fighting-software-patents.html (7627B)
1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays laws patents" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>Fighting Software Patents 7 - Singly and Together - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/fighting-software-patents.translist" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 10 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 11 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 12 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 13 <div class="article reduced-width"> 14 <h2>Fighting Software Patents - Singly and Together</h2> 15 16 <address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address> 17 18 <p> 19 Software patents are the software project equivalent of land mines: 20 each design decision carries a risk of stepping on a patent, which can 21 destroy your project.</p> 22 <p> 23 Developing a large and complex program means combining many ideas, 24 often hundreds or thousands of them. In a country that allows 25 software patents, chances are that some substantial fraction of the 26 ideas in your program will be patented already by various companies. 27 Perhaps hundreds of patents will cover parts of your program. A study 28 in 2004 found almost 300 US patents that covered various parts of a 29 single important program. It is so much work to do such a study that 30 only one has been done.</p> 31 <p> 32 Practically speaking, if you are a software developer, you will 33 usually be threatened by one patent at a time. When this happens, you 34 may be able to escape unscathed if you find legal grounds to overturn 35 the patent. You may as well try it; if you succeed, that will mean one 36 less mine in the mine field. If this patent is particularly 37 threatening to the public, the <a 38 href="https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/Public_Patent_Foundation"> 39 Public Patent Foundation</a> may take up the case; that is its 40 specialty. If you ask for the computer-using community's help in 41 searching for prior publication of the same idea, to use as evidence 42 to overturn a patent, we should all respond with whatever useful 43 information we might have.</p> 44 <p> 45 However, fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger 46 of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitos will eliminate 47 malaria. You cannot expect to defeat every patent that comes at you, 48 any more than you can expect to kill every monster in a video game: 49 sooner or later, one is going to defeat you and damage your program. 50 The US patent office issues around a hundred thousand software patents 51 each year; our best efforts could never clear these mines as fast as 52 they plant more.</p> 53 <p> 54 Some of these mines are impossible to clear. Every software patent is 55 harmful, and every software patent unjustly restricts how you use your 56 computer, but not every software patent is legally invalid according 57 to the patent system's criteria. The software patents we can overturn 58 are those that result from “mistakes,” where the patent 59 system's rules were not properly carried out. There is nothing we can 60 do when the only relevant mistake was the policy of allowing software 61 patents.</p> 62 <p> 63 To make a part of the castle safe, you've got to do more than kill the 64 monsters as they appear—you have to wipe out the generator that 65 produces them. Overturning existing patents one by one will not make 66 programming safe. To do that, we have to change the patent system so 67 that patents can no longer threaten software developers and users.</p> 68 <p> 69 There is no conflict between these two campaigns: we can work on the 70 short-term escape and the long-term fix at once. If we take care, we 71 can make our efforts to overturn individual software patents do double 72 duty, building support for efforts to correct the whole problem. The 73 crucial point is not to equate “bad” software patents with 74 mistaken or invalid software patents. Each time we invalidate one 75 software patent, each time we talk about our plans to try, we should 76 say in no uncertain terms, “One less software patent, one less 77 menace to programmers: the target is zero.”</p> 78 <p> 79 The battle over software patents in the European Union is reaching a 80 crucial stage. The European Parliament voted a year ago to reject 81 software patents conclusively. In May, the Council of Ministers voted 82 to undo the Parliament's amendments and make the directive even worse 83 than when it started. However, at least one country that supported 84 this has already reversed its vote. We must all do our utmost right 85 now to convince an additional European country to change its vote, and 86 to convince the newly elected members of the European Parliament to 87 stand behind the previous vote. Please refer 88 to <a href="https://ffii.org/">ffii.org</a> for more 89 information on how to help, and to get in touch with other 90 activists.</p> 91 </div> 92 93 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 94 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 95 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 96 <div class="unprintable"> 97 98 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a 99 href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a 100 href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and other 101 corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a 102 href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> 103 104 <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, 105 replace it with the translation of these two: 106 107 We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality 108 translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. 109 Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard 110 to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> 111 <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> 112 113 <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of 114 our web pages, see <a 115 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 116 README</a>. --> 117 Please see the <a 118 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a> for 119 information on coordinating and contributing translations of this article.</p> 120 </div> 121 122 <!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to 123 files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should 124 be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this 125 without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first. 126 Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the 127 document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the 128 document was modified, or published. 129 130 If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 131 Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying 132 years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable 133 year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including 134 being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system). 135 136 There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers 137 Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> 138 139 <p>Copyright © 2004, 2021 Richard Stallman</p> 140 141 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" 142 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative 143 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> 144 145 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> 146 147 <p class="unprintable">Updated: 148 <!-- timestamp start --> 149 $Date: 2021/10/01 10:44:31 $ 150 <!-- timestamp end --> 151 </p> 152 </div> 153 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> 154 </body> 155 </html>