10.14.15

Gemini version available ♊︎

Clare Curran (New Zealand Parliament) Pressures Her Government to Reveal Whether TPP Acts as a Trojan Horse for Software Patents

Posted in Patents at 6:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Clare Curran

Summary: Actions for and against software patents, in New Zealand which is still resisting them and in the US where patent parasites hope to spread these to other countries

SEVERAL days ago we wrote about signs, based on new leaks, that TPP would enforce software patents, forcibly making a huge number of nations receptive to them. It’s a clever, secret way to marginalise resistors and antagonists of an insane patent policy which welcomes trolls and crushes software startups. We mentioned how this related to New Zealand, where such concerns had been raised during late summer (of 2015). We wrote about this extensively at the time.

“Patent lawyers know that the fight against software patents is nowadays gathering steam (UPC and TPP notwithstanding), so they fight back with shameless spin or personal attacks.”A Labour Party politician who is quite progressive (see her activity online) decided to get some answers and issued this press release that we can now see in many places in the New Zealand’s news sites. It’s titled “Govt must clarify if software patents are in TPP” and it says: “New Zealand’s tech sector faces an uncertain future if a hard-fought for exclusion for software patents is missing from the final text of the Trans Pacific Partnership, Labour’s ICT spokesperson Clare Curran said today.

“”Labour and the tech sector fought long and hard to convince the government to accept that software should not be subject to patents as it stifles innovation and creativity in a fast-moving sector which spans many industries.

“”But on the face of it, software has not been named as an exception to patentable inventions. The Government must urgently clarify whether it has stood up for the local industry or sold it down the river.”

Let it be clear that the source of much of this lobbying for software patents is the United States, where SCOTUS recently (by legal scale) ruled against software patents (overruling software patents-friendly courts like CAFC and bypassing corruptible patent lawyers who were at CAFC), causing a shift in examination guidelines at USPTO. It’s about the Alice case that has gotten patent lawyers hopping mad.

The debate about software patents was mentioned in a couple of articles early on Tuesday and again in the afternoon. According to this, the “Federal Circuit Judge S. Jay Plager was driven to abstraction during the latest arguments over the application of ‘Alice.’”

Patent lawyers know that the fight against software patents is nowadays gathering momentum/steam (UPC and TPP notwithstanding), so they fight back with shameless spin or personal attacks. Alluding to something that we mentioned earlier this week in the long post about patent trolls, one vocal proponent of software patents (and a patent lawyer) goes with the clickbait headline “Mark Cuban: “Get rid of all software patents”” (true statement, but a misfit title).

Well, it is nice to hear him saying that again (even if it’s old news), but patent lawyers are furious and they now try to refute Cuban not using facts but rather using personal attacks. They trying to discredit Cuban over it yet again, claiming hypocrisy by associating old action with his more recent stance.

Make no mistake about it. Behind the scenes there are still some powerful actors trying not only to uphold software patents in the US (in defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling) but also to spread them to every country around the world. Action like that of Curran helps expose and thus impede the conspirators (companies like Microsoft and IBM). We commend Curran’s actions (she followed me online) and hope she will get to the bottom of this matter.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day



  2. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day



  3. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day



  4. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023



  5. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)



  6. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day



  7. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day



  8. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day



  9. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023



  10. Gemini Protocol About to Turn 4 and It's Still Growing

    In the month of May we had zero downtime (no updates to the system or outages in the network), which means Lupa did not detect any errors such as timeouts and we’re on top of the list (the page was fixed a day or so after we wrote about it); Gemini continues to grow (chart by Botond) as we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the protocol



  11. Links 31/05/2023: Librem Server v2, curl 8.1.2, and Kali Linux 2023.2 Release

    Links for the day



  12. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Bayes Filter and Programming Wordle

    Links for the day



  13. [Meme] Makes No Sense for EPO (Now Connected to the EU) and Staff Pensions to be Tied to the UK After Brexit

    It seems like EPO staff is starting to have doubts about the safety of EPO pensions after Benoît Battistelli sent money to reckless gambling (EPOTIF) — a plot that’s 100% supported by António Campinos and his enablers in the Council, not to mention the European Union



  14. Working Conditions at EPO Deteriorate and Staff Inquires About Pension Rights

    Work is becoming a lot worse (not even compliant with the law!) and promises are constantly being broken, so staff is starting to chase management for answers and assurances pertaining to finances



  15. Links 30/05/2023: Orc 0.4.34 and Another Rust Crisis

    Links for the day



  16. Links 30/05/2023: Nitrux 2.8.1 and HypoPG 1.4.0

    Links for the day



  17. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Bubble Version 3.0

    Links for the day



  18. Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

    Links for the day



  19. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Curl Still Missing the Point?

    Links for the day



  20. IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 29, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, May 29, 2023



  21. MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson

    Canonical isn’t working for GNU/Linux or for Ubuntu; it’s working for “business partners” (WSL was all along about promoting Windows)



  22. First Speaker in Event for GNU at 40 Called for Resignation/Removal of GNU's Founder

    It’s good that the FSF prepares an event to celebrate GNU’s 40th anniversary, but readers told us that the speakers list is unsavoury, especially the first one (a key participant in the relentless campaign of defamation against the person who started both GNU and the FSF; the "FSFE" isn't even permitted to use that name)



  23. When Jokes Became 'Rude' (or Disingenuously Misinterpreted by the 'Cancel Mob')

    A new and more detailed explanation of what the wordplay around "pleasure card" actually meant



  24. Site Updates and Plans Ahead

    A quick look at or a roundup of what we've been up to, what we plan to publish in the future, what topics we shall focus on very soon, and progress moving to Alpine Linux



  25. Links 29/05/2023: Snap and PipeWire Plans as Vendor Lock-in

    Links for the day



  26. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: GNU/Linux Pains and More

    Links for the day



  27. Links 29/05/2023: Election in Fedora, Unifont 15.0.04

    Links for the day



  28. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.1 and Smolver 1.2.1 Released

    Links for the day



  29. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, May 28, 2023



  30. Daniel Stenberg Knows Almost Nothing About Gemini and He's Likely Just Protecting His Turf (HTTP/S)

    The man behind Curl, Daniel Stenberg, criticises Gemini; but it's not clear if he even bothered trying it (except very briefly) or just read some inaccurate, one-sided blurbs about it


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts