Software patents have been likened to allowing a monopoly on the ideas behind stories, and opponents of the draft Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions claim it would effectively allow unlimited software patents. Under the liberal patent regime in the US, large companies acquire arsenals of patents which they use to protect themselves from upstart competition.
The directive, drafted by Labour MEP Arlene McCarthy, has generated political opposition from the Greens and the European Socialist Party (PSE), among others. The German and French socialist parties are using the delay as an opportunity to raise MEPs' awareness of the issues surrounding software patents ahead of the late-September plenary session.
A demonstration in Brussels last week attracted more than 400 participants, organised by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) and Eurolinux, among other groups, which also persuaded several hundred Web sites to black out their front pages in protest.
A June vote on the proposal was put back amid criticism by MEPs that the legislation would institute a US-style patent regime that would be detrimental to European small businesses and open-source software developers.
The proposed software-patenting legislation is the result of a European Commission effort to clarify patenting rules as they apply to "computer-implemented inventions", a term that can be taken to include software. The patent offices of different EU member states currently have different criteria for accepting the validity of software-related patents, which is a situation that the Commission's proposal aims to remedy.
MEP McCarthy said in a June analysis of the proposed directive that there were links between the patentability of computer-related inventions and the growth of IT industries in the US. Such patents aided "in particular the growth of small and medium enterprises and independent software developers", she wrote, citing a study on the issue carried out for the European Parliament by London's Intellectual Property Institute.
But in a recent letter criticising the directive, a group of economists poured scorn on any notion that software patents and business growth are connected, saying most economic research does not support this claim. They argued that the directive in its current form would "have serious detrimental effects on European innovation, growth, and competitiveness".
Talkback
The craziest thing in all this is that the (by definition) anti- free market capitalist patents are being opposed by the nominally "socialist" parties!
'Tis a strange times, indeed, when socialists uphold capitalist prinicples, and american (!) merchantilists masquerade as capitalists.
Truly, america has become everything it once fought against.
My impression is that one of the motivating factors behind this clarification of the patent situation (which is a dubious description of the potential result of this directive, especially if various claims are correct with respect to exemptions) is the supposed need to counter "offshoring" with a big intellectual property "stick" that can supposedly be used to keep those third world countries with all the IT employment in check.
Personally, whether the ambitions to maintain an uneven economic playing field ever become realised or not, I can't help feeling that the winners will be the big, lawyer-heavy corporations, and the losers will be everyone else: whether they live in the third world or not.
I'm not sure that "America has become that which it once opposed". The ultimate goal of capitalism is to establish yourself as the single, dominant supplier of goods and/or services. This might be contrary to the belief that the aim of capitalism is to provide competition.
The aim is to be the winner. In being the winner, you must have disposed of any effective competition. Of course, when you have no competition and you are the only supplier, you have achieved the same conditions for which a socialist state strives. Still interesting though.
The position of the left is generally, as I understand it, to promote better conditions for the populace, including the poor, while business-oriented interests promote better conditions for business, which are presented as being incidentally beneficial for the rest of society. Patents are in the interest of the business elite because they more firmly lock into place the priveleges of large, successful businesses while preventing competition from smaller companies and the poorer countries. In this case, many large businesses in Europe (such as Bull) oppose the patents directive partly, no doubt, because it would make competition with the dominant US-based IT companies more difficult.
However, it is important to note that in the case of software, even many of the dominant US IT companies are now arguing that patents make business more difficult, and really only benefit patent lawyers. Businesses and developers who are pro-patent generally argue that software patents should be allowed only in particular circumstances, and should, perhaps, exempt open-source software.
If you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, and ignore the politics, patents favour those who have the money to register them and to defend them. I'll leave it to others more qualified to argue the social justice of this.