On 9 Dec 2002 at 20:49, Arnoud Galactus Engelfriet wrote:
You are correct. But I think it is wrong to say the EPO is acting illegally, since they are within the boundaries of the EPC to do what they do. Acting against the spirit of a treaty is not illegal.
For some reason, the legal profession has always eschewed integration of ethics, quite probably because half their work in side-stepping the intent of laws would evaporate. However, in my opinion all law should be subject not to its letter, but to its spirit and if we could change that, the world would be a much better place for it.
You should go to the legislature to get a bad law changed. A court can only uphold the law, and it is wrong for a court to go against the law even if the law is wrong.
Under continental law yes. Under English law, magna carta although almost gone still theoretically permits a jury to find not guilty if they a think a law morally or ethically wrong.
"Early in 2003, Software Patents are likely to become enforced within the EU, despite being banned since 1973 and those issuing from the mid-1980s being of dubiious enforceability."
There is no EU patent law right now, and I thought that in this sentence you suggested there was. Maybe you should make the distinction more clear. The interpretation of the law as devised by the BoA of the EPO is now being forced upon the EU member states, even though the BoA is no law-making institute. Furthermore, not all EU member states are EPC contracting states. How's that for democracy?
Ehm, so you were not wrong is what I wanted to say. :) It's just a very common mistake to make. So please take the above quote from me as a tip, not a correction. :-)
Regarding this, I've changed the opening paragraph in my article to read:
Early in 2003, Software Patents are likely to become enforced within the EU, despite computer software being specifically exempted since 1973 and repeated revisions of the guidelines since reinforcing this notion - unfortunately, the proposed reforms will introduce legal loopholes big enough to permit effective work-arounds.
How's this? Is it accurate?
I think however that most large companies take the view that software is nothing special. Why is an MPEG patent valid against a decoder board in a DVD player, but not against a software player which does exactly the same thing? And what if I put that software player on a flash ROM on that decoder board? And that's actually also the reason why you will not get much public support from large companies. If "software patents" become invalid, then it becomes much easier to rip off real inventions simply by doing parts in software.
I still don't understand why there ever was a concept of "MPEG patent". Sure, a "MPEG implementation patent" but not of MPEG itself - which, as I've discussed in here at length, is a set of algorithms and therefore should be totally free in order to encourage competition to produce the best implementation.
I appreciate all that EuroLinux and the FFII have done, but could it not be argued a better approach is to say why the hell was this stupidity with hardware allowed in the first place? I can't see MPEG patents benefiting society at all eg; MPEG2 players for Linux and even MPEG2 players for Windows.
We're about to run into the same problems with MPEG4 now it's been charged for. It seems to me a very stupid idea which discourages interoperability and improvements in technology. In other words, it's anti-quality and anti-usefulness.
Most software patents, though are not such a cash cow.
Most patents in general are not cash cows.
Except for IBM, the pharmaceutical companies and a few others.
Cheers, Niall