CISL Gruppen AB: Software patents would increase the development costs of new products
The Spanish subsidiary CISL Spain SL is the development company of the Group and counts on a huge knowledge and expertise on mobile communication.
Julian Coccia
Managing Director of CISL
Originally, invention patents were conceived with a double pretext: to improve technological development in certain areas of knowledge both in a qualitative and a quantitative way, by promoting the release of inventions and allowing others to use them for further investigations; to enhance the investigators' duty to raise the necessary funds for developing innovative ideas into successful products.
Regardless of the eventual fulfillment of these objectives in other economy sectors, it is a proven fact that the case of software industry is unique: patents can only be regarded as mere mechanisms for the legalization of monopolies on the commercial use of patented technology.
The impact of this kind of monopolies on technological development as well as won economy can be extremely hazardous. The owner of monopoly in possession of a patent (or group of related patents) will have the power to licensing models based on exorbitant prices. They could even restrain the development of entire branches of the computing technology industry. In any case, their products would be reinforced as the only option available in the trading market.
In a more specific way, software patents are jeopardizing the development of free software. Due to its own nature, the development of free software is incompatible with the introduction of software patents.
In our case, the introduction of software patents would increase the demand of resources and, consequently, the development costs of new products. Our business would need more funds in order to carry out studies of potential patents, to pay licenses applicable to our products and to afford the foreseeable expenses of litigating with the owner of a certain patent. On the other hand, the reduction (or disappearance) of the current options of free software would end up slowing down our development speed. Thus, software patents directly jeopardize the future of our business since they put our main competitive advantages at risk: cost and development speed.
Owing to all these reasons, I do not deem it appropriate to introduce software patents they do not represent any global benefit for software industry or industry as a whole. On the contrary: the consequences of their introduction would be clearly damaging in themselves.
