The European Parliament has a department called “Scientific Technology Options Assessment” or STOA. STOA has recently announced a report on the European patents system, outlining policy options for improving the system. As readers know, patent systems tend to be a controversial issue and theSTOA’s preliminary report was therefore the hotly debated in a seminar back in June 2007.
But living up to its name, the STOA remained rather stoic and didn’t take any of the concerns voiced by stakeholders into account – nowhere does it mention that patenting costs are hampering innovative SMEs in Europe, which it needs so badly in order to continue growing.
But no, stop, the Danish Board of Technology, charged with drafting the report, did add another paragraph, just one. It talks about software patents, saying that too strong IPRs on software and too strict enforcement may stifle the “general progress of technology as a whole”. This is because software isn’t just a commercial product, but also “at the basis of further software development. Accordingly, bits and pieces of existing programmes are taken by software developers worldwide to develop new software tools.”
But, what technology SHOULD qualify for patent protection under that logic? OLED displays are merely a the basis for further development of computer monitors, televisions, and thousands of other technologies that will be developed in the future. The engine that Karl Benz invented in 1878 was not just a "commercial product," but the basis of further engine, automobile, boat, and other technological development. And the patenting of that invention did not stall the general progress of technology, it fueled it.
That is the essential bargain of the patent system. Someone agrees to publish the design of an invention publicly in return for government protection of that invention for a limited time. It is designed to fuel new innovation by giving scientists and inventors insight into the work of their colleagues around the world and incentives to continue their work.
There are certainly efforts that can be made to improve the world’s patent systems and raise quality, especially in the newer fields of scientific endeavor like software, but STOA’s new argument for weakening patent protection holds no merit.
Loosening patent protection could in fact have dangerous effects on the IT sector. If you decrease the rewards associated with innovation, who will invest the extensive resources that are needed to develop truly innovative code and then test it again and again?
Software is important. This is why we need to encourage innovation. Without appropriate returns on innovations, inventors will not bother to fight their corner against their ever more active competitors in Indian and Chinese computer labs. This is the way to achieve the social and economic benefits to which the STOA repeatedly refers.