Bonum Certa Men Certa

East Asia is Known for Hardware Innovations, Not Software Innovations, and Software Patents Will Do the Latter No Favours

By granting patents even on abstract concepts such as algorithms, China and Japan (but not Korea, which forbids software patents) leave India all the liberty to develop software without fear of ruinous lawsuits

"The day that the software sector forms a clear front against software patents, as pharma does for a unitary patent system… will be the day our cause comes close to winning."

--Pieter Hintjens, Fosdem07 Interview



Summary: China’s and Japan’s patent systems continue to be liberal on software patents, but this is actually a very bad thing which in no way favours software developers; it actively harms their work

"China’s IP office has released new guidelines that include a reduction in restrictions on software patents. Observers say it is not clear how big an effect it will have in practice," Shaun Tan wrote from Hong Kong for MIP just hours ago. Hours earlier we had noted that China cannot help shooting itself in the foot with this policy. China’s interests are not served but harmed by this. Can they not see it? Who is advising them on these matters? Probably not software engineers but lawyers...



Published over a week ago, on February 21st to be precise, Adriana L. Burgy from Finnegan (Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP) wrote this piece that mentions China’s patent policy. Prosecutors from Finnegan obviously try to maximise the damage caused by patents because to them it means profit. Who cares about coexistence and open cooperation (like sharing of code) anyway?

Here is a portion from Burgy's article:

Excess claim fees are not new and are used in many patent offices worldwide. For example, the European Patent Office varies their claim fees for the 16th to the 50th claim and then, again for the 51st and each subsequent claim; when filing a request for examination, the Japanese Patent Office fee is directly proportional to the number of claims; and the Chinese Patent Office charges for claims in excess of ten. Here in the U.S., the basic filing fee includes three independent claims and a total of twenty claims. Today in our post-grant proceeding world, do we need to rethink the number of claims we use to cover an invention?


Another new article, this one about chemical patents, explains how it works in China. We read that with interest as we are trying to better grasp the differences between patent offices rather than rely on lawyers who have their own selfish agenda and belief (like faith, or religion) that more patents are always more desirable.

Here is IAM, part of the the litigation lobby, moaning that "[f]oreign patent owners face big hurdles when seeking to get damage awards and licence fees out of China". To quote:

One consequence is that for foreign companies that win a court case in China, it has reportedly become very difficult to remit any damages they’re awarded back to headquarters. Normally, Chinese courts collect damage money from defendants and turn it over to the plaintiff’s lawyers. But if the winner is based overseas, its lawyers are going to have a very tough time exchanging the RMB award into a convertible currency. Chinese courts can also give damages directly to plaintiffs – if they are foreign companies, this involves asking currency authorities to convert the judgment into, say, Euros. The problem? “Very few courts are willing to risk gaining a reputation for readily sending money overseas," says one China-based lawyer with first-hand experience of the issue. "Nobody wants to step out of line, and very soon infringers will be aware of that."


So perhaps they should quit wasting time with the SIPO, where patent quality is so low that it will become impossible to distinguish between potent patents and waste of paper.

Japan, based on another new article, still grapples with the situation where employers take credit (and 'ownership') of employees' ideas. Changes effective from the first of April 2016 (i.e. exactly one year before the above-mentioned changes in China) address that conundrum and the article explains the scenario as follows: "The Patent Law prescribed that a right to obtain a patent for an invention, which occurs when the invention is made by the inventor, is inherently vested in the inventor, on the grounds that only a natural person (not an artificial person such as a business entity) is eligible as an inventor."

"That's just happens when lawyers (or liars) use terms like "Intellectual Property", lumping together copyrights, trademarks, patents, and even trade secrets."So basically, there's not much for mere employees, i.e. technical people, to gain from patents. It's the lawyers and managers who seem to have an insatiable appetite for plenty of patents. They think differently. They, especially the management, probably don't even know exactly what patents are and how they work; as for lawyers, they don't comprehend the process of research and development. They never did any of that stuff!

"Can I protect my trademark through a patent?"

That's an actual question from this article. That's just happens when lawyers (or liars) use terms like "Intellectual Property", lumping together copyrights, trademarks, patents, and even trade secrets. As long as politicians are mostly lawyers (not scientists) change and honest debates are merely a distant dream. Patent lawyers are to debates about innovation what oil companies are to debates about climate.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
 
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day
"Six years of Gemini!"
From gemini://geminiprotocol.net
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Summer Updates and Hardware Failures
Links for the day
Links 20/06/2025: Google Shareholder Sues Google and Google Sued for Defamatory Slop ('Hey Hi') Word Salads ('Summaries')
Links for the day
Linux Journal Might Have Become the Latest Slopfarm Targeting "Linux", the Trends Are Concerning for Dying News Sites
They tarnish the Web with junk and then die
On "Learning to Code"
quality may suffer, plus things get bloated
Quick Points Regarding This Week's Court Hearing
it paves the way for us to squash all the SLAPPs from Microsofters
Common Mistake: Believing Social Control Media Will Document Your Writings/Thoughts and Search Engines Like Google Will Help You Find These
Many news sites wrongly assumed that posting directly to Twitter would be acceptable
The Manchester Bees and This Hot Summer
We have had a fantastic week so far this week
Gemini Protocol Enters Its Seventh Year, Growth Has Accelerated!
Maybe in June 20 2026 there will be over 3,500 active capsules?
Mastodon and the Fediverse Have an Issue: Liability for Content (Even in Other Instances) and Costs
self-hosting is the only logical path forward
Why Microsoft and Its 'Hey Hi' (Slop) Frenzy Fail While Sinking in Deep, Growing Debt
Right now, like Twitter around the time it was sold to MElon, "open" "hey hi" is a big pile of debt with a lot to pay for that debt (interest payments)
Europe is Leaving Microsoft, the Press Coverage Isn't Sufficiently Helpful
The news is generally positive, but the press coverage leaves so much to be desired
Slopwatch: Linuxsecurity, BetaNews, and Linux Journal
slippery slope
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 19, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Gemini Protocol Turns 6!
Links for the day