[Fsf-friends] INDIA: Computer programme patenting may brake IT boom

[Anand Babu]

,----[ "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org> ]
| http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1023943.cms
| 
| Computer programme patenting may brake IT boom
| 
| TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005 06:17:58 PM]
| NEW DELHI: Imagine a scenario where a music composer is prevented from
| being inspired by another musician. He has to start from scratch and
| give an entirely new definition to music. Unimaginable, isn't it? Now
| replace 'music' with 'software' and this is what the Indian government
| is seeking to do. Or so some critics argue.
| 
| The amendments to the Indian Patent Act introduced by a recent
| Ordinance will allow all computer programmes to be patented. The
| Indian Patent Act, as modified in 2002, had made "a mathematical
| method or a business method or a computer programme per se or
| algorithms" non-patentable.
| 
| However, the recent amendment changes this phrase defining what cannot
| be patented to "a computer programme per se other than its technical
| application to industry or a combination with hardware, a mathematical
| or business method or algorithms."
| 
| Since any commercial software has some industry application and these
| applications are technical in nature, it opens virtually all software
| to patenting, say the critics of the move.
| 
|   As a booming software nation, can India afford to take such a step
| without harming interests of the industry? These were concerns
| expressed at a press conference organised by the Delhi Science Forum
| on Tuesday.
| 
| The US and Japan, they said, are two countries that have provided for
| patent protection in software, which has adversely impacted smaller
| developers. European Parliament has been forced to defer software
| patenting in the wake of widespread opposition to such a move.
| 
|   A patent in the case of software grants monopoly control over not
| just the 'expression' of a function or idea in computer code, which
| could be covered by copyright, but over the very idea itself.
| 
| Thus, software would be covered by both copyright and patents, perhaps
| the only instance of a product being underpinned by both. Richard
| Stallman, co-developer of the GNU-Linux operating system and proponent
| of free software says, "Since software patents cover software ideas,
| it makes them a dangerous obstacle to all software development."
| 
| An example is Amazon's singleclick agreement. Amazon.com was granted a
| patent on a system that remembers customer credit card data from visit
| to visit, so that customers could, on all visits after their first,
| simply order products and then click once to buy them using a stored
| credit card number.
| 
| After two rounds of litigation, this patent was upheld and Amazon was
| able to prevent its chief competitor, barnesandnoble.com, from using a
| similar system.
| 
| The main argument against software patenting is that it will kill
| innovations, by leaving small firms or software developers liable for
| patent infringements. "That's like saying, be the greatest genius in
| history or don't even try", said Stallman.
| 
| Small developers will always be fighting with their backs to the wall
| as they would not have the financial muscle to compete with dominant
| players in the market.
`----

Nicely written article Fred. We should circulate as much as possible.

-- 
Anand Babu
Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>