http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1023943.cms

Computer programme patenting may brake IT boom

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005 06:17:58 PM] NEW DELHI: Imagine a scenario where a music composer is prevented from being inspired by another musician. He has to start from scratch and give an entirely new definition to music. Unimaginable, isn't it? Now replace 'music' with 'software' and this is what the Indian government is seeking to do. Or so some critics argue.

The amendments to the Indian Patent Act introduced by a recent Ordinance will allow all computer programmes to be patented. The Indian Patent Act, as modified in 2002, had made "a mathematical method or a business method or a computer programme per se or algorithms" non-patentable.

However, the recent amendment changes this phrase defining what cannot be patented to "a computer programme per se other than its technical application to industry or a combination with hardware, a mathematical or business method or algorithms."

Since any commercial software has some industry application and these applications are technical in nature, it opens virtually all software to patenting, say the critics of the move.

As a booming software nation, can India afford to take such a step without harming interests of the industry? These were concerns expressed at a press conference organised by the Delhi Science Forum on Tuesday.

The US and Japan, they said, are two countries that have provided for patent protection in software, which has adversely impacted smaller developers. European Parliament has been forced to defer software patenting in the wake of widespread opposition to such a move.

A patent in the case of software grants monopoly control over not just the 'expression' of a function or idea in computer code, which could be covered by copyright, but over the very idea itself.

Thus, software would be covered by both copyright and patents, perhaps the only instance of a product being underpinned by both. Richard Stallman, co-developer of the GNU-Linux operating system and proponent of free software says, "Since software patents cover software ideas, it makes them a dangerous obstacle to all software development."

An example is Amazon's singleclick agreement. Amazon.com was granted a patent on a system that remembers customer credit card data from visit to visit, so that customers could, on all visits after their first, simply order products and then click once to buy them using a stored credit card number.

After two rounds of litigation, this patent was upheld and Amazon was able to prevent its chief competitor, barnesandnoble.com, from using a similar system.

The main argument against software patenting is that it will kill innovations, by leaving small firms or software developers liable for patent infringements. "That's like saying, be the greatest genius in history or don't even try", said Stallman.

Small developers will always be fighting with their backs to the wall as they would not have the financial muscle to compete with dominant players in the market.

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