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The software patent threatens |
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Written by Tom Beharrell
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Monday, 14 March 2005 |
Software patents in Europe: The threat prevails.
Soon the European Parliament and the Council of
Ministers will again decide about the legalisation and adoption of
so-called "software patents" in Europe, which are already used by large
companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This
can lead to the termination of many software projects,
at least within Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already
granted "software patents" (currently without a legal foundation) can
claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like
"progress bars", "mouseclicks on online order forms", "scrolling within
a window" and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay
the "software-patentholders" for using these features, even in their
own, completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall
the development of innovative software for small and medium companies.
Apart from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence
is high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is
possibly violating "software-patents", if you want to continue
to market your software. Contrary to real patents, "software-patents"
are, in the draft proposed by the commission, monopolization of business
ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 10 June 2005 )
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