Askemos Forum

You might be asking: "What does a software patent has to do with security?":

1. Software patents might be used to prevent publication of software. That's what they are made for.
2. Any kind of "due procedure" can be expressed as software. -- And patented.
3. If so done, their publication and/or use is under monopoly control.

Summary: with software patents (logic patents), people can be forced to knowingly do really stupid (illogical) things against their will. Moreover due procedure might be allowed/denied at the discretion of the respective patent owner.

This means:

1. No more free speech (publication of knowledge).
2. No more legal certainty.

The directive formally allienates legal certainty. It should - in theory - be impossible to codify it at all within a democracy. If it is to be established anyway, the parliament job would be to prevent it. So much for the theory.

There is nothing more practical than a sound theory: The most impressive fact about this directive is, how democracy and the parliament are actually ignored in the process of enacting it: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/56890

/Jörg

((PS: I'm asking myself, whether those people really did not understand, that software (logic) patents are eventually applicable to the work of lawyers and lawmakers!))