Great News: Software Patents Stopped in India, For Now...

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2015-12-16 22:06:47 UTC
Modified: 2015-12-16 22:06:47 UTC

Indian building

Summary: Activism and advocacy by groups including the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) in India helped stop the software patents lobby in this world-leading software giant (with a population exceeding one billion people)

TECHRIGHTS has been writing about software patents in India for nearly a decade and wrote a lot about the subject this autumn, due to a creeping threat that software patents were rearing their ugly head again.

"This comes to show that no matter how desperate and helpless one feels, it's never too late to take action and achieve something."Thankfully, based on this new article in English (not Hindi/Tamil), the revised guidelines for software patents have been put on hold. This is excellent news and credit goes to "start-ups and software product lobbies like iSpirt and Software Freedom Law Center" (to quote the summary).

This comes to show that no matter how desperate and helpless one feels, it's never too late to take action and achieve something. Let's see if this effort as a whole is put the rest, leaving India with its current (and relatively sane) patent law. Those who lobby for software patents in India are multinationals like IBM and their patent lawyers. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. They want an impoverished India.

"Everyone in India -- not just software developers -- should work hard to avoid and actively prevent patenting of software."Over in the US, patent lawyers 'magically' only notice patent cases when software “may” actually be found valid, for a change. Here is the latest example of this. Who's behind it? CAFC of course, the biggest booster of software patents. To quote The Recorder: "The Federal Circuit's newest member, Judge Kara Stoll, sounded ready to side with the owner of a patent on lip-syncing technology used by animators, suggesting a break, if not a reversal, of the rout."

India (and incidentally also Europe, which is being harmed by Benoît Battistelli's EPO) should learn from the mistakes of the US patent system, e.g. patent trolls infestation. Everyone in India -- not just software developers -- should work hard to avoid and actively prevent patenting of software. India is a software powerhouse whose income and commonwealth depend on liberal development atmosphere; letting companies like Microsoft and IBM amass thousands of software patents in India helps make India digitally dependent on foreign monopolists that India does not need anyway. ⬆

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Great News: Software Patents Stopped in India, For Now...

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