Tobias Oetiker (oetiker -at- ee.ethz.ch) writes:
Closed because of "Software-Patents"
On September 22nd, 2003 the European Parliament will decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called "software patents" in Europe. Software Patents are already used by large companies in other countries (like the US) to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as MRTG, at least within Europe.
In Europe, 30,000 "software patents" have already been granted. Currently without a legal foundation. But if the new law passes on the 22nd, the patent owners can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like "progress bars", "mouseclicks on online order forms" or "the concept of scrolling within a window".
Software developers will have to pay the "software-patentholders" for using these features, even in their own, self-developed applications. This has the potential of stalling the development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Because the matter is so complex every software author will have to get expensive legal aid to determine if his self-developed software is possibly violating some "software- patents". If he fails todo so, he risks expensive licensing fees being charged years after the release of the software, as a patent owner suddenly discovers that his invention of using "underlined text to markup a hyperlink" has been used without permisson.
Contrary to real patents, "software-patents" are, in the current draft, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.
This could turn out to be a very serious issue, effectively allowing the "big boys" to put "competetion" out of business -- such "competetition" would include developers of open-source or free software for public benefit
See
swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html for more information.