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

[Robert Osfield]

Hi Alex,

On Wednesday 28 January 2004 15:19, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> As an individual (being not at work and not part of some
> collaborative product development community [CPL terms are the
> best for it, I believe]), I release the code straight into the
> public domain, for example:
>
> www.terekhov.de/pthread_refcount_t/experimental/refcount.cpp

I too have written ref counting code, open sourced of course.  But this really 
doesn't have any relevance on whether SW-pats are good or bad, and nothing to 
do with whats going on in EU.

> Rober Osfield wrote:
> [...]
>
> > The software patents directive which so far has been turned
> > around at first vote in EP vote back in *September* which
> > ratified that pure software is *not* patentable, as per the
> > 1974 European Patent Convention.
>
> http://www.ipjur.com/2003_09_01_archive.php3
>
> <quote>
>
> The misinformation campaign staged by the Eurolinux Alliance
> is really horrendous. 
> </quote>

It is interesting that you quote one of the most pro software patent activists 
in Europe for nice unbiased analysis.

To balance things here's a some background on the Author of this report Axel H 
Horns :

http://swpat.ffii.org/players/horns/index.en.html

Feel free to interpret what you think is the truth and from whom, I'll let the 
members of the list make their own opinions.

I would suggest you take time to understand the concerns of others over 
software patents.  We don't all have the luxury of being employed by a big 
corporations with big law departments.  This doesn't make us less innovative 
or our opinions any less valid, but it does make use very aware of 
vulnerabilities and risks to our livelihood.

Robert.
--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3