The group of activists, Stop Software Patents, claims
the support of 80 companies, associations and developers, though
its list of supporters lacks any of the software world's major
companies.
On 24 September the group will launch its petition calling for a
worldwide halt to software patents, which it claims damage the
interests of businesses and consumers.
"Software patent regimes do not benefit the economy," the
group's draft petition says. "Insufficient economic evidence
supports an application of the patent system on software. On the
contrary, most studies hint that software patent regimes restrain
innovation."
The group claims that patent applications for software are
written too broadly and generically. As such they are not of use to
others hoping to emulate the invention – one of the purposes of
patents – and allow a patent owner to claim rights over other
people's inventions.
"Patents are broad shotgun rights, as opposed to precision
rights such as software copyright," says the petition. "Broad,
intricate and clumsy rights are damaging for the market but more
valuable for their holders. 'Inventors' phrase their applications
very broadly and negotiate with the patent office over breadth of
the grant."
The activists' petition outlines some of the problems that they
believe software businesses face because of patent law.
"Infringement is difficult to research as patent databases,
software and patents are complex. You can easily violate hundreds
of patents you are unaware of," it says. "Only courts can decide if
you infringe a patent."
"Patent attorneys can do unreliable research for you. You take
all risks and costs. You are forced to bow in to cease and desist
letters about questionable patents or settle out of court as
litigation is too expensive and takes ages. As a small player you
can either pull or cut your software or take a license if
available," it says.
Software patents are allowed in the US, where activists claim
broad claims have been permitted in a manner which makes software
development difficult. They also claim that patents are often
awarded for technology which was invented by others in the
past.
In Europe the European Patent Convention is interpreted
differently in different countries. The European Patent Office is
more likely than the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) to
award patents to software inventors.
UK legislation says that it is not possible to patent a computer
program 'as such', meaning something which is only a computer
program cannot be awarded a patent.
The Stop Software Patents Day celebrates amendments made to a
European Commission by the European Parliament on 24 September
2003. The Commission had sought to harmonise Europe's patent rules,
but the Parliament amended the plan to specify that patents would
not be awarded for "actual software".
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