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Title: Patents back in the limelight
Author: Alan Lenton
Date: 14 October 2006 07:12:09 +01:00 or Sat, 14 October 2006 07:12:09 +01:00
Summary: [14-10-2006]Patents - especially software patents - are back on the legislative agenda in the EU again.
Body: The proposed new Community Patent system and the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) are disliked by both pro- and anti- patent forces in the EU. McCreevy, the EU Commissioner responsible, even went as far as to admit there are 'legitimate concerns' (EU bureaucracy speak for 'We completely screwed this one up.')
A compromise has now been hammered out which, like all compromises, leaves both sides dissatisfied, but this time less dissatisfied than previously. Mark my words, this is not the end of this debate, it's not even the beginning of the end, or even the end of the beginning, it's not... [That's enough Churchillian speech making - Ed.]
The key problem with patents is that they have a fundamental failing, even if you look at them on their own terms. The have a built in assumption that everyone who makes a patentable discovery -wants- to patent it. Once you have a significant group of people who have patentable discoveries and don't want them patenting, then the whole house of cards falls down.
And the open source movement, consisting of just the sort of bright people who make patentable discoveries, doesn't want to see its work patented. Voila - a fundamentally unworkable system shored up only by archaic legislation.
And while we are on the subject of patents, I note that the US Patent Office, an organisation which is ripe for sorting out in the view of many on both sides of the argument, is re-examining patents it granted in 1998, 2001, and 2006 on stem cell research. The patents, granted to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) gives that organisation a stranglehold over all stem cell research in the USA.
Needless to say research scientists are not happy about this state of affairs, and many believe that the patents were wrongly granted. Who would want to be a stem cell researcher in the current political and research climate, I wonder?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/29/legitimate_doucts/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/compromise/
http://www.physorg.com/news79195485.html
Notes:
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