Irish developers sound patents warning
26-06-2005
by Ciara O'Brien

Proposed changes in EU patent law may sound the death knell for innovation in the software industry, a number of Irish software developers have said.

Organisations IrishDev and KDE.ie, who say they represent more than 20 percent of software developers in Ireland between them, claim that the proposed software patents will stifle competition and innovation in the software industry.

The Computer-Implemented Inventions directive aims to harmonise existing patent legislation by removing barriers to trade in patented products within the EU. The directive has been widely opposed by small software companies, as well as many in the open source community, despite the fact that trade bodies like ICT Ireland are backing the move.

Following the pro-patent lobbying by a number of Irish organisations and software companies in Brussels, other Irish developers want it known that their position is firmly against, stressing that patents will make designing software almost impossible.

"We are 100 percent opposed," said Fergal Breen, founder member and manager of IrishDev. "We're the programmers, we're the people actually affected by this, and we are strongly opposed."

He claims that it is mainly larger enterprises such as Microsoft and Sun that are in favour of the new directive, and that the R&D sector will be dramatically affected if the proposed directive goes ahead. "It will stifle innovation and it will decrease competition," he said.

At present, a computer programmer does not have to apply to anyone or pay anything to begin writing software. Opponents fear that the new directive will mean programmers will have to go through the lengthy patents process to use certain programming staples.

"We will have to apply to use things that are part of everyday programming," says Breen. He says this situation would be in opposition to the government's efforts to promote the software industry in Ireland, including efforts to encourage innovation and establish Ireland as a digital hub.

Some of the items that are subject to patents already are the humble shopping cart that appears on e-commerce websites, picture links and double clicking. Barry O'Donovan of KDE believes that patenting concepts goes against the original spirit of patent laws, which were established to protect those who made a "substantial discovery."

"The majority of patents are registered outside the EU," Breen explained. "They will have to pay other countries and other continents for the software they create. I can't see the logic in that." O'Donovan also points out that certain companies have been registering patents in anticipation of the laws changing. He raised the question of why companies needed the patents at all. "As it stands, software is already protected under copyright," he said. "It's free and it's instant."

However, ICT Ireland says that the copyright law covers only software code, not the idea. The organisation is in favour of the proposed change and denies it will stifle software development. "All it is doing is harmonising what has been going on over the past 20 years," says Kathryn Raleigh, director, ICT Ireland. She believes the EU is simply harmonising patent laws and protecting intellectual property. She pointed out that only EU patents will be affected by the new directive, and claimed that if software developers have not been affected by patent laws up until now, it was unlikely they would be affected by the new directive.

However, that may not be enough to allay software developers' fears. "Every day we're being told to go ahead and create innovative products," says Breen. "With this, we can't."