Link

I’m going to throw this single link out there, because it’s so significant: Software will be unpatentable in NZ. Yes – you read that correctly. New Zealand has decided that patenting software (which is already subject to copyright law) serves only to stifle innovation, in particular because the world of software changes so rapidly. This is along the same lines as some U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding patents; hopefully the rest of the world will get on board and clarify what is “an invention” (and therefore subject to patent law) as separate from what is “a creative work” (and subject to copyright).

This would mean that it is the source code which would be subject to the law (copyright), rather than the functionality itself. So, if a company copied code, it would be violating copyright. But, if a company developed something entirely separate from another company, that company would be safe: it hadn’t copied anything, it had merely developed something which did the same thing.

This is a major difference between patent and copyright, and will hopefully cut down on “patent trolls.” It also recognizes that source code is the “creative work,” rather than privileging the end product and the functionality.

-D