|
The PCG says that MEPs have a golden opportunity to update Europe’s patenting system for the 21st century when they vote on the 'Software Patents' Directive but claims that tens of thousands of businesses could be at risk if the European Parliament doesn’t seize this chance.
It believes that software patents would be 'enormously harmful' both to freelance developers and to any small or independent software developers.
Simon Juden, Chairman of the PCG, said: "Software might look technical, but is in reality just a set of instructions to a computer; it should be no more patentable than the rules of chess".
The Group hopes that the European Parliament will use this opportunity to create a sensible patenting framework that protects genuine technical inventions, but do not include software itself. The European Patent convention of 1972 and the World Trade Organisation’s TRIPs agreement both support this view: under these, software is expressly not patentable and is already adequately protected by copyright.
PCG believes that the justification for making software patentable - that it will encourage innovation - is entirely false. Experience in the USA, where software has been patentable for some time, suggests that innovation actually declines as large companies spend their money on enforcing their patents against competitors rather than investing it in research and development.
The PCG says that the costs of an accidental patent infringement, or alternatively of paying for licences to patent portfolios, would be intolerable for thousands of other small software businesses.
Simon Juden said: "A developer would risk infringing a patent with every line of code they write, yet it is not humanly possible to check through the hundreds of thousands of software patents already granted by the European Patent Office but not currently enforceable. Infringing a software patent would be like falling through a trap door: you won’t know you’ve done it until it’s too late."
With the independent software sector weakened, other small companies requiring bespoke software will be forced to pay the higher rates charged by larger firms: software patents could therefore cause damage well beyond the software sector.
While many of the amendments being discussed by the EP's Legal Affairs Committee would introduce the correct amount of patentability - for inventions that happen to have a software element but whose innovation is not the software itself - they must each be passed by a majority of all MEPs, irrespective of how many are actually present, at the final plenary vote in July.
PCG is calling on all British MEPs to turn out to vote for the amendments, which are very similar to those introduced by the EP at the Directive’s first reading and later rejected by the Commission and Council.
--
If you wish to comment on this article, please log in and use the Reply button below. Registering is free and easy - see 'Join Shout99'.
-
Susie Hughes © Shout99.com 2005
|
