Re: [Fsfe-uk] Software Patents

[Alex Hudson]

On Thu, 2004-12-16 at 18:29 +0000, John Seago wrote:
> Is there a short set of main points that I can flesh out in response to 
> plea for readers to write published in the January issue of Linux Format.

- The current directive is being heavily lobbied by people in favour of
"pure" software patents, who are a small proportion of businesses but
are very powerful.

- UKPO thinks the directive will protect us from "pure" software patents
by requiring a "technical contribution"

- "Technical contribution" is not being defined by them because they
want the policy to reflect the "status quo": they believe that by
providing guidelines, that might change how it is interpreted currently

- Anti-swpat campaigners believe the current idea of "technical
contribution" is not logically consistent and cannot stand effectively.
Examples of where "technical contribution" were found include the recent
ARM patent decision (see, for example,
http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/current/technical-contribution.html)
which found a technical contribution in using a "pass by reference"
scheme rather than "pass by value" (roughly), since passing by reference
is much quicker.

- On the UK-Parl list at the FFII, I gave an example of how you might
describe the Quicksort algorithm in such a way as to show a technical
contribution (reduction of CPU registers, reduction of memory bandwidth
usage, affinity to modern RAM architectures). This kind of contribution
must not be patentable, to my mind. (I also said quicksort performed on
average in O(log n) time; don't bother to tell me I'm wrong thanks :)

- The FFII have a number of useful tests which a good directive should
meet. One is the "Deutsche Bank test": that programmers at D.B.,
programming financial applications on general-purpose computers, should
never need to interact with the patent system, and nothing they produce
should be patentable matter. 

- The directive looks like it will be back at the EU Parliament very
soon, either because the Council send it back next week or because
Parliament restarts the process. Either way, it is important for people
to start writing to their MEPs (who may be new) immediately.

- If the Directive is sent back, rather than restarted, it will be in
the 2nd reading. *However*, new amendments may still be tabled, so there
is still hope!

HTH,

Alex.