End Software Patents

• "There is no authority that we know of which permits software per se to be considered statutory [patentable subject matter]." —-Patent Office board of administrative judges, October 2007 (source PDF)

• Portion of patents granted every year by the Patent Office that are software patents: 15% (Bessen and Hunt, 2004)

• Websites that may be violating a software patent as of January 2007: 155,583,825 (Netcraft)

• "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." —Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft (cited in this New York Times op-ed.)

• Estimated annual cost in legal fees incurred by software patents: $11.2 billion.

• Estimated economic benefit from software patents, as calculated by several pro-software patent economists: $0. (See the list of null results on the resources for economists page.)

How to End Software Patents

There are two primary ways that we can end the patenting of software in the USA. One way is through legal action, and the other is through legislative action. We aim to support work on both. But both ways depend upon education.

Legal Action

If your organization is involved in a software patent litigation, or you represent a victim of a software patent claim. End Software Patents can provide assistance, and access to legal counsel. Please contact us at gro.stnetaptfoson|pse#gro.stnetaptfoson|pse. We are looking for appropriate cases to help advance, though unfortunately, only a few cases are likely to be suitable. At the very least we can help give voice to your situation, and help expose the harm being done to you and the community your organization serves.

Legislative Action

We need your voice and your willingness to campaign with us. Legislative action in the USA can be very difficult. Software patents are held by some of the largest and most influential corporations in the USA, and they spend millions of dollars on lobbying. But, politicians change and so does political will. The Free Software Foundation has a page where you can ask your presidential candidate to support legislation to exclude software from the scope of patentability.

Educate Others

There is a resistance to change. Many corporations say they only hold software patents for defensive purposes, and still agree with us that software patents do harm. So here we have an opportunity to help them live up to their word.

If you operate a web site that does not rely on patents to succeed, then let your users know with one of these buttons.