Photo by Mara
EVERY ONCE in a while we highlight developments that impact patent policy. In this roundup, Microsoft is involved too (it typically uses front groups to hide its role) and Free software is directly impacted.
Open Standards under siege in the European Union
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Nevertheless, openness still seems to be considered a dirty word in a number of official corridors of Brussels that are probably under the well-organized lobbying efforts of the Microsoft empire (according to some malicious rumours difficult to believe the campaign is being promoted by “revolving door” European Commission officials who returned to public service after a number of years of “leave” on the Microsoft payroll). According to many observers this US IT giant is trying to counter-attack after taking heavy blows and fines precisely from the new Digital Commissioner Nelly Kroes who previously held the post of the EU’s competition czar.
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If this EU programme was put into practice a number of major IT companies would have a harder time at locking out new innovative competitors and millions of internet users would have a much easier time at communicating without technical barriers. EU citizens would for the first time be able to participate in European democratic institutions without being forced to purchase one particular closed brand of software in order to exchange information with their elected representatives. The final “EU Digital Agenda” will be presented at the end of April and the latest news is that the openness agenda is losing the battle within the European Commission while a few narrow business interests are taking the upper hand. If it were published today the term “open standards” would be totally erased from the whole document. In this important fight the positions of the general public interest have hardly been taken into account. Voices in favour of open standards and interoperability urgently need to be heard in Brussels.
New Zealand Open Source Society is seeking powerful interests for pressurizing the government to turn around its plans of excluding software from patent protection reforms in the country.
Posting his views on NZOSS website, yesterday, Vice President Peter Harrison appreciated the Commerce Select Committee's advice of exclusion of software from patent protection, thereby countering the views of the critics.
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He pointed out the criticism made by Ken Moon of intellectual property specialist AJ Park, arguing that the requirements for resourcefulness in the functionality of patent law are the same as for any other innovation.
Patents: The explosion of software patents is one of the biggest threats to innovation in the software industry, and Justice Stevens saw this threat coming almost three decades ago. Stevens wrote the majority decision in the 1978 case of Parker v. Flook, which clearly disallowed patents in the software industry. Three years later, Stevens dissented in the 1981 case of Diamond v. Diehr, which allowed a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing machine. Although the majority decision didn’t explicitly permit patents on software, Stevens warned that the majority’s muddled decision would effectively open the door to software patents. And he has been proven right. In the three decades that followed, the patent-friendly U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has effectively dismantled limits on software patents. And the result has been a disaster, with high-tech firms being forced to spend large sums on litigation rather than innovation.
I met with Charles Silver, the CEO of Algebraix Data, a startup based in San Diego. He was telling me about his company’s approach to querying large databases, very quickly, and with no need for prior indexing, or construction of data models.
It all sounded too good to be true, I told him.
If Algebraix can do what it says it can, it is a very hot startup.
Here are some notes from our conversation:
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- We have four patents on the technology. Getting software patents is not as easy as it once used to be.
