[Preston] Meeting on Weds: Virtual Machine Monitors

[Guy Heatley]

Hi Matt!
The software patent meeting took place a couple of weeks ago (the meeting with 
the UK Patent Office not the PLUG meeting). Myself and Jason (aka Tarball) 
went along to check out the scene.

The format of this meeting was this:
We were split into small groups of maybe 5 or 6 and were given a pamphlet of 
of 5 imaginary patents and 4 different definitions of this term "technical 
contribution". The first def was the existing one, the second the FFII's 
version and the last two were randomly chosen from submissions that the UKPO 
had received on the online forms to apply for a place at one of these 
meetings.
We had to decide if each imaginary patent would be patentable under which 
definitions, and fill in a table of definition vs patent claim, to this 
effect.
If you (or anyone else) is interested I can get you a copy of the pamphlet to 
have a look youself.

Here are some facts and figures I gleaned from the meeting:
33 people were present, 30 of them ultimately believed software should not be 
patentable.

Of the three that didn't, none of them were software developers, they were 
barristers / lawyers (2) or managers (1).

One of these pro-patent people apparently had expressed an opinion that a left 
handed gate hinge was a non-obvious invention given an existing patent on a 
right-handed hinge, and therefore should be patentable!

A UKPO official told me that to get a global, legally well defined patent, 
enforceable in all countries that have some sort of patent system would cost 
at least £100 000. 

It's fairly obvious to me that the only winners in the software patent game 
are
a) large corporations, who can afford to pay a full time legal team, and get a 
large portfolio of patents.
b) patent lawyers, but they need to convince the "little men" that patents are 
a good idea because I should imagine that's where they'll make most of their 
money. (Did you ever read "The Sneeches" by Dr Suess?)
As someone on the FFII mailing list pointed out, in the hands of a lawyer the 
phrase "forces of nature" means "blowing in the wind"...

It appears the the original directive from the EU council is being adopted 
irrespective of the fact that a democratically elected EU parliament asked 
for the directive to be re-written.

That's Euro democracy for you. As Jim observed: Them that have the gold make 
the rules.

I should imagine in a couple of years time being a lawyer that specialises in 
software would be a real money spinner of a career! Sign up now, to rip off 
some suckers!

Phooey! If you can do it in software it shouldn't be patentable.
-- 
Guy


On Friday 01 April 2005 13:40, Matthew T. Atkinson wrote:

> 'ello,
>
> On Tue, 2005-03-01 at 00:00 +0000, Guy Heatley wrote:
> > The meeting will also give us the chance to rant about software patents.
> > At least a couple of PLUG members have been invited to attend the meeting
> > organised by the UK Patent Office to clarify what is meant by "technical
> > contribution" in the context of a software patent.
> > Read about it here:
> > http://www.patent.gov.uk/media/pressrelease/2005/0402.htm
>
> I'm just catching up a bit so am sure all the ranting has taken place
> (and so it should!) but haven't seen any replies on this thread and was
> wondering if there is any news.  I heard that the European Council are
> attempting to / have already decided they'll pass the law anyway,
> despite opposition, and wonder if the UK is intending to implement it.
>
> >From the web site above, it looks like they're gearing up to make at
>
> least some changes to our patent system...
>
> BTW, I apologise if this has all been asked and discussed before (A URL
> to the thread would be nice if it has); I have been living under a
> Braille embosser in Loughborough for the past few months (final-year
> project).
>
> bye just now,
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