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From: |
Pavel Kharitonov |
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Subject: |
www/philosophy limit-patent-effect.html |
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Date: |
Sat, 02 Feb 2013 09:01:21 +0000 |
CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Pavel Kharitonov <ineiev> 13/02/02 09:01:21
Modified files:
philosophy : limit-patent-effect.html
Log message:
Update boilerplate to 1.72.
Use <h3> for titles of the sections.
Use absolute URLs for www.gnu.org articles.
Use HTML entities for —, ”, “, ….
Fix spacings.
Consistently use "US" rather than "U.S.".
Update copyright year.
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/limit-patent-effect.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.1&r2=1.2
Patches:
Index: limit-patent-effect.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/limit-patent-effect.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -b -r1.1 -r1.2
--- limit-patent-effect.html 31 Jan 2013 22:13:34 -0000 1.1
+++ limit-patent-effect.html 2 Feb 2013 09:01:21 -0000 1.2
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
-<!-- Parent-Version: 1.71 -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.72 -->
<title>Giving the Software Field Protection from Patents
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
-<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/limit-patent-effect.translist" -->
+<!--#set var="article_name" value="/philosophy/limit-patent-effect" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/gnun/initial-translations-list.html" -->
<h2>Giving the Software Field Protection from Patents</h2>
<p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/";><strong>Richard
@@ -14,32 +15,33 @@
in November 2012.</em></p>
<p>Patents threaten every software developer, and the patent wars we have
-long feared have broken out. Software developers and software users
--- which in our society, is most people -- need software to be free of
-patents.</p>
-
-<p>The patents that threaten us are often called "software patents", but
-that term is misleading. Such patents are not about any specific
-program. Rather, each patent describes some practical idea, and says
-that anyone carrying out the idea can be sued. So it is clearer to
-call them "computational idea patents".</p>
-
-<p>The U.S. patent system doesn't label patents to say this one's a
-"software patent" and that one isn't. Software developers are the
-ones who make a distinction between the patents that threaten us --
-those that cover ideas that can be implemented in software -- and the
-rest. For example, if the patented idea is the shape of a physical
-structure or a chemical reaction, no program can implement that idea;
-that patent doesn't threaten the software field. But if the idea
-that's patented is a computation, that patent's barrel points at
-software developers and users.</p>
+long feared have broken out. Software developers and software
+users—which in our society, is most people—need software
+to be free of patents.</p>
+
+<p>The patents that threaten us are often called “software
+patents”, but that term is misleading. Such patents are not
+about any specific program. Rather, each patent describes some
+practical idea, and says that anyone carrying out the idea can be
+sued. So it is clearer to call them “computational idea
+patents”.</p>
+
+<p>The US patent system doesn't label patents to say this one's a
+“software patent” and that one isn't. Software developers
+are the ones who make a distinction between the patents that threaten
+us—those that cover ideas that can be implemented in
+software—and the rest. For example, if the patented idea is the
+shape of a physical structure or a chemical reaction, no program can
+implement that idea; that patent doesn't threaten the software field.
+But if the idea that's patented is a computation, that patent's barrel
+points at software developers and users.</p>
<p>This is not to say that computational idea patents prohibit only
-software. These ideas can also be implemented in hardware -- and many
-of them have been. Each patent typically covers both hardware <em>and </em>
-software implementations of the idea.</p>
+software. These ideas can also be implemented in hardware—and
+many of them have been. Each patent typically covers both hardware
+<em>and</em> software implementations of the idea.</p>
-<p>The Special Problem of Software</p>
+<h3>The Special Problem of Software</h3>
<p>Still, software is where computational idea patents cause a special
problem. In software, it's easy to implement thousands of ideas
@@ -48,27 +50,29 @@
<p>When Dan Ravicher of the Public Patent Foundation studied one large program
(Linux, which is the kernel of the
-<a href="http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html";>GNU/Linux</a> operating
system) in
+<a href="/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html"> GNU/Linux</a> operating system) in
2004, he found 283 US patents that appeared to cover computing ideas
implemented in the source code of that program. That same year, a
magazine estimated that Linux was .25% of the whole GNU/Linux system.
Multiplying 300 by 400 we get the order-of-magnitude estimate that the
system as a whole was <em>threatened by around 100,000 patents</em>.</p>
-<p>If half of those patents were eliminated as "bad quality" -- i.e.,
-mistakes of the patent system that is -- it would not really change things.
-Whether 100,000 patents or 50,000, it's the same disaster. This is why it's a
-mistake to limit our criticism of software patents to just "patent
-trolls" or "bad quality" patents. The worst patent aggressor
-today is Apple, which isn't a "troll" by the usual definition; I don't
-know whether Apple's patents are "good quality", but the better the
-patent's "quality" the more dangerous its threat.</p>
+<p>If half of those patents were eliminated as “bad
+quality”—i.e., mistakes of the patent system that
+is—it would not really change things. Whether 100,000 patents
+or 50,000, it's the same disaster. This is why it's a mistake to
+limit our criticism of software patents to just “patent
+trolls” or “bad quality” patents. The worst patent
+aggressor today is Apple, which isn't a “troll” by the
+usual definition; I don't know whether Apple's patents are “good
+quality”, but the better the patent's “quality” the
+more dangerous its threat.</p>
<p>We need to fix the whole problem, not just part.</p>
<p>The usual suggestions for correcting this problem legislatively
-involve changing the criteria for granting patents -- for instance, to
-ban issuance of patents on computational practices and systems to
+involve changing the criteria for granting patents—for instance,
+to ban issuance of patents on computational practices and systems to
perform them. This approach has two drawbacks.</p>
<p>First, patent lawyers are clever at reformulating patents to fit
@@ -76,7 +80,7 @@
substance of patents into a requirement of mere form. For instance,
many US computational idea patents describe a system including an
arithmetic unit, an instruction sequencer, a memory, plus controls to
-carry out a particular computation.This is a peculiar way of
+carry out a particular computation. This is a peculiar way of
describing a computer running a program that does a certain
computation; it was designed to make the patent application satisfy criteria
that the US patent system was believed for a time to require.</p>
@@ -91,16 +95,16 @@
privileges at the expense of the public's rights but that it can't go
in the other direction.)</p>
-<p>A Different Approach: Limit Effect, Not Patentability</p>
+<h3>A Different Approach: Limit Effect, Not Patentability</h3>
-<p>My suggestion is to change the <em>effect</em> of patents. We should
legislate
-that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used
-computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement. This approach has
-several advantages:</p>
+<p>My suggestion is to change the <em>effect</em> of patents. We
+should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program
+on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent
+infringement. This approach has several advantages:</p>
<ul>
<li>It does not require classifying patents or patent applications as
-"software" or "not software".</li>
+“software” or “not software”.</li>
<li>It provides developers and users with protection from both existing
and potential future computational idea patents.</li>
<li>Patent lawyers cannot defeat the intended effect by writing
@@ -117,11 +121,12 @@
<p>Software developers and software users need protection from patents.
This is the only legislative solution that would provide full
-protection for all. We could then go back to competing or cooperating
-... without the fear that some stranger will wipe away our work.</p>
+protection for all. We could then go back to competing or
+cooperating… without the fear that some stranger will wipe away
+our work.</p>
<p><em>See also:
-<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/patent-reform-is-not-enough.html";>
+<a href="/philosophy/patent-reform-is-not-enough.html">
Patent Reform Is Not Enough</a></em></p>
</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
@@ -151,17 +156,36 @@
href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a> for
information on coordinating and submitting translations of this article.</p>
-<p>Copyright © 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+ files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+ be under CC BY-ND 3.0 US. Please do NOT change or remove this
+ without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+ Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+ document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+ document was modified, or published.
+
+ If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+ Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+ years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+ year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+ being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+
+ There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+ Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright © 2012, 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/";>Creative
Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License</a>.
</p>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
<p>
Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2013/01/31 22:13:34 $
+$Date: 2013/02/02 09:01:21 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
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