,----[ "Frederick Noronha (FN)" fred@bytesforall.org ] | http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1023943.cms | | Computer programme patenting may brake IT boom | | TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005 06:17:58 PM] | NEW DELHI: Imagine a scenario where a music composer is prevented from | being inspired by another musician. He has to start from scratch and | give an entirely new definition to music. Unimaginable, isn't it? Now | replace 'music' with 'software' and this is what the Indian government | is seeking to do. Or so some critics argue. | | The amendments to the Indian Patent Act introduced by a recent | Ordinance will allow all computer programmes to be patented. The | Indian Patent Act, as modified in 2002, had made "a mathematical | method or a business method or a computer programme per se or | algorithms" non-patentable. | | However, the recent amendment changes this phrase defining what cannot | be patented to "a computer programme per se other than its technical | application to industry or a combination with hardware, a mathematical | or business method or algorithms." | | Since any commercial software has some industry application and these | applications are technical in nature, it opens virtually all software | to patenting, say the critics of the move. | | As a booming software nation, can India afford to take such a step | without harming interests of the industry? These were concerns | expressed at a press conference organised by the Delhi Science Forum | on Tuesday. | | The US and Japan, they said, are two countries that have provided for | patent protection in software, which has adversely impacted smaller | developers. European Parliament has been forced to defer software | patenting in the wake of widespread opposition to such a move. | | A patent in the case of software grants monopoly control over not | just the 'expression' of a function or idea in computer code, which | could be covered by copyright, but over the very idea itself. | | Thus, software would be covered by both copyright and patents, perhaps | the only instance of a product being underpinned by both. Richard | Stallman, co-developer of the GNU-Linux operating system and proponent | of free software says, "Since software patents cover software ideas, | it makes them a dangerous obstacle to all software development." | | An example is Amazon's singleclick agreement. Amazon.com was granted a | patent on a system that remembers customer credit card data from visit | to visit, so that customers could, on all visits after their first, | simply order products and then click once to buy them using a stored | credit card number. | | After two rounds of litigation, this patent was upheld and Amazon was | able to prevent its chief competitor, barnesandnoble.com, from using a | similar system. | | The main argument against software patenting is that it will kill | innovations, by leaving small firms or software developers liable for | patent infringements. "That's like saying, be the greatest genius in | history or don't even try", said Stallman. | | Small developers will always be fighting with their backs to the wall | as they would not have the financial muscle to compete with dominant | players in the market. `----
Nicely written article Fred. We should circulate as much as possible.