OPENCORES.ORG

Now I know that in Europe algorithms cannot really be patented so far

My 2cents on the whole problem; I dived in deep and this is my personal
opinion ...

The original idea behind the patent system is not bad; it provides
protection for the initial developer and opens their invention for
improvements by others.
This provided a way for a developer to open the R&D to others so others
could improve the idea, while still protecting the invention. So simply
copying the idea would be illegal.

However lately (especially in the US) the patent system has turned into a
cash cow. Simply forgetting the "improvements by others" and only using the
"protection" part. Nowadays the patent holder with the most cash (i.e. can
survive in court the longest) wins. This is *NOT* what patents are about.

The entire patent system (especially in the US) has gotten so opaque that
even big companies cannot handle it anymore; evidence the many patent
infringement court cases. Also the "improvement by others" part is
completely ignored.
In my opinion this limits development. We all want (open) standards to
ensure interoperability. No closed, proprietary systems anymore. But this
inherently means we need to use some 'technology' that has been patented by
somebody somewhere.

The European take on patents is more in line with the original idea,
although multinationals are gaining in their push for a more US like
approach. Fortunately in Europe you still need a touchable device to patent.
So an idea cannot be patented, neither is software (which is not touchable).
An algorithm cannot be patented either, unless you implement it in a device.
The patent then covers "A device to ....".

A patent only holds for commercial activities in the country where a patent
is valid. This means if you develop a device that contains technology that
is patented in the US and you make sure that no part of your device ever
touches US soil then you can safely sell the device (but not in the US).
Obviously the original US patent holder wont like you anymore and, if you
make enough money, might use political pressure against you. However as long
as you don’t sell oil you should be safe from invading forces :p

As said before, patents hold for commercial activities. You are allowed to
develop the code which is patented. You are even allowed to publish it (it
is already publish in the patent anyways). Anybody can take your code an
look at it. This is all legal, but might not be appreciated by the original
patent holder.
If somebody takes your code for implementation in a commercial device then
it's that person's responsibility to handle any patent/licensing
issues/fees.
For example the I2C code on OpenCores can safely be downloaded and used by
anybody. However if you implement it in a commercial device you have to
contact Philips to discuss licensing fees (for as long as the original
patent is valid).

Now political pressure can be applied even without patents. For example ARM
holds a patent on the THUMB instruction set architecture. This means you
could safely implement an ARM, as long as you leave out the THUMB
instructions (and other parts that might be patented). However even here
money talks ... ARM successfully pressured organizations (including
OpenCores) to remove any implementations of ARM processors, even though it
is legal to make and publish these implementations. It simply boils down to
who holds up in court the longest.

Finally some thoughts on the current patent law system.
Technology companies want to relax the patent laws, returning to the
original idea of "improvements by others" instead of "protection", because
any device nowadays inherently violates some patent one way or another and
it is impossible to check all patents. So that means a company releases a
product and then has to wait until it gets sued to figure out whether or not
it violated a patent. And with the ridiculous damage claims and awards this
can break a company.

On the other hand medical companies want much stricter patent laws, because
their product is covered by one (or only a few) patents, so it is much
easier to check. Funny enough the most important cases are willingly
violated, for example AIDS medicine which is ridiculously expensive due to
the high licensing costs. So countries violate the patent to generate
generic versions of the drugs in the name of public health protection (which
makes perfect sense to me).

Another weird results of the current system ... The Human Genome Project
made an effort to identify and list the entire human genome system. There's
1 US company that identified the gene that causes increased risk of breast
cancer a few days before the Human Genome Project did. They applied for a
patent and got it...
How can you get a patent on my genes??? Ok, they got a patent for the
identification of that particular gene, but still it's my gene.
Anyways now the medicine to check for increased risk of breast cancer is
1000 times more expensive than it would have been otherwise, simply because
that company now charges licensing fees.
So is the current patent system an improvement for humanity? No way, it's a
way to make companies rich, but doesn't care about the people. Which fits in
the current UCA (United Corporations of America) political climate.

Again my personal views, based on real life facts.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: cores-bounces@o... [mailto:cores-bounces@o...] On
Behalf Of Enrico Weigelt
Sent: 17 April 2008 22:27
To: Discussion list about free open source IP cores
Subject: Re: [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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