Today Is World Day Against Software Patents
Slashdot reports that today has been declared World Day Against Software Patents by the European based Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
They believe that software patents impede innovation and investment.
So depending on what side of this debate one falls on, feel free to either celebrate and promote it, or cringe and rail against it.
My thoughts? First, my bias – I’m not a patent agent, although I do deal with a lot of IP and IT issues, and advise companies that create and sell software or SAAS products. I have mixed feelings about it – but can’t help wonder if there is a good argument that to some extent patent protection has gone too far and can indeed impede innovation. That may be especially true in fields like software where change and innovation happen far more quickly, and from far more sources, than traditional technology.
You should check out a recent report from the McGill Intellectual Property Policy Centre. It specifically identifies the proliferation of patents (and the distrust bred by them) in the biotechnology field as an impediment to innovation. The link is here. I do discuss it briefly on my own blawg as well.