Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Maximalism Around the World

"It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is not like ordinary property at all, but constitutes a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not neccesary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty." --Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine

Summary: A roundup of stories or spin observed over the past week, mostly favouring those who profit from patents rather than creation of anything

"Patentism" can be a lot like theism. It can be the blind faith in the ludicrous idea that patents in their own right -- not anything else -- are "innovation" or something along those lines. In reality, patents may grant incentives for original works to made where investment (time, money, material) is needed for these works. In the case of software, copyrights provide such an incentive. When someone writes code, unless it is marked as "Public Domain", that code is attributed to or gets assigned to the author (coder).



India



"When someone writes code, unless it is marked as "Public Domain", that code is attributed to or gets assigned to the author (coder)."It's not hard to see why the patent 'industry' distorts the history and purpose of patents. These people just try to defend their own job, which involves no production or innovation at all. A few days ago, revisiting the debate about abstract patents in India, LexOrbis was once again pushing banned patents (out of scope). It's far from the first time and LexOrbis typically uses IAM as the platform. It's trying to advocate/legitimise patents on "financial methods" (similar to business methods, which are similar also to software patents) and it doesn't seem to matter to these people that India neither wants nor needs such patents.

China



"It's trying to advocate/legitimise patents on "financial methods" (similar to business methods, which are similar also to software patents) and it doesn't seem to matter to these people that India neither wants nor needs such patents."Speaking of IAM, watch how it becomes a megaphone to Qualcomm, repeating the "China!" panic and alarming the US as if patent trolls moving to China is a bad thing. "The Qualcomm licensing chief predicted that China would be a huge player in 5G technology at a time when the country is developing an increasingly sophisticated IP system," IAM wrote. China probably will become a major player in everything that involves electronics and telecommunications, but that has nothing to do with patents. As Qualcomm does little but derive money from patent licences (including software patents), it is not hard to see why it worries about trends in US patent litigation.

Australia



Australia, as we noted earlier this year, is moving away from software patents. It seems crystal clear to the government that patent maximalism is not desirable, yet this same government seems to have allocated so much tax money to CSIRO, which is, according to IAM, suing again:

Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed two months ago by BASF Plant Science points toward another IP licensing initiative in a very different sector that CSIRO and its partners have been pursuing for several years. The organisation is working with Australian company Nuseed and the Australian Grains Research and Development Corporation to commercialise canola that contains long chain, omega-3 fatty acids – health-friendly fish oil. BASF has teamed with Dow AgroSciences and Cargill on a similar effort.

Beginning in October 2016, according to court documents accessed using Lex Machina, Nuseed has conducted negotiations with BASF, which it wants to take a licence to a portfolio omega-3 patents; these name CSIRO as the assignee. According to BASF, Nuseed has been clear about its intention to litigate if a deal could not be reached. By April 2017, talks appear to have reached an impasse. “With the numbers you’re talking about, there is no path forward,” a Nuseed representative is quoted as saying. BASF seemingly agreed, suggesting the parties “should be in court” if Nuseed was unwilling to revise its offer.


Lex Machina has helped uncover all sorts of disputes like that. What's most noteworthy and also notorious about CSIRO is the pursuit of patents on genome (and enforcement of such patents).

America (US/Canada)



This days-old press release speaks of the decision "in which a unanimous High Court invalidated software patents of Alice designed to facilitate the exchange of financial obligations between two parties by using a computer system as a third-party intermediary."

Based on this press release, it certainly looks like Canada is granting software patents. These are, suffice to say, unlikely to survive a court's scrutiny, so why grant them in the first place? There's this actual court case going on right now where the portfolio at stake sounds like software patents, with terms like "recipe app platform". To quote:

The ongoing court battle between Perfect Company and the maker of the Drop scale took another turn this week when Perfect announced a new patent and an additional patent infringement claim again Adaptics Limited, the maker of the Drop scale.


Perhaps they throw yet more patents into the mix because the original patent/s they sued with would not withstand the court's scrutiny. Such is the nature of desperate lawsuits where quantity is used to make up for lack of quality.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Where We Stand With the Winter Series
We'll need to protect names and sources
Gemini Links 10/02/2026: "The Last Messiah", Discord for Adults
Links for the day
Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part V - Strongest Strike Under António Campinos
SUEPO Munich is also reminding people of the threat of PIPs
GNU/Linux May Have Grown to 7% in Equatorial Guinea
Has there been some kind of mass migration there or is this just noise in the data?
 
In Finland, Microsoft Falls Behind Yandex (Russia)
Bing has had many layoffs in recent years
Security More Advanced in Geminispace Than on the Web (Bloat)
For real security, use Geminispace capsules, not Web sites
Slop at Microsoft is a Miserable Failure, Now Microsoft Takes the "Vista Route" (Paying People to Say Good Things About It)
This is brainwash, it's meant to delay the implosion of the bubble
Rumours About February 2026 Microsoft Layoffs: Silent Layoffs or 30,000 Culled Tomorrow
Sooner or later (and soon) Microsoft will need to say something and file some WARN notifications
GNU/Linux at 12% in Guam, Based on statCounter (Compared to 2-3% a Year Ago)
Guam's "uptick" in GNU/Linux usage started weeks after "end of 10"
Fighting Slop With the Public Domain (and Why Slopfarms Perish Faster Than New Ones Appear)
We can combat the nonsense by producing more human-made works until the slop bubble implodes
After Employee Reviews at IBM Staff Expects Another Large Wave of PIPs and "RAs" (Layoffs)
From what we can see in the "public Web"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 09, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, February 09, 2026
Is Europe Abandoning Digital Opium?
GAFAM-controlled social control media
Microslop is Slop, Slop is Considered "Quality"
no wonder Microsoft's stuff breaks down so often
thelayoff.com Deletes On-Topic Discussions (Layoffs) While Leaving in Tact Pro-Corporate Trolling Made by LLMs (Slop)
Who at thelayoff.com deems spam made by LLMs (slop) to be on-topic and unworthy of zapping, whereas actually on-topic and authentic threads get routinely deleted?
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part IV - Machos in Charge of the House (and System), Even If the Faces Are Female (Optics)
basically a Windows/Microsoft (US) shop
Gemini Links 09/02/2026: Great Salt Lake Ecological Observatory and Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2026: Mass Plagiarism and Pollution/FakeCoin Company Nvidia Contacted Anna’s Archives, Narges Mohammadi Gets Second Prison Sentence
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2026: Russia Intentionally Killing Civilians, Jimmy Lai Effectively Sentenced for Life for Publishing News
Links for the day
Microsoft Competitions, Addictions, and Popularity Contests Are Not Going to Help Perl, They'll Waste Everybody's Time and Give Microsoft More Control Over Its Competition
Microsoft does not like Perl
A Can of WORMS - Part IV - They Would Even Attack RMS for Criticising Autocrats (Saying This is "Politics")
Conforming to society's perceived expectations isn't how effective activism can ever be done or was ever done in the recent past
Gemini Links 09/02/2026: The Exploration Myth and Making JavaScript Fun
Links for the day
EPO Outrage and Maintaining the Pressure
A vending machine does not fall over after a first push
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 08, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, February 08, 2026
"Low Performer" and "Underperformer" as Harmful Misnomers That Damage a Company's Reputation
Misnomers need to be avoided or called out
Expensive errors: Forbes Gold price, $44 billion Bitcoin given away by Bithumb, South Korea
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 08/02/2026: Microsoft OSI (Openwashing Lobby) in Europe, Raised Against Social Control Media Provocateurs in EU
Links for the day
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbies for Microsoft in the EU, Promoting Proprietary Lock-in
OSI pushing and selling Microsoft and GitHub. OSI is Microsoft front group.
Getting the European Court of Justice to Annul the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Kangaroo Court (UPC)
We're still working on it
Finland's Dependence on GAFAM (US) Needs to be Lessened, EU Must Follow This Path
It's unwise to make one's entire national infrastructure (computer systems) dependent on a regime which compares its black citizens to monkeys and assassinates nonviolent dissenters
Links 08/02/2026: Microsoft GitHub as Burden on Developers and "The Chomsky Epstein Files"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2026: "Doing Not Much Tweaking" and "Reclaiming Digital Agency"
Links for the day
Forbes: BitCoin, Cryptocurrency pages removed from investment database, links stop working
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin warning followed immediately by network outage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Money Funneled to Protection of Software Freedom, But Nothing Really Lost
Crossposted from personal site
They Tell Us Slop Replaces Workers, But the Reality Is, US Debt Has Surged 2,300 Billion Dollars in Six Months (the Economy is Collapsing)
Oligarchy already entertains the option of running away to (or colonising) some other planet without pitchforks and "unwashed masses"
Mozilla Firefox Sinks to Just 1.5% in the United States
According to analytics.usa.gov
We're Still Fast
The site is even faster than the BBC's despite being on shoestring budget with only a small technical team
Gemini Protocol is Not a Waste of Time of Effort
We see more and more GNU/Linux- or BSD-focused bloggers turning to Gemini
Our Gemini Protocol Support Turns 5 Today
today is a rare anniversary for us
In Today's World, One Must be Tough and Principled to Get Ahead Morally
But not financially (sellouts)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 07, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, February 07, 2026
The Right Wing in the United States Does Not Support Free Speech, It Supports Its Own Speech
Free speech is often opposed by those who also oppose Free software
IRC is a Lot Better Than Social Control Media (They're Not the Same at All)
A good social analogy for IRC is, there are many buildings with a party in each building
Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' is 'Dead Meat'
Or 0xDEADBEEF as some geeks might call it
When Identifying "Low Performers" and "PIPs" Aren't About Improving Performance But Reinforcing a Clique in Your Company/Organisation
It's very troubling to see once-respectable brands like IBM and institutions like the EPO resorting to this
Slop and Flop (IBM), Slopfarms and Hybrids (Linuxiac)
Did Bobby Borisov assume he would never get caught?
Crowdfunding vs Bitcoins: donations are better investment than digital tulip mania
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock