Sep 14 2011
Patent wars
Patent Wars spreading through UK, US and Europe
The US has just begun a patent war regarding software. It has been an anticipated war given the issues that have cropped up legally in recent years. It was announced in the second to last week of August 2011 that the European Union would also start to involve itself in the patent wars. They have urged the UK to avoid software patents and the UK government has already come up with a plan that will impose them.
So, what is the deal with regards software patents and why would the EU want to stop the UK from moving forward? Europe is considered a unitary patent, in which unlimited software patents could result. Software patents are a dangerous item to developers because it could mean a monopoly on software ideas. As an example, Google estimates there are about 250,000 patents for the smartphone. These patent ideas keep springing up, but it causes a host of legal issues when someone has a similar idea and a patent for it leading to many companys searching for legal advice .
The consequences are already severe in the US. Multinational companies are asking for the software patents to be spread throughout the world. In 2005, the European parliament took a look at the software patents. They amended a directive to reject that decision. However, they have just undone that directive. Legally the jargon is quite complicated; however, what it meant was pure software ideas could not be patented. It is partially due to the layer of ideas that it takes for software to be created. A lot of software is based on a pure idea that is built and changed in order to make the software different. This is why the pure idea could not be patented legally.
Now all of this might change. It could create a situation in which the base idea is patented and someone would have to pay to use the base idea in order to create their own software that is slightly different.
The unitary patent idea would make it so that no one country could accept a patent on its own. In other words, the other countries would also have the use of that patent in order to make improvements on software. It would extend the patents for use. Though the concept is rather confusing there is a reason for the change of idea regarding software patents. It all comes down to making software available around the world and making technology readily available. It is also so that patent funds can be obtained on a global basis for software.
Whatever the changes will be and whatever the courts decide the battle will be long. It is not going to be an instant decision by any court. It could create issues with software availability in certain industries. However, the consumer may not find the effects right away. Unless they follow what is going on they may not be aware of what is going on in the small scale, but eventually a large scale decision will be rendered.