New Zealand has passed a new bill this week, banning software patents in the nation.
The bill in its entirety will be posted as a link at the end of this article, but here is one of the most relevant parts:
We received many submissions concerning the patentability of computer programs. ... Open source, or free, software has grown in popularity since the 1980s. Protecting software by ... [ read the full article ]
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Finally a sensible action. Their contention is absolutely correct. Most of the software is developed using ready made tools of other companies. How many people are actually doing any machine language programming? In any case even at that level all the commands have been developed by the CPU designer manufacturer.
The next step should be banning patenting of shape, size, contour, appearance, etc of a product. Apple can cry a river.
The whole issue of patenting & copyright is in need of serious redesign.
It's about as far away from the original intention as possible, it isn't protecting the artist or inventor and has simply become a vehicle for extracting more money from various people (and businesses).
