from TedTalks

Law professor Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. By disrupting traditional economic production, copyright law and established competition, they're paving the way for a new set of economic laws, where empowered individuals are put on a level playing field with industry giants.

"Publicly funded R&D projects which aim to produce software outputs shall specify a proposed software exploitation route at the start of the project. At the completion of the project, the software shall be exploited either commercially or within an academic community or as OSS."[ Open Source Software Policy ]

Furthermore, it is recognised that there is a need to maximise returns on, and benefits from, public investment in publicly funded R&D software. Government policy helps achieve this by making clear that the 'exploitation route' for such publicly funded R&D software should be chosen with this objective in mind.

The policy on exploiting R&D software does not apply to software developed in areas of defence, national security or law enforcement or software developed by trading funds for reasons of national security and to protect government commercial interests.
Open-it-projects - epetition reply

This response essentially confirms the status quo. Yes, there is a government open source software policy , but that policy allows, as cited above, the option of using a free license, as opposed to requires. The two are not equal. Even accepting that defence concerns should be taken into account, which is a debatable issue on its own right knowledge is knowledge after all, the reply is unsatisfactory. Not that one would expect otherwise...

So why do I think the response is unsatisfactory? Simple. I believe that any product , including the knowledge to reproduce that product, funded by the public purse, must be available to the public at no cost, with no restrictions. Ideally it should enter the public domain, to protect the intellectual investment free licenses can be considered as fair and just. I believe the system must be fair for the tax payer, not any other body. That is why commercial or any other interests should not be taken into account. Keeping it simple and fair means that the rules will be understood and followed.

So point by point.

Another month, another petition. So what do you think about this

I, the undersigned, support this statement

The European patent system discriminates against:

• The Public, by letting those who benefit from the patent system set the rules for everyone.
• Real innovators, by granting patents too easily and in areas where patents are not needed.
• Fast-moving industries, by pretending that one size fits all.
• The free market, by granting overbroad monopolies that lock out innovation and competition.
• Smaller businesses, by creating risks and costs that small firms cannot afford.
• Open research, in software, medicine, and more, by blocking the free flow of ideas and knowledge.

This discrimination is unfair, and it is costly. We all pay for it, with higher prices, fewer jobs, and less freedom.
I call on the EU to build a new patent system on these principles:

• Fair to the public. It must be made by elected lawmakers of democratic European Union.
• Fair to innovators. It must allow patents only where needed to spur innovation.
• Fair to all industries. It must adapt to the fast-growing diversity of technology and business.
• Fair to a free market. It must ensure that patent monopolies are narrowly focused.
• Fair to small businesses. It must provide affordable, fast, narrow and predictable rights.
• Fair to open research. It must protect the independent creation of original works.

from ethipat.org

Well, I wholeheartedly agree that the current worldwide, not just EU, patent practices and laws are flawed. They are discriminatory, unfair, largely un-implementable in a sensible way but enforcible and prohibitive. There is no protection against misjudgement either.

Ok, I'll shut up for now. I don't have time, at the moment to substantiate my claims, so just take them at with a pinch of salt.

Up until now I was avoiding putting my thoughts on 'paper', but here we are. My instincts simply say Restricting knowledge distribution and use is wrong. Some might say this makes me a communist devil, anarchist or whatever other epithet is currently cool in their circles. Let's avoid that for the time being. These scribbles are probably not 100% correct. But the ideas are what matters anyway. And will you find a difference from a bird's eye view?

Obviously this is a strong social issue, as in it reflects a growing concern of the society as a whole. The society as the human beings represented by a state, like UK, USA, France, Bulgaria, or groups of states like EU, UN, ... Some long time ago patents were introduced by the British Crown in order to give a temporary monopoly to inventors, so that they can protect and exploit their knowhow, while making the knowledge (their knowhow) public. This was a significant social issue. This way knowledge was immediately becoming exploitable by the society. People could benefit from the abstract knowledge or the principles behind the patentable invention. These principles were not patentable at the time, only some of their defined applications - the invention, machines, products etc... The monopoly lasted for a relatively short period of time. Longer than it would take at the time to reverse engineer an invetion and set up production of a competitive product, but not by too much. This is important, since timescales, im my opinion, are important when trying to rationalise the costs of patents to a society.