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{\huge
Saving Europe from Software Patents}\footnote{
From \htmladdnormallink{
LinuxToday, 16 May, 1999}{http://features.linuxtoday.com/stories/5960.html}
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{\small 
\htmladdnormallink{RICHARD M. STALLMAN}{mailto:rms@gnu.org}
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Imagine that each time you made a software design decision, and
especially whenever you used an algorithm that you read in a journal
or implemented a feature that users ask for, you took a risk of being
sued.

That's how it is today in the US, because of software patents.  Soon
it may be the same in most of Europe.\footnote{  
The European Patent Office, used by many European countries, has
issued quite a number of patents that affect software, which were
presented as something other than software patents.  The change now
being considered would open the door to unlimited patenting of
algorithms and software features, which would greatly increase the
number of software patents issued.
}
The countries that operate
 the European Patent Office, spurred by large 
companies and encouraged
 by patent lawyers, are moving to allow 
patents covering mathematical
 computations.

To block this move, European citizens must take action, and do it
soon---by talking with their national governments to raise opposition
to the change.  Action in Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands,
and/or Denmark is especially important, to join a campaign already
under way in France.

Patents have played havoc with free software already.  During the
1980s, the patent holders for public key encryption entirely
suppressed free software for that job.  They wanted to suppress PGP
too, but facing public criticism, they accepted a compromise: adding
restrictions to PGP so that it was no longer free software.  (We began
developing the GNU Privacy Guard after the broadest patent expired.)

Compuserve developed GIF format for images, then was stunned when
Unisys threatened to sue them and everyone else who developed or ran
software to produce GIFs.  Unisys had obtained a patent on the LZW
data compression algorithm, which is one part of generating GIF
format, and refuses to permit free software to use LZW.\footnote{
Unisys issued a cleverly worded statement which is often taken to
permit free software for making GIFs, but which I believe does not do
so.  I wrote to their legal department to ask for clarification and/or
a change in the policy, but received no reply.
}
As a
 result, any free software in the US that supports making true
compressed GIFs is at risk of a lawsuit.

In the US and some other countries, free software for MP3 is
impossible; in 1998, US developers who had developed free
MP3-generation programs were threatened with patent lawsuits, and
forced to withdraw them.  Some are now distributed in European
countries---but if the European Patent Office makes this planned
change, they may become unavailable there too.

Later in 1998, Microsoft menaced the World Wide Web, by obtaining a
patent affecting style sheets---after encouraging the WWW Consortium to
incorporate the feature in the standard.  It's not the first time that
a standards group has been lured into a patent's maw.  Public reaction
convinced Microsoft to back down from enforcing this patent; but we
can't count on mercy every time.

The list could go on and on, if I had time to look through my old mail
for examples and space to describe them.

On the issue of patents, free software developers can make common
cause with most proprietary software developers, because in general
they too stand to lose from patents.  So do the many developers of
specialized custom software.

To be sure, not everyone loses from software patents; if that were so,
the system would soon be abolished.  Large companies often have many
patents, and can force most other companies, large or small, to
cross-license with them.  They escape most of the trouble patents
cause, while enjoying a large share of the power patents confer.  This
is why the chief supporters of software patents are multinational
corporations.  They have a great deal of influence with governments.

Occasionally a small company benefits from a patent, if its product is
so simple that it escapes infringing the large companies' patents and
thus being forced to cross-license with them.  And patent owners who
develop no products, but only squeeze money out of those who do, can
laugh all the way to the bank while obstructing progress.

But most software developers, as well as users, lose from software
patents, which do more to obstruct software progress than to encourage
it.

People used to call free software an absurd idea, saying we lacked the
ability to develop a large amount of software.  We have refuted them
with empirical fact, by developing a broad range of powerful software
that respects users' freedom.  Giving the public the full spectrum of
general-purpose software is within our reach---unless giving software
to the public is prohibited.

Software patents threaten to do that.  The time to take action is now.
Please visit \htmladdnormallink{{\tt www.freepatents.org}}
{http://www.freepatents.org} for more information, plus detailed
 suggestions 
for action.  And please take time to help.


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{\it 
Richard Stallman is the founder of the Free
 Software Foundation, the author of 
the GNU General Public License (GPL),
 and the
 original developer of such notable 
software as gcc
 and Emacs.
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{\small 
 Copyright \copyright{} 1999 Richard Stallman

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Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article is
permitted provided this notice is preserved.
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