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[Esp-action-alert] FSF's Supreme Court filing: software patents harm pro


From: Ciaran O'Riordan
Subject: [Esp-action-alert] FSF's Supreme Court filing: software patents harm programmers and all computer users
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:37:53 +0100
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.2 (gnu/linux)

(Full text of brief: http://endsoftpatents.org/amicus-bilski-2009 )

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Friday, October 2, 2009 -- The Free Software
Foundation (FSF) today submitted an amicus curiae brief calling on the
Supreme Court to affirm that software ideas are not patentable. After
outlining the positive impact that the free software movement and the GNU
General Public License (GNU GPL) have had on computer use, the brief
explains how software patents are an obstacle and a danger to software
developers.

FSF founder Richard Stallman and the free software movement have been
campaigning worldwide against software patents since the late 1980s, but the
effort in the United States is coming to a head with the Supreme Court now
reviewing patentable scope for the first time since 1981's Diamond v. Diehr
case.

End Software Patents (ESP) executive director Ciaran O'Riordan explained,
"Every software patent is a restriction on software developers and users of
computers, and there are currently 200,000 software patents in the USA. As
well as being an unjust restriction on a common household tool, time has now
also proven software patents to be an economic failure and a hindrance to
the progress of the useful arts. This means they've failed their
constitutional mandate and have no legal legitimacy. The Supreme Court has
itself never authorized the patenting of software ideas, so there's real
hope that this problem can finally be solved."

O'Riordan credited the swpat.org wiki contributors for their help, saying,
"Much of the material for this brief came from our publicly editable wiki at
swpat.org. For each point we decided to make, we used the wiki to find
references and quotes and further information -- and I hope other brief
drafters found it useful too. Contributing to this resource is a great way
for people to get involved in the campaign -- the Bilski case will continue
for months, and there is still much work to be done to eliminate software
patents worldwide."

The 44-page brief further details the commonly noted outrageous risks and
expenses imposed by patents, which leave individuals and small projects
particularly vulnerable, but also highlights the deeper injustices: "This
inability to participate on an even basis amplifies the problem, but there
is also a deeper problem: losing control of one’s computing in his or her
daily life. Because individuals can write software, they can help themselves
and solve their own problems. Given that software development includes
common activities such as making a webpage, the freedom to use a computer as
you see fit for your daily life is a fundamental form of expression, just as
using a pen and paper is. ... In the context of writing an email reader, a
word processor, or an image viewer, being blocked from reading, modifying,
or writing in the required data format is equivalent to being banned from
writing a functional program for that task."

In April of 2008, FSF worked with the End Software Patents (ESP) campaign to
file an amicus curiae brief in the Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit's (CAFC) hearing of the in re Bilski case. In October 2008, the CAFC
issued its ruling, which gutted patents on program ideas running on
general-purpose computers. In June of this year, the Supreme Court decided
to review the case.

The full text of the brief is available online at
http://endsoftpatents.org/amicus-bilski-2009.

More information about the briefs which have been submitted is available at
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Bilski_v._Kappos_amicus_briefs.


About the End Software Patents campaign

End Software Patents is a project formed to eliminate patents for software
and other designs with no physically innovative step. It promotes a US
technology-development environment which will drive innovation and growth in
the global marketplace. End Software Patents receives sponsorship from the
Free Software Foundation. For more information on participating in the
project, or to access its knowledge base, please visit its website at
http://endsoftwarepatents.org/


About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer
programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom)
software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux
variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to
spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use
of software, and its Web sites, f.org and gnu.org, are an important source
of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be
made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.


About Free Software and Open Source

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some,
especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open
source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful
and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics
and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For
more explanation, see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

Media Contacts

Ciaran O'Riordan
Executive Director, End Software Patents
+32 487 64 17 54
esp (at) endsoftwarepatents.org

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