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Tag: Patents

Stop software patents in Europe

Today we face an unprecedented patent bubble of poisonous software and Gladiator business methods patents. Most patents are stockpiled for strategic purposes. These poisonous assets generate no measurable benefits or insignificant licensing revenue for their holders. Large industry is aware of a patent inflation crisis but it seems too hard to march to the beat of a different drum. Soft patents are still land mines for software development and stifle innovators. Under the EU Lisbon treaty a new instrument is set into force, the European Citizens’ Initiative. The EU-Commission is now obliged to present a legislative proposal when a critical…

No Software Patents in Europe

It’s been all over the internet, but because I was heavily complaining about the draft patents bill earlier in my blog, I just wanted to include this victory message here as well: “After years of struggle, the European Parliament finally rejected the software patent directive with 648 of 680 votes: A strong signal against patents on software logic, a sign of lost faith in the European Union and a clear request for the European Patent Office (EPO) to change its policy: the EPO must stop issuing software patents today.” – Free Software Foundation Europe press It is finally over 🙂

No Software Patents

If Haydn had patented “a symphony: characterised by that sound is produced (in extended sonata form)”, Mozart would have been in trouble. Imagine that each time you made a software design decision, and especially whenever you used an algorithm that you read in a journal or implemented a feature that users ask for, you took a risk of being sued. Find more information here sodapdf.com That’s how it is today in the US, because of software patents. Soon it may be the same in most of Europe… Unlike copyright, patents can block independent creations. Software patents can render software copyright…