Software patents
Posted on 2008-09-27 17:20:54 EEST.
This writing is the second one in the series based on the course of sw-legistlation that I'm taking at school.
After copyrights the most natural path to continue exploring the wonders of legistlation is naturally patents. Patents tend to raise opinions since it has been proven that most cases patents in software fields are just not working as intended.
Most of the problems come from USA and the threat that similar conventions are applied someday in EU. It seems that patents are applied just in case for almost everything. When this is combined to the fact that the financing of the patent agency is based on the amount of patents they approve we'll have some interesting problems. Also the personnel that make the decisions are not often qualified to the field that the patent addresses.
What is the result then. In the US only the best patents are taken to the court. And about 70% of the patents are nullified there. What is the big picture then? It has been said that about 10% of the patents are truly valid.
What is the difference between the Europe and US? Well in Europe patent is given "first to file" basis and in the US it is "first to invent". You can tell what that means.
I personally consider patents as an arsenal of business cold war. Companies have plenty of patents for a fear factor. This leads to interesting cross licensing but also in the telecommunication field patents are used to regulate margets so that new and smaller players have trouble getting in. For example about every mobile communication standard has been patented.
Patents are controversial and seem to be a big mess. It remains to be seen how big mess it will become after EU decides to make some wise decisions.
After copyrights the most natural path to continue exploring the wonders of legistlation is naturally patents. Patents tend to raise opinions since it has been proven that most cases patents in software fields are just not working as intended.
Most of the problems come from USA and the threat that similar conventions are applied someday in EU. It seems that patents are applied just in case for almost everything. When this is combined to the fact that the financing of the patent agency is based on the amount of patents they approve we'll have some interesting problems. Also the personnel that make the decisions are not often qualified to the field that the patent addresses.
What is the result then. In the US only the best patents are taken to the court. And about 70% of the patents are nullified there. What is the big picture then? It has been said that about 10% of the patents are truly valid.
What is the difference between the Europe and US? Well in Europe patent is given "first to file" basis and in the US it is "first to invent". You can tell what that means.
I personally consider patents as an arsenal of business cold war. Companies have plenty of patents for a fear factor. This leads to interesting cross licensing but also in the telecommunication field patents are used to regulate margets so that new and smaller players have trouble getting in. For example about every mobile communication standard has been patented.
Patents are controversial and seem to be a big mess. It remains to be seen how big mess it will become after EU decides to make some wise decisions.