Petition to Stop Software Patents Worldwide
Considering that
- Software patents are too slow. Examination takes 4 years or more. Patents limit competition for up to 20 years. The software life cycle and amortization of investments are much shorter.
- Software patents ruin investment. A typical software can violate hundreds of patents. Established players shoot down emerging competitors with a single patent and delay creative destruction of their markets. Entrepreneurs refrain from the risk of entering a 'mined' market. Legal ambushes deter investment in the next generation by the market leaders of tomorrow.
- Software patents are overly broad rights, as opposed to precise rights such as software copyright. Broad, intricate and clumsy rights are damaging for the market while at the same time more valuable for their holders. 'Inventors' may deliberately phrase their applications very broadly and negotiate with the patent office over breadth of the grant.
- Software patents deprive authors of the fruits of their work. Patent regimes dilute your ownership over copyrighted works because they overlap with the realm of copyright. Software patenting closes an alleged copyright 'protection gap', which was preserved by the legislator for reasons that advise against patenting, too.
- Software patents are not economically justified. Insufficient economic evidence supports an application of the patent system on software. On the contrary, most studies hint that software patent regimes restrain innovation.
- Software patents reward 'hot air'. Ideas are not scarce but cheap. Their disclosure barely justifies to grant rights to prevent them happening. Developers who read software patents consider them an offence: they disclose nothing useful.
- Software patents are difficult to research. Patent databases, software and patents are complex. Patent attorneys can do unreliable research for you. Only courts can decide if you infringe a patent. You take all risks and bills. Patent Offices admit it is impossible to find prior art in source or binary code.
- Software patents are useless for defensive purposes. Your own patents are useless against 'patent trolls', since they do not have any product which could infringe a patent of yours. When your business bankrupts a troll will buy your 'defensive' patent and terrorise your competitors.
- Software patents discriminate small players. They are forced to bow into cease-and-desist letters about questionable patents or settle out of court as litigation is too expensive and takes a long time. As a small player you can either pull or cut your software or take a license if available. You are excluded from fair cross-licensing deals, since you do not have enough patents to cross-license.
- Software patents are like 'cold war' for large companies. Large companies view positively the potential to nuke competitors from the market. With cross-licensing deals they recreate a level playing field that resembles the situation without a patent system for members of the club. But weight in trolls, litigation costs, damages, royalties, product removal risks, and a shift of resources from the R&D (Research&Development) to the P&L (Patents&Litigation) department.
- Software patents do not fit for service-oriented markets. The software market is about providing services. Patenting suits service markets badly. Patents were designed for the classic industrial sector.
- Software patents are not written by (and for) developers. 'Inventors' can write patent applications without skills in software development and sue software developers who independently 'recreated' their 'inventions'.
We ask our parliaments and governments to do the following:
- Pass legal clarifications to substantive patent law. Such clarifications comprise negative and positive tests for patent examiners to assess what is eligible to merit a patent. We made proposals and remain open to alternatives that contribute to the end of software patenting worldwide. Two major ones are:
- A claimed object that consists only of instructions for use of generic data processing hardware (universal computer), also called “program for computers” or “computer-implemented solution”, is not an invention in the sense of patent law, regardless of the form in which it is claimed.
- A claimed object can be an invention in the sense of patent law only if it contributes knowledge to the state of the art in a field of applied natural science.
- Overcome a patent reform discussion trapped into "non-obviousness" The 'American disease' of patent law requires a return to real steering instruments. The patent community has been using that obviousness filter to distract reforms and to get industry backing for dismantling of more meaningful examination filters.
- Apply sound economical justifications and impact assessments in a democratic legislative process.
- Apply democratic reforms of patent institutions. Patent offices have to stay neutral and abstain from lobbying. They must let patent examiners contribute their first hand experiences. Persuasion for patenting based on the assumption that small enterprises just lack awareness puts preconceptions over the rationale of market choice.
- Provide for non-infringement declarations which override enforcement of patents. Rather than you taking the risk to research patents, patent holders should declare upon you request if your product or standard infringes one of their patents. Such estoppal provides legal certainty and standard confidence.
- Get patent professionals out of policy making. Increase the influence exercised by economists on the governance of innovation policy. The quality of professional judges cannot be exchanged for 'technical judges' without legal training and eligibility to a judicial office or administrative 'case law'.
- Keep substantive patent law harmonisation away from Free Trade Agreements.
- Start an open debate about the patent crisis aimed at finding solutions. Economists can easily explain to you why free rider effects make patent opposition suboptimal. Other institutional unbalances pressure patent examiners to grant permissively. Let's review the institutional incentives and start reform.
WARNING: THIS IS A DRAFT VERSION RELEASED FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS:
- IF YOU SIGN IT BEWARE THAT IT IS NOT FINAL AND STILL SUBJECT TO CHANGE IN A NEAR FUTURE
- IF YOU SIGN NOW, YOU WILL BE CONTACTED BACK VIA EMAIL IN ORDER TO SIGN THE FINAL VERSION
- IF YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT PETITION PLEASE ADD THEM BELOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Privacy policy: by signing this draft petition, you agree to receive an email asking you to sign the final version. Your name, country, time of signature, and comments will be publicly displayed in the list of signatures.
Latest 50 signatures
Total number of signatures: 1801
Most recent signatures:
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United States,
30 Mar 2014 00:02
Comments: CTO at Public Insight Corp. - Brendan Jones, Australia, 09 Jul 2012 00:08
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27 Jan 2012 06:41
Comments: massroids - Krzysztof Kocyba, Poland, 04 Aug 2011 20:17
- Harrison Kyle, Canada, 13 May 2011 22:28
- Martin Maier, Austria, 25 Feb 2011 07:57
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United States,
02 Aug 2010 03:13
Comments: I like this blog. Have a nice day. -
Ulf spaeth,
Germany,
30 Jul 2010 09:08
Comments: "Apply sound economical justifications and impact assessments in a democratic legislative process" [url=http://www.profischnell.com]Übersetzung Arabisch Deutsch[/url] [url=http://www.profischnell.com]Dolmetscher[/url] - Robert Clark, United Kingdom, 15 Jul 2010 16:42
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Australia,
08 Jul 2010 12:18
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Andrew Janke,
United States,
20 Jun 2010 19:18
Comments: IMHO, software is like any other document stored on a computer, only different. Software is a series of instructions, practically written word, the form or "language" doesn't matter whether it's bytecode or Java source. -
Otto Solares,
Guatemala,
10 Jun 2010 19:36
Comments: Mental algorithms, mathematical procedures and computer software methods should not be patentable, that kills our rights to do something better. Stop software patents! -
Stephen Belanger,
Canada,
21 May 2010 16:56
Comments: Software patents are getting out of hand. MPEG-LA's response to the WebM format is evidence of that. A vaguely similar format to h.264 is being threatened with patent restrictions because MPEG group has more lawyers than employees. They control the market by oppressing competition. - Dan Mihai Ile, Portugal, 21 May 2010 16:03
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Christian Brüggemann,
Germany,
21 May 2010 16:01
Comments: No comment necessarry. -
Swantje Westpfahl,
Germany,
13 May 2010 14:45
Comments: Sign up now! - Felipe Braga, Brazil, 10 May 2010 23:58
- Murat Kadirov, Russian Federation, 24 Apr 2010 09:36
- Anton Kurkin, Russian Federation, 19 Apr 2010 18:47
- Max Sabadsh, Kazakhstan, 19 Apr 2010 16:02
- Dimqua Kuznetsov, Russian Federation, 19 Apr 2010 15:41
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United Kingdom,
09 Apr 2010 10:49
Comments: I like this site really much. This is such a outstanding web. And it is not like other money directed website, the content here is truly useful.
I am definitely bookmarking it as well as sharin it with my friends. -
Peter Heijmens Visser,
Netherlands,
22 Mar 2010 19:15
Comments: This petition should be sent.
Keep me informed
Patents hamper innovation.
With this I sign it. -
Keith Harasyn,
Canada,
18 Mar 2010 20:49
Comments: I urge governments to disallow patent monopolies on ideas such as algorithms and software, and life forms. - Antonio Perez, United States, 18 Mar 2010 10:53
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Raul Ventura,
El Salvador,
14 Mar 2010 02:23
Comments: I have talked about this in my blog
http://answertopia.blogspot.com/ - Chris Gamble, United States, 04 Mar 2010 20:00
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Denis Kasak,
Croatia,
16 Feb 2010 02:47
Comments: Patents are a serious detriment to the modern, free information society and need to be put to death. - Cesar Alcalde, Spain, 08 Feb 2010 12:10
- Michaela Bogenhauser, Czech Republic, 24 Jan 2010 13:50
- Steve Houseman, United Kingdom, 22 Jan 2010 09:31
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Yury Bulka,
Ukraine,
15 Jan 2010 07:43
Comments: i use free software -
Rod Danz,
United States,
06 Dec 2009 17:35
Comments: Consider for a moment what is going on with patents for dna...something that is in nature...thats like putting a patent on the moon rocks....or consider putting a patent on fractal.....he did not invent the fractal he DISCOVERED it because of the computer being able to do tons of computations. -
Rajesh Singh Sisodia,
India,
11 Oct 2009 11:41
Comments: I support this petition and every one should support it. - Marc Manthey, Germany, 28 Sep 2009 17:33
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BABU DOMINIC,
India,
25 Sep 2009 12:01
Comments: Free Software ..Free Knowledge...Free Humanity. - haynes davis, India, 25 Sep 2009 05:40
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Ekbal Bappukunju,
India,
25 Sep 2009 05:04
Comments: I support the movement to stop software patent world wide. As part of the Peoples Health Movement we were demanding to stop patenting of Essential Drugs. We can unite to make the world safe from patenting and monopoly of knowledge by MNCs -
M. Vasudeva Kiran,
India,
25 Sep 2009 04:58
Comments: down with the software patents -
Anilkumar KV,
India,
25 Sep 2009 04:52
Comments: Software patent is not justified - Wilmar Cardenas, Venezuela, 24 Sep 2009 21:46
- Inko Illarramendi, Spain, 24 Sep 2009 20:52
Please comment on the draft petition!
"if it contributes knowledge to the state of the art in a field of applied natural science." should be in bold.
I think the numbers from the top column should correspond to the numbers on the bottom column
if it contributes knowledge to the state of the art in a field of applied natural science. http://Etalaze.net
Some of this doesn't flow very well grammatically.
I agree
"Such estoppal provides legal certainty and standard confidence" should be in bold also
"Apply sound economical justifications and impact assessments in a democratic legislative process" - needs a description
"Keep substantive patent law harmonisation away from Free Trade Agreements" - needs a description
"Harmonisation" is spelled incorrectly, it should be Harmonization
Software patents are yes very difficult to research.
Very true indeed.
Worried by:
"Privatisation of patent examination may be an option."
My view of the world is that economics, and the private sector, is outside of morality, which is enforced, albeit inadequately, by politics (legislative, executive, judiciary).
Removing anything as vital as examination from the political control, which is all that we have, is I think very dangerous.
Put it differently, how can a group of concerned citizens control the execution of a public function performed outside politics?
We put currently a high value on public awareness and our own lobbying, because we do not have political power on this issue. But our goal should be to enshrine our positons into law, and let the administration apply it. Not to introduce other players, legitimately motivated by money and career instead of the public good. When they are baught, using money we do not have, we barely have grounds for complaining.
Our ultimate power is opinion tranformed into votes. I think votes have a more direct impact on an administration than on a private company.
Of course, we might hope to tender for patent examination calls, with competent people favorable to our positions. But so will the other side.
There is frustration with the current patent offices. But they are, albeit indirectly, our employees. And we have a chain of command to them, albeit imperfect. When evaluation goes public, we weaken the chain of command.
It will be hard to change the entrenched habits of the current Patent Offices, which is the current problem. But I fear that it would be harder still to control private evaluators in the future.
Sincerely,
Pierre Van Nypelseer, AITECH S.A., vanyp at scarlet.be
Incidently, I do not wish to remain anonymous. Unfortunately, I had to cheat the system to get my email up there. Any email address seems automatically removed.
The idea is that privatisation of examination may actually be a very good thing as it changes the institutional incentives.
As I said, "hard to change the entrenched habits of the Patent Offices". But what beneficial incentives do you see there? Will they be sufficient, and what control will be left if they are not sufficient?
My position is that:
- usually revolutions do not work. The new state tends to be worse than the original, until it improves (except US)
- NGO give some relief
- but the real solution is to reclaim the state
I think the notion of incentives is too clever, and it digs the hole deeper. Working for the public good is mandatory in state institutions, and must be enforced.
The risk with incentives are:
- the consequences of specific incentives are hard to predict. The only predictors are ideological.
- that obscurity will prevent a sound political debate on the choice of appropriate incentives
- and in an universe governed by incentives, not by enforced duty, the powerfull can always offer better incentives.
Of course, the public service incentive also exists. But the overall current state of affairs shows that, if it is not enforced as a duty, it is unsufficient.
Pierre Van Nypelseer, AITECH S.A., vanyp at scarlet.be
Very interesting because we have totally different views.
"I think the notion of incentives is too clever, and it digs the hole deeper. Working for the public good is mandatory in state institutions, and must be enforced."
- I recommend you to read the STOA report of the European Parliament on patent matters.
- Incentive means for me here: how does the institutional environment of an examiner manipulate him to grant bad patents or his institutions to lobby for lowering standards. There are strong institutional interests in the expansion of the system because otherwise a patent office would be institutionally neutral to its granting task which is not the case. In fact they even aggressively lobby the legislator.
If we want to change these factors we need to change the incentives of the patent offices and exercise democratic control.
The trade union of the EPO examiners complained bitterly about the work conditions of examiners that make it more difficult for them to reject patents. Pompidou, the former president of the EPO even wanted to pay bonuses to examiners based on patents granted.
The idealistic phrase of the "public good" mission is not helpful here but sure that is the goal. I am not speaking of a kind of "bonus" system but of a larger institutional reform. Patent bureaucracies become more and more unable to solve the examination backlog problem although they expand their staff like no other government agencies.
Sorry "as in the corpus of patents" is too complex to understand.
"corpus of patents" means "all patents (which are in force)", the library of all patents, add to this those applications which are in the pipeline and where you have a probability of granting. Here a double risk applies: You don't know what will be granted in 4-5 years that was applied for today. Often patentees really don't make a difference between patents and applications. If you want to convince your investors you cannot wait 4-5 years.
Corpus is a professional term for a total library of documents, it is heavily used in editorial science.
The phase is "as is the corpus of patents" not "as in the corpus": software is complex and the corpus of patents is complex.
You have to use simpler terms.
I would remove the "corpus" thing and keep the "Software is complex and typically may violate hundreds of patents."
This everybody understands. And the corpus "all patents granted and pending" should go to the explanatory page.
New item3:
is already covered by item1:
Also mind that the petition is worldwide
I do not see the relation between "petition is worldwide" and the fact that item3 is already covered by item1.
Thanks to the great input of you and externals I reworded the first two points. Thanks in particular to Rene M. I am still not pleased with the use of the word "idea" in paragraph 2 but I cannot use "inventions" and "concepts" was no good term either. Following the criticism of Georg I weakened the emphasis of studies in the first argument.
I acknowledge the criticism of the reward teaching of Reinier but it is not the point in 2. You can dissent with a teaching and still argue against, the emphasis here is not on reward but that patents mean rights for the wrong object, an object which does not need to incentivised as it is not scarce and an object whose disclosure doesn't make a difference.
In more indecent wording 2 is: "Software patents are a bonus granted for poop that prevent others to poop". The use of key wordings as "reward"
and "disclosure" is used made because these phrases are common in the patent discourse.
The first sentence of 1 lacks precision and is oversimplified but I leave it that way
Corpus is a professional term for a total library of documents, it is heavily used in editorial science.
The phase is "as is the corpus of patents" not "as in the corpus": software is complex and the corpus of patents is complex.
http://www.realtorrentz.com
We've all seen the sickening contents of the patent databases: duplicate or overlapping software patents; often absurdly broad/trivial/obvious software patents; software patents for non-novel 'inventions'. Independent re-invention is no defence and you are guilty until proven innocent in the Patent Courts even when pre-invention is involved. There appears to be little if any will in the system to change any of this and good reason to believe that only weakly effective changes could be made even if there was such a will. Frauds are being perpetrated and licences to steal and extort are being handed out and in the absence of strong economic evidence that software patents are a significant overall benefit to society, this is an intolerable state of affairs. It is a moral outrage.
It comes down to the owner of the existing patent having the power, while the entrepreneur is left to suffer with a large barrier of entry into the software field.
Well, that depends on the review. For me, starting to read that review steroids online would be the tough part.
Thank you for your input! The corrections have been made.
It's late, because they waited for their monthly board meeting, but Software in the Public Interest, the non-profit foundation behind the Debian project and many other meritorious efforts, has signed the petition. There's no other place for corporate rather than individual signatures, so I'm entering theirs here. - Bruce Perens
We are gonna setup a special form for companies and associations once the petition is final.
The more important thing right now it to put forward comments on the content of the text, in order to have a high quality text.
I don't mean to rush the project, but is there a reason why the official petition hasn't been launched yet? I thought we were sending it in on the 24th. Are we just waiting on more signatures?
I'm in no rush, don't get me wrong! But this is the first big free software project I've ever really gotten involved in, and I'm afraid that it's losing steam and won't be sent at all! That would not be good at all. What's happening on the other end of this site?
~ BP
PS: Sorry for the anonymous post… I just don't feel like making an account.
We are asking some friends to review the text of the petition. It should be ready soon.
Item 3 has: 'Inventors' may deliberately phrase their applications very broadly and […]
Well, I would replace "may" with "often". This is not just an obscure theory, but it happens. —akf
It is what patent attorneys *have to do*. It is a negotiation process. But if its negotiable then it is no "static" broadness.
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