On The Constitutional Reasons Behind Copyright And Patents
Patents, Copyrights And Trademarks, Oh My!
If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It?

Against Intellectual Monopoly

I liked Levine and Bolrin's Intellectual Monopoly substitute term for IP. It better reflect what "intellectual property" is about - a monopoly to exploit a "product" of someone's intellect, granted by a government explicitly , for example patents, or implicitly (copyright).

"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.

"In January 2006 the European Commission published the Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe. The Study resulted from a detailed analysis of the current scholarly journal publication market, together with extensive consultation with all the major stakeholders within the scholarly communication process (researchers, funders, publishers, librarians, research policymakers, etc.).
The Study noted that 'dissemination and access to research results is a pillar in the development of the European Research Area' and it made a number of balanced and reasonable recommendations to improve the visibility and usefulness of European research outputs."

from Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results

It is a very important request, but not going far enough. Essentially, the petition requests all knowledge, result of publicly funded research to be made openly and freely (they are not explicit about it, but this is what I understand from the context) available and accessible.

IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement
IBM Files Patent Infringement Lawsuits Against Amazon.com

Well, the story with patents is on the roll, again. BBC had patents on links, IBM has patents on e-commerce, what next?

The allofmp3 sitcom continues. Reuters has an article about the latest hurdle to Russia's membership to the WTO and surprise, surprise, that is allofmp3.

The interesting bit is that the company behind the website is apparently acting according to the local law. It does pay money to the organisation representing the authors rights in Russia - which is what the Russian law says. It apparently treats internet music sales similarly to how radio broadcasts and coffee shop music are charged in other places.

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.

More than a year has passed since the European Parliament’s historic rejection of the Commission’s and Council’s software patent bill. Now this zombie legislation is shambling through parliament again: on October 11 or 12, the EP is set to vote in Brussels on two competing motions for a resolution on future European patent policy.

Software Patents - back like a bad smell (Open Rights Group)

It's never too late to have an opinion, I suppose. It's the same arguments, different door. It seems the agenda of patent law harmonisation will never go away. As I was writing more that a year ago, this, strangely enough, always goes towards harmonise up - that is make the broadest possible treatment, as opposed to the minimum common denominator.

It is true, that there are powerful stakeholders - mainly patent law firms, patent/IP farms, to a lesser extent technology companies.

Nowadyas the majority of the software industry uses the patent laws for as a defense weapon anyway. There are parasitic companies and the odd litigious ones, but they are exceptions and usually end up in PR disastres.

Why feed the IP parasites?

Write your MEP/MP what do you think about it

Brussels, 21 September 2006 -- Commissioner McCreevy proclaims blissful ignorance about the consequences of the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA). In a series of six non-answers to Members of the European parliament, the Commission reveals that until now it is unable to comment on cost, judicial independence, jurisprudence and treaty-related concerns. Meanwhile McCreevy keeps praising the virtues of said draft agreement.

Commission unable to answer MEPs on Patent Litigation Agreement (FFII)

You might want to read what the FFII say/do about it