ZDNet UK News
Stallman: Software patents victimise developers
Thursday 28th March 2002
Matt Loney

Part I: Software patents are victimising developers with a system which is making it increasingly difficult to write programs, according to free software guru Richard Stallman

In a talk earlier this week, Richard Stallman described software patents as a sort of lottery, bringing benefits to people only rarely.

Stallman is well known among free software fans as the writer of the GNU Public Licence, the licensing model used by most open-source software writers to ensure that any improvements, additions or changes of any sort to their software is contributed back to the community.

On Monday afternoon Richard Stallman was invited by the Foundation for Information Policy Research to speak at the Cambridge University Computer Lab on the issue of software patents.

Stallman kicked off his talk by explaining that he does not have a problem with patenting individual programs -- "that would be harmless" -- but with patenting ideas. "That is what makes them (patents) a dangerous obstacle to software development."

Equally, the term "intellectual property" should not be used, according to Stallman, because it is biased. "It makes the assumption that you should treat what you're talking about as property. That is not conducive to clear, open-minded thinking."

The following is a transcribed version of Stallman's speech:

Patents are like the lottery
Stallman: Most people who tell you about the patent system have a stake in it, and so they want you to like it. But patents are like the lottery because they only rarely bring benefits to people. Lotteries invite you to think about winning, never about losing, and it is the same with the patenting system.

Let's talk about patents from the point of view of the victims; that is the software developers. The first thing you do after you have an idea for what sort of software you want to write, is to find out what patents may cover the area. This is impossible, because some patent applications pending are secret. They may get published after 18 months, but that is plenty of time for you to write your own program and publish it.

For instance, in 1984 the Compress program was written. At that time there was no patent on the LZW (compression) algorithm, but the LZW patent was pending at the time, and was granted in 1985. Over next few years those who distributed Compress started getting threats. All the Compress programmer did was use an idea he had found in a journal, just like software authors had always done.

The trouble with discovery
Issued patents are published by the patent office, so you can find the whole list, but you could never read the whole list because there are too many of them, and you could not keep track them.

So you would have to search for the related patents ones. Some say that should be easy, and it will work to an extent -- you may find some, but not all. For instance, there was one patent on natural order recalculation in spreadsheets; natural order recalculation means that every cell gets recalculated after the cells it depends on, so that everything is always up to date. This is known as topological sorting. The patent I found in 1963 covered several ways you could implement this sorting, but it did not mention the key words (topological sorting or natural order recalculation). In fact it described as method of combining formulae into object code; when I first saw it I thought it was the wrong patent.

So even if you have a list of patents, try studying them. It is very hard to understand them because they are written in tortuous legal language. There was an Australian government study of the patent system in the 80s and this decided that aside from the fact of international pressure there was no reason to have the system. One thing they found was that engineers do not bother to read patents to understand them because they are too difficult.

So what now? There are three approaches to dealing with patents: avoiding the patent; licensing the patent; or overturning the patent in court.

Next page: What to do about software patents

ZDNet UK's Developer News Section delivers the latest headlines together with the best UK jobs, right to your browser.

Have your say on all developer topics. From j2ee, to C++, from Visual Basic to Javascript plus much more. Share your experience with others on the Developers Forum.

Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.