Protection of Technology

Patents on World Wide Web could have created different world

If 16 years ago Berners-Lee had decided to patent his idea of the World Wide Web, nowadays the world would likely be quite different, and the British researcher might be the world's richest man. However, it didn't go that way, and we can all use or exploit the Net.
Last week the creator of the "WWW" that opened the way to the explosion of the IT society was in Finland to receive the Millennium Technology Prize, a prestigious international award. The father of the Web took advantage of the occasion for speaking out. Had he patented the technologies he had developed at the CERN laboratories in Geneva, he said, we would now have "16 different Webs", instead of a shared environment freely linkable to an incredible quantity of different applications.
"Lord knows how many non-interacting hypertext systems there were. There would now be a Web of CERN, one of Microsoft, one of Digital, and Apple's HyperCard, and none of these would have been compatible with any other."
Berners-Lee used this example to fire a broadside at the current patenting system, which he maintains has lost its sense of direction. He mentioned the U.S. patent Microsoft obtained on double-clicking, on handhelds only. He also mentioned the extreme Eolas case, where a company claims paternity on plug-ins and applets, a patent on which would put a lid on the whole Web; Berners-Lee is actively fighting against this possibility.
U.S.-style patenting has been exported to Europe, where software patenting has just been introduced and an about-face, although highly recommended, is unlikely. Berners-Lee declared, "It's time to look at this whole system. In the United States, the situation requires a radical change."
"Today's problem," he said, "is that someone might write something on his own and a lawyer could take a look and say, 'Sorry, what we've written between lines 35 and 42 is ours, even if you didn't copy it from us.' "
According to the scientist, patents are endangering "the whole spirit of software development." He further clarified, "If you can imagine a computer performing a given operation, then you can write a programme for that. This is the spirit behind so many wonderful innovations. If one thinks of the spirit of the Internet, which is about openness and sharing, all this is terribly negative for creativity. [Patents] are restricting the ability to research and generate new ideas." Unfortunately, however, legal litigation among major software producers are mostly centered on patent infringement. As regards technology, companies with huge financial resources are trying to patent as many hardware and software solutions as possible, many of them just imagined. Patent costs become a major hindrance for independent developers or the world of open source. Many sides are already advocating for the future development of technology to be protected from the greed of IT giants.

Publication Date: 2004-06-27
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4107