On Tue, 2008-01-08 at 12:17 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 12:07:41PM +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
On Tue, 2008-01-08 at 12:02 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
Now it makes sense. Still: => recognising validity of Microsoft's software patents. => foot, meet bullet
You would prefer they pretend those patents weren't issued?
No, they should demand EPO to ungrant them.
Honestly, I think that would be completely pointless politicking for absolutely no gain. There are some battles not worth fighting, and attempting to bust a few patents down in a negotiation process for much more important information is one of them.
Let's imagine that by some chance the EC agreed that the patents should be invalidated, and bypassed the usual legal process for whatever bizarre and dangerous reason. What good does that do us? It doesn't invalidate all the other software patents that have been granted in Europe. The EC isn't going to set any kind of precedent in patents with some anti-trust agreement. No-one is going to be able to defend themselves by pointing to that decision and saying, "Look, patents on software must be invalid!". There would be no benefits outside those few patents being busted.
And it wouldn't benefit Samba either - they're still not in the position where they can make use of the patented process, because it's still going to be patented in the US and other places.
Software patents aren't going to be defeated one-by-one by knocking them out some way; the legal situation needs clarity so that the patents are recognisably unenforcable. Right now that arguably isn't the case.
Cheers,
Alex.