Review of software patents and issues

The proposal

Context

Internet software developers are concerned about software patents. Debates on the topic are occurring within standards bodies such as the W3C and the IETF, within and between companies, and among smaller software developers. They are also concerned about changes to copyright law that would provide legal protection for technological protection measures. In both cases the laws in various countries are different, the subject of much controversy, and appear to be changing. As a result, software developers are uncertain whether software they write will be legal worldwide. Often the techniques documented in the patents would not have passed adequately rigorous tests for being useful, novel and unobvious. There is general agreement, even from those who support software patents, that possibly 60% of issued software patents in the USA are invalid.

Legal uncertainty is a deterrent for innovation. Whether Canada grants software patents is not made clear by Canada's Patent Act. Legal opinions have been offered stating that Canada does not grant software patents. Even with these opinions, Canadian software developers are uncertain whether they are protected from the laws of foreign countries which do grant software patents.

About the author

Through offering services to the government (directly or via a reseller/client), and through personal interest in public policy, he has gained experience into the interactions between FLOSS, the Internet, and related government public policy.

Recent related public policy submissions include the 2001 copyright reform consultation and the Innovation Strategy in 2002.

Point-form outline of report

• executive summary
• introduction
• overview of international and national policies on software patents
• overview of challenges and issues
• conclusions and recommendations
• bibliography

Methodology and time-line

• research domestic and international policy on software patents
• draft report delivered to ICT Branch by Friday March 7, and once approved, published on-line on FLORA.ca for community peer-review and feedback
• near-Final report delivered based on feedback from branch and community peer review by Friday March 14
• slide-show presentation created based on report, and presented to branch some time before Wednesday March 26
• final report delivered to branch based on feedback from presentation before Monday March 31, and once approved, published on-line on FLORA.ca
• additional presentation(s), date to be determined, some time after March 31

Note on copyright

Deliverables will include a report and slide-show presentation, in standard OpenOffice.org XML file format (Alternative formats saved from OpenOffice.org 1.0 can also be made available on request). These files should be copyright in such a way to facilitate the open collaboration with the community, such as publishing an HTML version on the FLORA.ca website. One suggestion may be to use the GNU Free Documentation License or similar.

Also delivered in electronic format will be an email archive of any feedback received from the community to the draft report, including any messages used as references within the report. The format will be plain text as well as an HTML translation, configured to be easily viewed using standard web-browsers. It should be assumed this is semi-privileged information to be used by the branch, but not publicly published.

Budget

Based on a rate of $500/day (See: http://www.flora.ca/rates.shtml ), this would be a budget of $4500+GST.