On Aug 13, 10:10 pm, Mark Kent <mark.k...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>
>
>
>
>
> > [Dr. Berthold Rutz, EPO:] Shades of "Open innovation" through the EPO Scenarios
> > lens
>
> > ,----[ Quote ]
> >| The powerful paradigm of open and collaborative innovation is no longer
> >| limited to the area of software development but has found proponents in other
> >| technical fields such as consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and automotive. Are
> >| traditional forms of intellectual property protection such as patents,
> >| copyrights or design rights still appropriate in a world where knowledge is
> >| increasingly shared and innovation becomes a collaborative process? What role
> >| will IP rights play in the future and what challenges will they face?
> > `----
>
> >http://www.dime-eu.org/files/active/0/Rutz.pdf
>
> > The lawyers might disagree with him. They'd rather corrupt the system to secure
> > revenue streams. Programmers were polled many times to show that they may want
> > copyrights, not patents.
>
> As the law stands at present, software is covered by copyright, not
> patent... let's hope Dr Rutz's work will consider expanding the use of
> copyright, and consider killing off, or at least, cutting back on
> the patent process, something which dates back to pre-democractic
> societies.
Actually the laws for patents were changed in 1994, making it much
easier to file for patents, and increasing the chances of actually
getting a patent on software.
However, none of the requirements, such as listing all known prior
art, all referenced materials, and any similar technologies, whether
or not known at the time the device was invented, are still required
elements of the patent application.
If a high quality patent application which does list all prior art is
not considered "intuitively obvious" to someone knowledgable in the
art, such as a college undergraduate using public documentation as the
specification for his device, and the device is truly unique, you can
get a patent that will be honored in many countries.
If prior art was omitted in the application, the patent could be
nullified at any time by someone who identifies the prior art and
presents it to the patent office, either as a "challlenge" to the
patent, or as the defendant in a patent suit, or as an applicant for
another patent, it can nullify the granted patent. The patent could
either be revoked, or worse, transferred to the original inventor.
Many corporations are filing for patents, listing as much prior art as
possible, so that, whether or not they are actually granted the
patent, no one else can attempt to patent their software. Many of
these patent holders also contribute to OSS projects. If they are
contributing patented software to OSS, they agree not to enforce the
patent against the Open Source implementation. If a poacher attempts
to pirate the OSS software and use it in a proprietary product, they
might find themselves facing a whole suite of patent lawsuits. This
was done to protect technology such as Web Browsers and many other OSS
innovations, so that companies like Microsoft can't use OSS
contributed software to put competitors out of business with
competitive proprietary software based on reverse engineered or
pirated OSS code.
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