[Fsfe-uk] Re: [uk-parl] EC Information Technology "Task Force" - swpat again?

[P.L.Hayes]

James Heald <address@hidden> writes:

> Of the five focal areas to be discussed, one is directly IPRs; another
> is "SMEs and entrepreneurship", which will also explicitly include a
> look at the effects of patents.

"Vice-President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and
industrial policy, said: “This Task Force should provide us with new
ideas and coherent recommendations to promote the competitiveness of
the Europe’s ICT industry."

There's nothing responsible about the EC's activity in this area but
it may well be viewed as coherent if this Task Force is just another
attempt to get a 'balance' of self-serving testimony it can use to
justify economically unjustifiable patent policy and practise:

"The team of researchers at the University of Maastricht in the
Netherlands began their three-year study last December [2004],
examining the legal, technical and economic effects of software
patents on software innovation."

"Ghosh said it seems odd that the Commission would ask for a report on
whether software patent legislation is good or bad for innovation, and
then not wait for the answer."

http://xrl.us/m76v

Seems they're still not prepared to wait and still not interested in
rational and evidence based policy making.

"...What it probably does mean is that the patent system, because of
certain scientific and technological developments of the time, favors
certain types of industry, such as chemical and electronic, and that
this occasions both the accumulation of masses of patents and the
intensive search for new patentable inventions in these industries.
But even this explanation probably exaggerates the role of patent
monopolies in industrial research. It seems very likely that even
without any patents, past, present, or future, firms in these industries
would carry on research, development, and innovation because the
opportunities for the search for new processes and new products are
so excellent in these fields that no firm could hope to maintain its
position in the industry if it did not constantly strive to keep ahead of
its competitors by developing and using new technologies...

...That experts in the chemical, electronic, and other industries
testify that their firms could not maintain their research
laboratories without patent protection may persuade some, but probably
should be discounted as self-serving testimony." -- Fritz Machlup.

Paul.