says, software does not distinguish "between technical and non-technical processes". The reason it doesn't distinguish is because it is a completely factitious distinction: it doesn't exist. Software is just a bunch of algorithms working on data, outputting data; it doesn't solve "technical" problems, it solve mathematical ones. Software is mathematics.

But that's a bit of issue for the EPO, because that would mean that it could never, ever give patents for anything even vaguely software-ish. To get round this, it invents a mystical essence called "a computer-implemented invention", which is basically hardware plus software, with the magical property that the addition of the hardware makes the software patentable, even though the software is still inputting data, applying a few mathematical algorithms, and then outputting data. But to do this, the EPO has to dismiss that embarrassing concept known as "software" as "ambiguous" - by which it means "awkward for the purposes of its arguments".

You can tell that the EPO is not really convinced by its own logic here, since it goes to make the following emotional appeal:

Try to imagine a world without mobile telephones, refrigerators and washing machines, DVD players, medical imaging (X-ray, NMR), anti-lock braking systems (ABS) for cars, aircraft navigation systems, etc., etc.

We take many of the above items for granted in our everyday lives. Still, we realise that they contain highly complicated components. And, indeed, they all make use of computer-implemented inventions, frequently implemented by software. Nowadays such inventions can be found in all fields of technology, and in many cases the innovative part of a new product or process will lie in a computer program. Our lives have been immeasurably changed by these inventions and the benefit to individuals and society is enormous.

Think for a moment how much effort and investment has been put into the development and commercialisation of these products. Then ask yourself if the innovators would really have made that effort if they had not expected to benefit economically. Finally, ask yourself if these same innovators would have invested all the money and resources required to develop new or better products without the possibility of patent protection. The reality is that many important innovations have reached the market place with the help of the patent system.

Now, of course, what's really interesting about this argument is that it's been used before:

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it got paid?

...

One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?

Bill Gates wrote that in 1976, never dreaming something like free software could not only exist, but thrive to the point of underming his own company. And so it is with all these wonderful inventions.

Today, more and more companies are routinely making available precisely this kind of system and embedded software as open source; patents are completely unnecessary to encourage this kind of innovation, and the EPO's argument here, as elsewhere, is specious. Indeed, it is downright wrong-headed: it is becoming clear that the best way to promote innovation and provide benefits to society is to make information freely available so that others can extend your work unhindered.

And so the argument for "computer-implemented inventions" fails both at a theoretical and at a practical level: such patents are worse than unnecessary, they are impediments to innovation and progress (as, most probably, are *all* patents.)

But I have to say, the EPO would have made fine Jesuits.