UK defies US on software patents

By Will Knight
Mon, 12 Mar 2001 12:47:24 GMT
URL: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2001/10/ns-21514.html


In a move that could sway an impending European-wide decision, the UK
government says software patent laws should not be extended to cover
business processes

The British government has announced that it will oppose changes to
European law that would expand software patenting to cover business
methods.

Following public consultation on the controversial issue, entitled Should
Patents Be Granted for Computer Software or Ways of Doing Business?, the
e-minister Patricia Hewitt announced on Monday that the UK will not
change its patent law. She said that business methods should remain
unpatentable and called for "urgent" clarification by the European
commission on its plans.

Current UK and European Union rules allow patents only on software that
has a specific technical effect, such as compression algorithms. In the
US, firms can patent software that facilitates business processes.

Critics of the proposed changes say that extending software patents, in
line with US law, would be anti-competitive and disadvantage small and
independent software developers. In the US, patents can be granted for
more general business processes: online book retailer Amazon.com famously
issued a law suit against arch rival Barnes and Noble for infringing on
its patent for its 1-Click shopping process, which lets repeat shoppers
purchase items without having to re-enter personal information. Last week
the US court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed
(http://news/news/2001/9/ns-21479.html) Amazon's request for an
injunction that would have stopped Barnes and Noble using a similar
process on its own site.

Other companies that have filed controversial patents in the US include
Priceline.com, which holds a patent for its "name your own price" reverse
auction procedure. The US patent office last year agreed to review its
process for awarding such patents.

In the UK, the patent office says that European law on what types of
software processes can be patented is dangerously unclear. A spokesman
said he believes this may have disadvantaged the software industry in
Europe.

The Europe Commission is currently debating the issue. The European
Patent Office voted (http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/46/ns-19262.html)
in January against plans to change the European Patent Convention to
allow patenting of business methods, but the Commission is known to be
split (http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2001/9/ns-21494.html) over the issue.
The topic is undergoing public consultation
(http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2001/1/ns-20206.html) and the European
Commission has said it will issue a directive in March.

The UK government will recommend that the rest of Europe adopts its
position. "Patent law is harmonised under the European Patent Convention,
and we shall be recommending the conclusions we have reached to our
European partners," said consumer affairs minister Dr Kim Howells. "In
particular we shall press for clarification of European patent law to put
an end to uncertainty about what software can and cannot be patented. The
consultation showed that at present there is confusion, and that [this
confusion] is damaging."

The announcement was due to be made over a week ago, according to
government sources, but was delayed by concern among senior civil
servants that going against any policy adopted by the US would be
commercially unwise.

The government's opposition to extending software patenting to business
methods will be welcomed
(http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/46/ns-19209.html) by the open source
community, which shares concern that it could hamper some developers. The
open source community shares software source code and encourages free and
independent software development.

Alan Cox, one of the key developers of the Linux kernel, the core of the
open source Linux operating system, weclomed the government's decision.
"I am pleasantly suprised," he says in an email. "I had expected business
patents to be thrown out but the conclusions on software are pretty sane
too. The government has accepted that software patentability is a bad
model and that it harms SME's. I'm also very pleased there is a desire to
clarify the curent law."

Linux, a Unix-like operating system created by a group of disparate
programmers, is regarded as one of the prime examples of open source
success and Linux has been adopted by many major traditional technology
firms including Intel and IBM.

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