● 08.08.12

●● FSF Says SHIELD Act Does Not Go Far Enough, Wants Software Patents Dead

Posted in FSF, Patents at 1:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

FFII and FSF target software patents as a matter of priority

Hartmut Pilch (FFII founder) and Richard Stallman (FSF founder)

Summary: The Free Software Foundation explains its position on the bill which proposes discouragement of patent trolls for the most part

THE FSF is a moral compass to many and a legal advisor to some.

According to this new statement, the FSF does not consider the SHIELD Act to be useful. To quote: “The Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act (SHIELD Act) fails to protect the free software community from software patents.”

“The bill would make things better, but it does not go far enough.”It’s really all about trolls, but there’s the flogging of software patents too. It does not go as far as invalidating the latter. To quote a report: “Two US congressmen are hoping to deter frivolous, counterproductive patent litigation through a new bill that would mandate that losers in patent litigation pay for defendants’ legal costs.

“The bill, introduced by Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio and co-sponsored by Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz, would apply to both computer hardware and software patents, and would mark a shift in US judicial approach to software patents.”

The bill would make things better, but it does not go far enough. Richard Stallman recently explained to us a strategy for tackling this issue. The population has already told President Obama what it wants [1, 2, 3]. █

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