Re: [Fsfe-uk] Patenting software in the UK article

[Ramanan Selvaratnam]

Hi all,

I bumped into this one ...with some insight into some patent lawyers who 
talk about defensive protection and offensive strategy in emerging 
technologies!!! It applies to a  country where software patents are legal.

http://www.iploft.com/articles.htm

The last on the list
http://www.iploft.com/KC-Proteo.pdf

makes some very interesting reading. I will keep this as short as I can 
and just say that I will be happy to answer any technical questions on 
the proteomics field to the best of my ability. If the needs be I am 
willing to chase up more informed advice.

What will be relevant to us is 4 of 7 where software is mentioned 
concisely  but with a lot of holes if one were to focus exclusively on 
software...
'Software patents for structure prediction or 3-D visualization tools 
are similar to computer software patents.'
What on earth is this???

'prediction relies on sophisticated search algorithms,
which can be patented in combination with the
database that stores protein information. '
Do they mean the public domain Protein Data Bank (pdb) or equivalents?
Certainly private databases can/do exist but what about the algorithms 
of nature which would surely restrict the possible software algorithms?
(The analogy will be  not a minefield but an narrow path mined heavily)

Also the analysis of the european stage on page 3 is interesting.

'While European spending on proteomics research lags behind the
U.S., several publicly funded research programs have
recently been launched in accordance with the Sixth
Framework Programme (FP6) of the European
Commission, which has devoted an overall budget of
approximately $18 billion to the advancement of the
European research community, of which proteomics
research is a recent addition.[15] '

I am not totally sure as to how public funded projects will be affected 
by software patents but it is clear that a freely distributable software 
 model is the one that will involve more of the public in this often 
alienated field.

There is mention of  EPO later on w.r.t ethics and other factors that 
highlight the growing gulf in patent laws as it applies to biotechnology.
Who will gurantee that the proposed software patents will not be used as 
 the levelling factor to harmonize the transatlantic patent discrepencies.

There could be material here to proove decisively that

-- software patents are a special case and interact with varied fields 
in such complex manners that patent lawyers will ride on top of the 
pervasiveness of software and become *the* intermediaries for technology 
growth.

-- in bioinformatics/proteomics it will entangle software with ethical 
issues and the well established biotechnology industry.
Anyone should know that a laboratory based applied biologist should/need 
not be dependent on weak links like lawyers ( or legal sharks to be 
precise) to interact with the theoretical/computational/statistical 
biology aspects.

IMHO the argument on this should take a view along the lines that we 
should not facilitate dodgy, criminal software companies to interfere 
with drug development and the other future needs that are becoming all 
so important (because software patents allowed it).

Let experts in biotechnology decide what is good for biotechnology w.r.t 
IP as the linked article puts it. Leave software be.

Also the demand for a definition of 'Technical Effect' should humbly ask 
for an inclusive model (everywhere software is/might be used) than the 
usual rhetoric about some online bookshop.

This is all about the interation between software and a field that is 
heavily dependent on software (proteomics/bioinformatics in this case).
If we could somehow clearly draw the boundaries  between software and 
sand such fields, the anti-software patents campaign should make more 
sense to more people.

The software infrastucture related issues for these industries (GRID 
software etc.) are a seperate matter.

For a basic background Wikipedia definitions of 'proteomics' and 'pdb' 
might proove helpful.


Anyone know where I can look up  citation [15] and related strategies as 
above?

Am I going off in a tangent here?

Best wishes,

Ramanan





Robert (Jamie) Munro wrote:
> A friend pointed me to an article about the current state of software
> patenting in UK law. It's written by a British patent attorney, trying to
> get business writing patents for people, but it does make interesting
> reading.
> http://www.fhs.co.uk/software.htm
>
> I liked this line:
> "... lack of clarity inherent in the Technical Effect test means that grant
> of a Patent is more likely to be decided by the inventiveness of the
> attorney rather than the inventiveness of the idea. "
>
> Robert Munro
>
>
>
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