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Message
From: Enrico Weigelt<weigelt@m...>
Date: Thu Apr 17 22:27:17 CEST 2008
Subject: [oc] patents and logic cores
* Günter Dannoritzer <dannoritzer@w...> wrote:> Now I know that in Europe algorithms cannot really be patented so far
> and me living in Germany the US patent would not really affect me.
That's not entirely true. Clearly, Par.52 EPA clearly declares program
code as not patentable, we have to suffer on thousands over thousands
of software patents. And seems to be impossible to hold the perps in
EPO and politics responsible for thei damage they did and continue to
do to our IT industry. (you probably know which dirty role especially
our Secretary of Justice plays in that game and what threat her actions
are to our democratic society are ;-o).
This is the point where science becomes political (-> Faust case) :(
As long as you've got no direct commercial interest, I suggest ignoring
the patents threat for your works, but instead *fight* on the political
front line. The FFII provided material is a good starting point:
-> http://www.ffii.org/
> But with all this motion at the moment about the intellectual property
> laws getting unified all over Europe I am a bit unsure what all this
> other stuff with the world IP organization has to do with it.
Well, the word "unification" IMHO is faar too harmless. I'd prefer the
German word "Gleichschaltung" (perhaps "equilibrium" is an adequate
translation), which has an special meaning in our country.
> > Back to your questions:
> >
> > 1 - the location of a 'server', whatever that is, can make no
> > difference. All that matters is commercial exploitation. Note that, if
> > you give something away for free in a territory in which a patent-holder
> > has a commerical monopoly right, then they clearly have a case against
> > you, but only in that territory.
>
> Yes, that is where I thought the server location would come in. For
> example, if the server is hosted in the US, the company could forbid to
> publish the project because of the patent law in that country, where as
> when the server would be in another country, US law would not really
> have an influence on it.
At this point, true (IANAL). But then you should never go to the US again.
(besides there're enough reasons for keeping out there - at least in the
current policital situation - eg. being treated as a potential terrorist
when coming from Europe ;-o)
> > 4 - If it's not already obvious, and to elmininate any confusion: you
> > can do anything you want with the information contained in a national
> > patent but, if you infringe the inventor's monopoly rights in that
> > country, you may end up in a court in that country, if you let them
> > catch you.
>
> And this is were it becomes complicated with opencores, as a project is
> public available. So it becomes important to check first before causing
> some violation.
The question is: can some monopoly right be enforced against the authors ?
For example, in Germany I don't have to care about national U$ patents
(at least long as or politics don't manage to surrender to U$, as they're
currently trying to do in many ways ;-o).
> I guess it is not the task of the developers on opencores to verify all
> national laws and whether their implementation would violent one of them.
ACK. This isn't even possible. We'd to pay dozens of lawyers day
per day just to look for possible violations. Wo could afford this ?
The best, IMHO, is - as a developer - not to care about patents at all,
and - as a free person - take *ANY* means necessary to take down the
whole patent system. (actually, if I had the proper budget available,
I'd punch them really hard).
cu
--
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Enrico Weigelt == metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/
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