 Software patents
Thursday, 7 July 2005
According to the free online dictionary of computing a “software patent” is a “patent intended to prevent others from using some programming technique”.
Despite what the big corporations like Microsoft will try to argue, the real reason patents exist is to protect these monopolies against the threat of competition. The software patent debate at Wikipedia is worth a read.
Bill Gates summed it up nicely in his infamously leaked internal memo, in 1991:
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today…The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.”
As we have just learnt, the European Parliament has rejected a proposed law to create a single way of patenting software across the European Union, a blow to big companies who had pushed hard for its adoption.
At least the Europeans got it right.
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