Letter to Israeli Patent Office, from Hamakor
In response to the Israeli Patent Office’s consultation about software patents, free software group Hamakor has submitted a brief (that linked page contains many other good links). Great work Hamakor!
Page orientation patents, the USPTO, and you
When people or computers at the USPTO detect that a fax has been sent upsidedown and needs to be turned 180°, what do they do? They send it back and ask you to turn it 180°. Why don’t they do this obvious task themselves automatically?
Australia: time for action
Australia seems to be headed for software patent legislation in 2010. The bad news is that there was a consultation, and we missed it. The good news is that the consultation was just a preliminary step, so if we start organising now, we can still participate fully in the legislative phase. Other good news is that when I discussed software patents with people in Australia six months ago, there was plenty of interest.
ESP launching public mailing lists
To work on the current consultation in Israel, we’ve launched a public mailing list. There’s one for Australia too since there’ll be work to do there very soon, and some others are being set up. Why public?
Israel: one month to end software patents
I need help contacting groups in Israel. With a February deadline, the Israeli patent office is asking if it should grant software patents. To help, join this mailing list: israel-public-discuss@endsoftwarepatents.org. As usual, the small businesses, individual programmers, and software user groups don’t seem to have noticed this consultation. This is common in public consultations – but you can bet the lawyers groups and the multinationals are aware and working on their submissions. So I need help with informing people in Israel now so they have some time to get prepare submissions. More info below.
Summarising the problem
I was recently asked to give an introduction to our perspective on software patents. Below is a quickly edited copy of what I sent. The purpose was to help someone prepare for a meeting, so these are starting points, not an overall summary.
Analogy: roadblocks and toll booths
Analogies are useful for explaining the issue to people who don’t have the same background. There’s no single best analogy, so it’s useful to have a few to choose from when the need arises.
Consultation responses in Australia
There were 38 responses to the consultation in Australia about patentable subject matter. I’ve quickly analysed them all and below are my initial comments. There 400+ pages of writing, so I only skimmed them and I’ve surely made mistakes. There’s a copy of this analysis on the wiki at: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Australian_consultation_responses_2009 – please add notes there to correct my analysis or to add your own.
Read the rest of this entry »
Australia: change coming, opportunities already missed
The Australian Government’s Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) is performing a review of patentable subject matter. There was a public consultation, but it closed on November 13th. It seems a legislative proposal is being prepared for 2010.
Read the rest of this entry »
Bilski: the next steps
There are two phases left. There’s a phase of maybe four or five months until the ruling, and there’s a longer post-ruling phase where we may get legislative proposals or a second Supreme Court case. This is the first time in 28 years where the USA could rid itself of software development’s biggest problem, so let’s look at what we have to do over the coming months.
Read the rest of this entry »
Education and software patents
I recently found a paper published in 2004 by European Schoolnet: Software Patents – A Potential Hindrance of
ICT in Education. This if the first paper I’ve found on this topic and I find it well written, so I’ve summarised it below.
Three rulings based on Bilski
Another US district court has made a ruling based on Bilski – rejecting three patents, although giving ambiguous comments about one of them. Together with two previous rulings based on Bilski, we can look at how it might be used, and what are its shortcomings.
Read the rest of this entry »
Israel in danger of software patents
(Bilski coverage will continue tomorrow)
The Israeli Patent Office (IPO) has launched a consultation on whether or not to allow software patents, with a February 2010 deadline. I’ve put the details at the end of this post, but first some background.
Read the rest of this entry »
Bilski’s hearing and software patents
At Monday’s hearing (court transcript), neither party had the objective of abolishing software patents. The Bilski case is about a business method patent, so there was Mr. Jakes arguing that business methods should be patentable, and Mr. Stewart arguing that they shouldn’t. For software to be excluded, we’re relying on the judges (to whom we wrote an amicus brief, as did many others). There’re a few worrying statements, but there’s also a lot of hope.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Bilski hearing transcript, as text
The US Supreme Court has very promptly posted a transcript of today’s oral hearing of the Bilski case (as pdf). I’ve made a HTML version, posted in this story. (See also ESP’s analysis)
Read the rest of this entry »
Bilski hearing initial reports
Reports are starting to appear from today’s hearing of the Bilski case at the US Supreme Court. I’ll keep updating as they appear.
The court transcript is now online: 08-964.pdf (and we have a text version).
- In Re Bilski – Transcript of Today’s Oral Argument at the US Supreme Court – Groklaw
- Supreme Court Hears Bilski v. Kappos – Patently-O
- Bilski patent decision: trying to return patents to their technological origins – praxagora.com
- Bilski Arguments Complete at the US Supreme Court – IP Watchdog
- Analysis: The “Lorenzo Jones” case emerges – Scotus blog
- “On the Scene” Reports and Blogs from SCOTUS Bilski Arguments – The 271 Patent Blog
- Justices Skeptical in Patent Case on Business Methods – Wall Street Journal
- Justices Question Patent for Abstract Business Innovations – New York Times
Gearing up for Monday’s Bilski case
With the Bilski hearing set for Monday, articles and web pages have started stringing up, so I’m collecting them here. Items from ESP, SFLC, Red Hat…
Read the rest of this entry »
Patently-O ESP editorial: Abandoning software patents?
Patently-O was kind enough to publish an editorial by ESP:
As well as the hundred comments at the bottom of the article, don’t miss the further comments on comments page 2, and more on comments page 3. The article raised quite a stir.
FSF files brief in Bilski case calling on the Supreme Court to eliminate software patents
(See the brief; independent translations of this announcement: Spanish)
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Friday, October 2, 2009 — The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today submitted an amicus curiae brief calling on the Supreme Court to affirm that software ideas are not patentable. After outlining the positive impact that the free software movement and the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) have had on computer use, the brief explains how software patents are an obstacle and a danger to software developers.
Read the rest of this entry »
ESP launches en.swpat.org: A Wiki for Anti-Software Patent Campaigns
Monday, May 4th, 2009 — End Software Patents today launched en.swpat.org, a wiki to document the case against software patents. Over 100 articles have already been started to give an idea of the scope and structure of the wiki.
Read the rest of this entry »