New Zealand’s government has announced that they will not further modify their proposed bill and that they still agree with those “opposing the granting of patents for computer programs on the grounds it would stifle innovation and restrict competition.” (Background: New Zealand)
More info (links from nzoss.org.nz):
- NZOSS: Minister Announces No Software Patents
- It’s official: Software will be unpatentable in NZ
- NZHerald
- ComputerWorld
- Scoop
- Commerce committee report
Background and old news:
- en.swpat.org/wiki/New_Zealand
- New Zealand software patents victory crumbling, June 23rd 2010
- New Zealand govt against software patents!, March 31st 2010
2 Comments
Dan · 15 July 2010 at 8:17 pm
“New Zealand’s government has announced that they will not further modify their proposed bill and that they still agree with those “opposing the granting of patents for computer programs on the grounds it would stifle innovation and restrict competition.” (Background: New Zealand)”
When you use quotes like that, the implication is that the quote appears in the statement you linked to. But it doesn’t, and actually says the opposite: “Minister announces way forward for software patents
Commerce Minister Simon Power has instructed the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) to develop guidelines to allow inventions that contain embedded software to be patented.”
Ciaran · 15 July 2010 at 9:43 pm
The embedded software part could be hiding some danger, but I don’t think it spoils the general position that I quoted.
A new microwave with software in it is an invention with embedded software. If the microwave company wants to patent their new microwave, that’s fine with us.
The pro-swpat companies are very clever, so we’ll have to stay involved to ensure that the bill doesn’t get spoiled, but this is definitely winnable.
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