At TACD's Brussels conference, we've had an interesting panel that recounted the campaing about software patents in Europe. The panel consisted of the liberal EU parliamentarian Sharon Bowles, who is also a patent lawyer; the (not very) covert Microsoft activist Jonathan Zuck; and Florian Müller nosoftwarepatents.com

While there were a lot of the old arguments tossed about, there were some interesting points. Sharon Bowles made a rather daring point when she said that "I never knew a single patent attorney who wanted [american style software patents]". To her mind, there's an area that shouldn't be covered by patents, but as she presumably didn't feel like it, she couldn't define that. Defining it would cause great "collateral damage" to the "electronics industry".

All speakers feigned to be blissfully unaware that software is protected by copyright, and that this does not seem to have harmed the industry so far. Some more far-out claims were that software patents would somehow be an answer to the problem of illicit copying of proprietary software. Mind you, this is not your local coffee-house chat. These people are experts in their field. It's probably best to see any such mistakes as intentional.

A more interesting argument came from Jonathan Zuck, who says that his organisation represents about 3000 small and medium enterprises (try joining, it's free and they don't vote). When I mentioned that software protection happens via copyright, he added that software is also protected by trade secrets. But trade secrets are becoming less feasible due to concerns about interoperability, state sovereignty.

Though minor, this is a point we might want to prepare ourselves to run into more frequently in the future. He didn't answer to my question about how large a percentage the five largest funders of his organisation contribute.

Sharon was kind enough to give a hint for those aspiring to have something patented. Since it's already impossible for patent lawyers to do a reasonably good clearance of prior art - i.e. to check that the invention doesn't already exist - she recommends that you should just apply for a patent and let the reviewers do the checking. According to her, that is the cheapest way to do it.

The ensuing discussion reached a charming conclusion when a German physicist got up and spoke rather passionately about how stupid the idea of patenting software is, since it amounts to patenting mathematic formulae. Though rather new to the debate, he hit the core point: It really *is* a stupid idea to patent mathematic formulae. Period.

For those who read German, Stefan Krempl of heise.de is reporting from this conference. (Thanks, Markus)

The consumer group organisation Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) has organised a really interesting conference in Brussels. Today and tomorrow, about 130 participants will listen to panels and discuss among themselves. Most of the attendants come from the reform-oriented side of the debate, but there are some traditionally minded patent and copyright attorneys as well. As they're asking their usual questions (though usually in a more constructive spirit than at WIPO), this is a nice training ground for debates.

In the opening panel, Peter Drahos (I highly recommend his excellent books gave an excellent presentation about the historical and intellectual background of the system of intellectual monopoly rights.

He explained the concept of negative and positive Commons: In the negative Commons, nothing is owned by anyone, but everyone is allowed to appropriate valuable assets. In the positive Commons, appropriating something requires the consent of all Commoners.

The oft-cited "Tragedy of the Commons", which Drahos criticised as "ahistorical", according to him really only refers to the negative Commons. Positive Commons have historically worked very well. In certain circumstances, they can administer resources much more efficiently than markets or government regulation.

During the morning panels, there were various presentations about the different aspects of the system of intellectual monopoly rights which are causing problems, above all the great power of the rightsholders lobby. Susan Sell of the George Washington University pointedly remarked: Intellectual property has been turned from servant (of public policy goals) into master".

There were many more interesting presentations, too many to summarise here. Philippe Aigrain laudably enough has his online here (.pdf, also as .lyx source). I'll do my best to keep up throughout the afternoon.