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

The Aim is Not Fame
Reposted from schestowitz.com
SLAPP Censorship - Part 114 Out of 200: Thousands of Long Articles to Come, Properly Covering the SLAPP Industry in the UK and Its Modus Operandi
"Stowell described SLAPPs as ‘a stain on our legal system’."
Chad's Move to GNU/Linux or the Point of Exceeding 5% "Market Share"
experienced centuries of being colonised
GAFAM is Drowning in Debt, GAFAM is Clearly Not Sustainable Anymore (It Runs on Borrowed Money and Bailouts)
The war and surrender in Iran will deepen the debt; we'll see the GAFAM reports in late July
 
A Lifetime of Whistleblowing
Ellsberg did not have an easy life, but it was a rewarding life with a rich legacy focusing on justice
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Man With Many Missions...
Campinos – accompanied by Gilles Requena and Patrice Pellegrino
Links 22/06/2026: Ubisoft Co-founder Dies, Americans Have Turned Against Slop
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2026: "The Sycophancy Machine" and "Port 22 Open for 54 Days"
Links for the day
When People Who Make the Most Money Are the Best "Boot Lickers" (Sucking Up to Jeffrey Epstein's Circle and the Dictator)
Sucking up to rich people may pay off
"Internally Important, Externally Irrelevant": IBM in a Nutshell
Right now its debt spins out of control and its stock spirals down the drain
Finding a Way to Get Paid to Improve LibreJS
So now we have more people resurrecting LibreJS and improving it
Microsoft Can't Even Wait Until July, Shutdowns and Layoffs Already Happening
Mashable speak of "a grim picture for the state of Xbox."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 21, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, June 21, 2026
Gemini Links 22/06/2026: Appreciating Simple Things, Perfect Summer Evening, IRIX, Vim and so
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2026: Dating Oaks, Paying With Cash, and "More on Withered Technology"
Links for the day
GAFAM Was Never an Ally to Europe
Only 1 in 10 Europeans see US as an ally — study [...] military providers in "tech" clothing cannot be trusted
GitHub, LinkedIn, and XBox Will Finish Like Skype (Sustainability Crisis)
Skype should become a verb. When Microsoft 'Skypes' something it means it basically shuts it down with some temporal excuse/s.
Drowning in Garbage: AUR Shows That Too Much Low-Quality Software (Including Slop) is Bad for Everybody
What happened in AUR had happened elsewhere before and will happen again in the future
Links 21/06/2026: EU on Patented (Monopolised) Crops, Microsoft Software "Narcs on You to Your Boss"
Links for the day
Microsoft at 50 Follows the General Trajectory of Skype
How many years does Microsoft have left before payroll becomes impossible?
A Year After a Microsofter Took Over The Register MS It is Effectively a Content Farm With News as a 'Side Dish'
This is not journalism, this is spam
IBM Pays the Media and Cons Some 'Journalists' Into Participating in "Quantum" Spam
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf"
You Don't Need an 'App' for Your Birdhouse (Slopfondlers Come for Birds)
That they sell those things as "AI" really says a lot about how dishonest slopfondlers really are
SLAPP Censorship - Part 113 Out of 200: The United Kingdom is Not Turkey
Turkey is ranked almost worst in the Western World for press freedom
Cybersecurity Does Not Mean Asking Microsoft for Permission to Boot
There were very good and timely reasons to speak about the matter, including impending antitrust complaints against Microsoft
Links 21/06/2026: Bots from Alibaba Do Harm and Many Xbox Games Are Being Cancelled
Links for the day
5 Years After Release of Vista 11 Not Even One in 5 People Use It (in the US)
It doesn't look like Vista 11 will ever be adopted like prior versions and announcing a Vista 12 will mostly upset companies/organisations that only recently "upgraded" to 11
Gemini Links 21/06/2026: Boca Raton, Perfect Summer Day, and LLM Doing Things Poorly
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 20, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 20, 2026
Microsoft Insiders - Not Limited to XBox - Expect a 'Bloodbath' (Their Own Word)
This isn't limited to XBox
Reports of "PIP" as Means of Mass Layoffs at IBM This Year
some insights into the PIPs
SLAPP Censorship - Part 112 Out of 200: Strangles Women, Then Refuses to Even Attend Any of His Own Hearings About It
It is meanwhile very apparent that Brett Wilson LLP is becoming a "mench sphere"
Gemini Links 20/06/2026: "There Was Never Supposed to Be a Camera" and "What Is A Programming Language"?
Links for the day
Geminispace Reaches Its 8th Year, Today It Has Turned 7
Gemini Protocol 'went live' 7 years ago, just before the COVID-19 pandemic
Links 20/06/2026: "Full Page Paralysis" and "Hopes For Xbox’s Future Might Be Over Before It Even Begins"
Links for the day
European Patent Office's (EPO) Strikes "at a Scale not Seen Since Battistelli", European Patent Grants Down by Over 25% in Past 3 Months
The actions are effective
Real Security Elusive, Microsoft Layoffs to Coincide With Certificate Apocalypse
July 1
Links 20/06/2026: Microsoft's "Year of Shame" and "Feed the Writers"
Links for the day
2026 is a Year of Strikes at the European Patent Office (EPO)
As it stands at the moment, to many people the EPO represents crime, not law
Web Browsers Are Technically Bloatware (No Matter What Runs in Them)
Don't make it a society that shames people into using a Web browser where none should be needed
Fedora Has Changed a Lot Since I Last Used It (IBM Dominates Almost Everything, IBM Agenda Displaces Community Goals)
"It is effectively 100% run by Red Hat/IBM employed people... even when they are community-elected representatives."
Andy (Cyber Show) on His Teacher Who "Squeezed Every Last Drop Out of Life, With Gratitude, Humility, Generosity and Mettle"
Some call them "eccentric" and are dismissive about what they have to offer
Only 1.5% Oppose the European Patent Office's (EPO) Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Until 2027
Among those polled/surveyed (in a ballot)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 19, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 19, 2026
Gopher/Gemini Links 20/06/2026: Slop With Tcl/Tk and Nokia 770 Perishes
Links for the day