PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source

[Ken Brown]

Robert,

I am really interested in this stuff.  First all, I have to say that I
suspect a tad bit of paranoia in the reporting about what's happening
overseas.  What sources are you quoting that talk about criminalization
for patent infringement?  I'd like to read that stuff.  Russell McOrmond
was saying that IBM is actively lobbying countries to change their
software patent laws.  Again, I haven't seen the reporting...not that I
doubt it, but I just haven't seen any of the evidence.  

Meanwhile, Red Hat is a patent holder.  What say you about that?

kb

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Osfield [mailto:robert at openscenegraph.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 4:51 AM
To: Russell McOrmond; OSI license discussion
Subject: Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source

Hi Russel, 

I expect your position is held by 95% of software developers, I havn't
met one 
software engineer in my career, wether working on closed or open source,
who 
has ever believed that software patents are good for the software
industry.  

It is clear that software patents benefit large coorporations and patent

lawyers, but the vast majority software industry is not in either of
these 
catagories.  Its my belief that software patents are the single greatest

threat to SME's in the software sector and open source development.

Open source depends upon contributions for many individuals, be them
working 
for a corporation or on their own behalf.  The increasing threat of
patent 
litigation and the threat crimialisation of patent infringement (yep
there's 
a directive including this going through the EU right now) is surefly
going 
to make contributors think twice about submitting code, or starting a
new 
project.  Software engineers are often really generous with giving them
time 
to public projects, by won't be happy "doing time" for doing so.
Without 
contributors there is no open source.

With copyright you can eaily be aware of when you're breaking someone
elses 
copyright, you can manage this risk entirely.  But with patents is very 
difficult to know whether you infringe or not, a patent can pop up even
after 
you've developed something and published it, but then its down to the 
ficklness of court to prove that you don't infringe, if you can't afford
to 
get to court then the onwer of even a bogus patent wins.  

Clearly their are lots of downsides to the open source from software
patents.  
I have yet to so single positive reason for open source that software
patents 
might bring.  The only reason I've seen for pursuing software patents is
that 
of defense, which pre-presumes that software patents exist or will exist

which you'll need to defend against, but this is hardly a positive
reason.

Robert.
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