Software Patent - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A Patent that covers a software "invention".

Patents on software are just as wrong as expanding the patent system to literature. With patents on story elements, no movie could be published without having to firstly check whether there is any general idea in the storyline that someone patented during the last 20 years. Here's an example: At first sight, Dirty Dancing and Titanic are two very distinct movies. However, if there were patents on story elements, then the makers of Dirty Dancing could have sued the studio of Titanic. Both movies have a scene in which a poor boy takes a rich girl from a party of her social peers to a dancing party of his group, and she enjoys it. Dirty Dancing came out only nine years before Titanic, so any patent would still have been in force. No one knows whether James Cameron had that Dirty Dancing scene in mind as he wrote the Titanic script. Maybe Cameron never saw Dirty Dancing but the patent (if it existed) could be used against him anyway.
--from "Thoughts Are Free!"

SoftwarePatents are granted in the US and the EU. They're not actually currently legal in the EU, but the European council is pushing for unlimited patentability of software. The draft of the legislation has been ratified, but has not been formally accepted.

FFII: Software Patents in Europe
Association Electronique Libre FightingSWPatents
No Software Patents! (a very clean, neatly organized site well worth reading)
Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe
Quotations on Software Patents

Software Patents and New Zealand

Current Situation - The Law

The NewZealand Ministry of Economic Development has an online "info-sheet" with a summary about Patent Protection.

The following extract seems highly relevant to this discussion:: In New Zealand the two main criteria for the granting of a patent are:

It is new: An invention is considered to be new if a description of the invention has not been published in New Zealand before the filing date of the application. No notice is taken of information published outside New Zealand but not publicly available within New Zealand.
It is a "manner of new manufacture": This has been interpreted by the Courts to exclude such things as "products of nature", mathematical operations, bare principles, mathematical algorithms, schemes or plans and methods of medical treatment of humans.

On the face of it (to a layman), that seems to disallow the granting of patents for an "invention" implemented solely in software.

You can search the patent database at the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (cookies required).

Current practices/implementation

While the wording above seems to rule out software patents being awarded in New Zealand, there have been a number of patents awarded that could cause concern for software developers and users in New Zealand.

The most notable are:

Microsoft and XML

Microsoft were awarded New Zealand patent 525484, filed in April 2003. This patent appears to cover the use of an XML Schema created by Microsoft.

See http://www.nzoss.org.nz/portal/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=284 and http://www.nzoss.org.nz/portal/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=290

Microsoft then offer a "royalty-free" licence for use of the patented XML format, although the licence is (perhaps deliberately) incompatible with many Free software licences.

DE Technologies

New Zealand patent number 505284 was granted in January 2002. It is entitled "Universal shopping center for international operation".

A quote under the heading "Technical Field" from the first page of the patent:

[...] In particular, the present invention is directed to the facilitation of international purchasing of goods over the internet/intranet, addressing all aspects of such transactions.

A site formed to prevent the patent from being enforced in New Zealand.

Media Coverage:

Perhaps the above examples of bad patents are just that... patents that got through because the patent examiner thought "it looked technical enough" or something. Maybe these would be invalidated by a court if contested.