EU's patent boo-hoos

The European Commission, the legislative policy-making institution of the European Union, has ended their long consultation period concerning software patent laws for the EU. The German Ministry of Economics and Technology slid in their anti-capitalist conclusions on EU software patents to the EC just under the wire on 20 November. According to studies conducted by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and Informational Patent, Copyright and Competition Law, the EU would stifle innovation if allowed to mimic the USA's patent model of protecting the intellectual property rights. The Germans contend that copyright laws rather than patent laws should cover European software developers.

In a nutshell, if you copyright a word processor application, any competitor can replicate your word processor because you can't "own" the idea of a word processor. If you patent an efficient way of correcting the grammar for a word processor, nobody can code a rip off version of your patented grammar-checking app to sell as their own without paying your royalties. To socialists and open source activists around the world, software patents are bad because copyrights are a lot less expensive to win and defend than patents.

The German report to the EC blasted the United States, saying that American-based multinational corporations with deep pockets would find ways to patent their software and leave smaller EU developers (who are obviously much more innovative than any big lumbering corporation like Sun, Apple, Motorola, IBM or Microsoft) high and dry.

I find it hypocritical that the Germans are so anti-software patent, especially when one of the institutions conducting this study has benefited from US software patent laws. Since 1996, Fraunhofer-IIS has successfully defended US patent #5,579,430 on every software MP3 encoder sold in the United States. For all software MP3 encoders, freely distributed or not, the royalties paid to Fraunhofer are $25 (US) per encoder. At 25 bucks per encoder and 90 percent of an estimated one billion PC desktops running some flavor of Microsoft Windows, it's no secret that Microsoft didn't include MP3 encoding capabilities in their free Windows Media Player software.

Security over privacy

The disgusting abuse of Ben Franklin's quote from 1784: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," continues unabated by so-called civil libertarians. Left-wing pundits and nutty anarchists-in-libertarian's-clothing picture President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft shredding the Constitution during morning Bible study, plotting how best to throw the evildoers (codeword for anyone who is not a white Christian speaker of the English language) out of the good ol' U S of A. I don't pity those of you who believe this, because after eight years of conditioning I recognize that being "mentally challenged" is not something to be pitied, but respected for your diversity.

One celebrity electronic privacy advocate, Richard Smith of the Privacy Foundation, has stepped down from his post as the organization's Chief Technology Officer. Smith, a brilliant programmer and technologist, recently said "Most citizens, including me, have now put privacy concerns on the back burner. September 11 completely changed everything, and one of the things it changed is that people are far less concerned about what the private sector is doing with information, and far more concerned about what the government is doing to keep them safe."

This is a significant turnaround for Smith who has concentrated on keeping security cameras and email "wiretaps" out of the hands of the US government during his two-year tenure at the Privacy Foundation. In an interview with Wired magazine, Smith recounted how the attack of the eleventh changed him. "The first day I was just numb, wondering if anyone I knew had been killed. Then over the next couple of weeks I watched as information about the hijackers was pulled out of various databases such as the Internet reservations sites where they had booked their tickets, photos from security cameras and the ATMs they had used, and I started seeing that all the data collected as we go about our daily lives can be used for a very good purpose; such as tracking down murderers."

Smith still thinks that the notorious "face-scanning" video surveillance technology remains ineffective to fight terrorism, but says that "a lot of money is going to be spent on security," by the Office of Homeland Security and he notes "I'd like to help ensure that we all make wise investments." I am very glad to have Mr. Smith on our side in the war on terror.

Apple iPod needs a Microsoft Windows interface

Microsoft has gone out of their way recently to accommodate Apple Macintosh users. Although the Mac crowd will complain that Steve Jobs "sold out" to Bill Gates, the fact of the matter is that Apple has greatly benefited from Microsoft investments in Apple technology. Microsoft makes no apologies for giving Mac users an email client and contact manager better than Outlook with Microsoft Entourage and the newest version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS X is getting great reviews across the board. What does Apple do to accommodate Windows users? They make their new Apple iPod MP3 players work only on Apple Macintosh computers.

I have not had a chance to play with an iPod, but it is basically the same thing as SonicBlue's venerable Rio line of portable MP3 players. The catch is that the iPod stores 5GB of music compared to 384MB on a Rio. Of course the Rio will work on both a Mac and Windows PC and costs a third of what an iPod does (iPods retail for $399). Sales for the iPod have not been as brisk as Apple had hoped, so I expect that there will soon be an iPod iTunes2 music manager software version for Windows. If anyone from Apple is reading, the software should be no more than $19.95 and available in every CompUSA and Best Buy stores BEFORE Christmas. People bought the Rio because it was the only MP3 player available two years ago and now people want one thing out of their portable MP3 players: high capacity storage. The Apple iPod wins in this category, but nobody is going to pay $400 for an MP3 player that requires a $900 computer to make it work.

Send me your comments: scott@worldtechtribune.com
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