savingeurope.html (8765B)
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>Saving Europe from Software Patents - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 7 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/savingeurope.translist" --> 8 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 10 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 11 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 12 <div class="article reduced-width"> 13 <h2>Saving Europe from Software Patents</h2> 14 <div class="thin"></div> 15 16 <p> 17 Imagine that each time you made a software design decision, and 18 especially whenever you used an algorithm that you read in a journal 19 or implemented a feature that users ask for, you took a risk of being 20 sued.</p> 21 <p> 22 That's how it is today in the US, because of software patents. Soon 23 it may be the same in most of Europe (<a href="#ft1">1</a>). The 24 countries that operate the European Patent Office, spurred by large 25 companies and encouraged by patent lawyers, are moving to allow 26 patents covering mathematical computations.</p> 27 <p> 28 To block this move, European citizens must take action, and do it 29 soon—by talking with their national governments to raise 30 opposition to the change. Action in Germany, Sweden, Finland, the 31 Netherlands, and/or Denmark is especially important, to join a 32 campaign already under way in France.</p> 33 <p> 34 Patents have played havoc with free software already. During the 35 1980s, the patent holders for public key encryption entirely 36 suppressed free software for that job. They wanted to suppress 37 PGP too, but facing 38 public criticism, they accepted a compromise: adding restrictions to 39 PGP so that it was no longer free software. (We 40 began developing the GNU Privacy Guard after the broadest patent 41 expired.)</p> 42 <p> 43 Compuserve developed 44 GIF format for images, then was stunned when Unisys threatened 45 to sue them and everyone else who developed or ran software to produce 46 GIFs. Unisys had obtained a patent on 47 the LZW data compression 48 algorithm, which is one part of generating GIF format, 49 and refuses to permit free software to use LZW 50 (<a href="#ft2">2</a>). As a result, any free software in the US that 51 supports making true compressed GIFs is at risk of a 52 lawsuit.</p> 53 <p> 54 In the US and some other countries, free software 55 for MP3(<a href="#ft3">3</a>) is impossible; in 1998, US 56 developers who had developed free MP3-generation programs 57 were threatened with patent lawsuits, and forced to withdraw them. 58 Some are now distributed in European countries—but if the 59 European Patent Office makes this planned change, they may become 60 unavailable there too.</p> 61 <p> 62 Later in 1998, Microsoft menaced the World Wide Web, by obtaining a 63 patent affecting style sheets—after encouraging the WWW 64 Consortium to incorporate the feature in the standard. It's not the 65 first time that a standards group has been lured into a patent's maw. 66 Public reaction convinced Microsoft to back down from enforcing this 67 patent; but we can't count on mercy every time.</p> 68 <p> 69 The list could go on and on, if I had time to look through my old mail 70 for examples and space to describe them.</p> 71 <p> 72 On the issue of patents, free software developers can make common 73 cause with most proprietary software developers, because in general 74 they too stand to lose from patents. So do the many developers of 75 specialized custom software.</p> 76 <p> 77 To be sure, not everyone loses from software patents; if that were so, 78 the system would soon be abolished. Large companies often have many 79 patents, and can force most other companies, large or small, to 80 cross-license with them. They escape most of the trouble patents 81 cause, while enjoying a large share of the power patents confer. This 82 is why the chief supporters of software patents are multinational 83 corporations. They have a great deal of influence with governments.</p> 84 <p> 85 Occasionally a small company benefits from a patent, if its product is 86 so simple that it escapes infringing the large companies' patents and 87 thus being forced to cross-license with them. And patent owners who 88 develop no products, but only squeeze money out of those who do, can 89 laugh all the way to the bank while obstructing progress.</p> 90 <p> 91 But most software developers, as well as users, lose from software 92 patents, which do more to obstruct software progress than to encourage 93 it.</p> 94 <p> 95 People used to call free software an absurd idea, saying we lacked the 96 ability to develop a large amount of software. We have refuted them 97 with empirical fact, by developing a broad range of powerful software 98 that respects users' freedom. Giving the public the full spectrum of 99 general-purpose software is within our reach—unless giving 100 software to the public is prohibited.</p> 101 <p class="important"> 102 Software patents threaten to do that. The time to take action is now. 103 Please visit <a href="https://ffii.org/">ffii.org</a> for more 104 information, plus detailed suggestions for action. And please take 105 time to help.</p> 106 <div class="column-limit"></div> 107 108 <h3 class="footnote">Footnotes</h3> 109 110 <ol> 111 <li id="ft1">The European Patent Office, used by many European 112 countries, has issued quite a number of patents that affect software, 113 which were presented as something other than software patents. The 114 change now being considered would open the door to unlimited patenting 115 of algorithms and software features, which would greatly increase the 116 number of software patents issued.</li> 117 118 <li id="ft2">Unisys issued a cleverly worded statement which is 119 often taken to permit free software for making GIFs, but 120 which I believe does not do so. I wrote to their legal department to 121 ask for clarification and/or a change in the policy, but received no 122 reply.</li> 123 124 <li id="ft3">As of 2017 the patents on playing MP3 files have 125 reportedly expired.</li> 126 </ol> 127 </div> 128 129 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 130 131 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 132 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 133 <div class="unprintable"> 134 135 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 136 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 137 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 138 the FSF. 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