Free Patents

Protecting Innovation & Competition in the IT Industry

Against Software Patents

Some people think that software patents are not OK ans should be eliminated.

The League for Programmaing Freedom (Fundamental Site)

Linus Torvalds : "patents as they stand now are a real problem"

During a panel at LinuxWorld, Linus Torvalds said: "I agree that the patents as they stand now are a real problem. Something should be done to make changes to the laws, either making software patents a non-issue by not granting them or making them unenforceable. I don't know how to do that in the next nine months. Start writing your letters now and if they get enough, maybe they won't think you're a crackpot. We need a level-headed person to be an advocate for this."

Thanks to R. Dyroff for this link.

FFII : "After intensive American lobbying efforts, Japan introduced software patents. And the EU is now planning to do the same."

The FFII, a german multilingual non profit organization, is joining the campaign to protect innovation and competition in software industry. According to the FFII, due to past bad experiences with the American software patents system, one could have expected the USA to revise their system. But exactly the opposite occurred. After intensive American lobbying efforts, Japan introduced software patents two years ago. And the EU ais now planning to do the same for summer 1999. 

They publish a calling from Richard M. Stallman stating that "patents could be disastrous for free software and bad for anyone who wants to develop software in Europe".

Haavard Nord (Troll Tech) : "We are strongly against software patents because they prevent competition"

Haavard Nord, CEO of Troll Tech, makers of the Qt Framework, a popular user interface framework for Unix and Windows used by the KDE project, states that "software patents have proven to be more harmful than useful to the industry". more...

Other links

  • A letter to US senators against software patents written by a US engineer 

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Last update by webmaster on Mon Jun 8 00:23:32 1998