[ossig] Don't stifle innovation

[Dinesh Nair <dinesh@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

a letter which ditesh, soo hoe and i sent out to in.tech. it's published at 
 
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2005/4/19/itfeature/10659004&sec=itfeature

Don't stifle innovation

WE REFER to the article entitled Slow patenting process threatens 
innovation by M. Krishnamoorthy (see In.Tech, April 5). The article gives 
the impression that the primary indicator of a country's competitiveness 
and technology prowess is the number of patents that it can garner.

  This is misleading and what is even more worrying is the inclusion of 
comments which seem to indicate that the information and communications 
technology (ICT) industry should also be actively pursuing patents.

  The pursuit of patents in the ICT industry will ultimately lead to the 
issuance of software patents. This is a hotly-debated subject as many 
people in the industry are of the view that the recognition of software 
patents will stifle software development and innovation. Presently, the 
European Parliament is in the midst of intense debate on the validity of 
software patents for these very same reasons.

  This is especially so for a country like Malaysia which is just starting 
to develop its software industry and encouraging its developers to branch 
out globally both in software products and services.

  The development of software involves the usage of ideas, processes and 
functions which are abstract, obvious and have been used by many others 
before.

  If these ideas were to be patented, a tremendous amount of resources have 
to be expended to check for patent infringement even before any software 
project can commence. This would effectively create artificial barriers to 
the creation of new software technologies and in the process raises the 
costs associated with creating software.

  Such a scenario is detrimental to Malaysia's ambitions of achieving first 
world status in technology creation.

  Software developers would be forced to commit to patent licensing fees to 
the patent holders (which could run into millions of ringgit) even before 
they have commenced writing a single line of program code. While larger 
software companies may be able to afford these as they will have the 
necessary resources and legal infrastructure in place, the same cannot be 
said for startups.

  These additional burdens will be hefty for startups, many of whom will 
lack the resources needed to tackle this issue.

  Smaller companies will not even be able to afford the resources for a 
proper patent and prior art search, let alone afford the costs of 
challenging patents which are trivial and obvious and should not have been 
granted to begin with. This will smother the nascent software industry we 
have today.

  The In.Tech article also included a comment which suggested that patents 
should be granted more swiftly locally. For the case of software patents, 
if the patents office lacks adequate technical and/or manpower resources, 
this will lead to the danger of patent applications not being adequately 
scrutinised for established usage (prior art) and also the risk of ideas 
and functionalities which are too generic or too abstract being granted 
patents.

  As it stands today, it is already proving to be very difficult for 
patents offices in highly-developed countries like the United States not to 
make mistakes like these. Many examples abound of bad software patents 
being granted and, in some cases, overturned, when challenged in court. 
Again the most affected will be the small startups which lack the legal and 
financial resources to challenge a patent claim.

  Currently software patents are not recognised in Malaysia (as far as we 
know) and it should remain so. Contrary to what some of the individuals 
quoted in the article may imply, there is no chance of Malaysia ever 
achieving technological independence and building our domestic software 
capacity if software patents are allowed.

  Local software developers and companies will suffer as they have little 
or no patent arsenal to fall back on.

  Only the large multinational corporates that have amassed a vast patent 
arsenal will benefit by using these to effectively stifle innovation and to 
establish a commercial monopoly, at the cost of inhibiting Malaysia's 
software capacity.

  Dr Nah Soo Hoe, Dinesh Nair, Ditesh Kumar
  (via e-mail)

-- 
Regards,                           /\_/\   "All dogs go to heaven."
dinesh@alphaque.com                (0 0)    http://www.alphaque.com/
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