Call to Action
Why do patents kill software?
- Software patents don't work. No economic study supports an application of the patent system on software.
- Software is a quick business. Patents grant a right to exclude competition for 20 years, examination takes 4-5 years.
- Patents were made for the industrial age, not for a service based economy. No wonder, the patent system is expensive, slow and clumpsy.
- Patents reward 'hot air' in software. General conceptions are not scary and the most trivial aspect of software development.
- Patents don't disclose anything useful. Developers who read software patents find these letters are an insult on persons skilled in the art.
- Patent attorneys can write patents with no skills whatsoever in software development. Developers don't write patents.
- Patents create fear. Software patents mean legal ambushes for creators and undermine our ownership over copyrighted works
- Patents mess up the market, undermine open standards and create more litigation.
In return for hot air the patent office grants the applicant a right to harass and ruin businesses who do create software.
We are fed up with this. We want to kill Software Patents.
How can our government kill software patents?
- ban them with substantive clarifications e.g to the European Patent Convention
- get a new software patent directive to ban enforcement of software patents in the EU
- get Patent Offices under control of the Parliament as to let it abide to the law
- get rid of 'technical judges' without legal competence and their "case law"
- get unbiased persons with an economic background in charge of patent system governance
UK petition
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Key issues - global
- Software patents are an untenable political construction based on bogus protectionist economic theory.
- Software patents kill open standards, essential for a healthy digital economy.
- Software patents kill collaborative innovation, an essential motor of our digital economy.
- Software patents create litigation more than any other kind of patent.
Key issues - Europe
- Software patents are a product of the European Patent Office, a non-EU body.
- Software patents are particularly bad for Europe's 85% SME-based economy.
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