Despite what appears to be a big-budget lobbying effort by the pro-patent fraternity, Hon Simon Power announced today that he wouldn’t be modifying the proposed Patents Bill hence software will be unpatentable once the Bill passes into law.
This is significant. As we’ve previously pointed out software patents aren’t black and white, and there are certainly pros and cons. However on balance, we believe they represent a far greater risk to smaller NZ-based software providers than opportunity, and there are many cases where they have significantly stifled innovation.
We believe it’s near impossible for software to be developed without breaching some of the hundreds of thousands of software patents awarded around the world, hence many software companies in New Zealand, creating outstanding and innovative software, live a constant risk that their entire business will be wound up overnight due to litigious action by a patent holder.
Found by Cináedh.
Didn’t someone get sued at one time for using the Bubble Sort method in a program because someone else felt like claiming they invented it?
Hmmm….
I wonder if Apple, Google, Microsoft and other big software companies could technically “relocate” their corporate headquarters to NZ. It would literally save billions of dollars in lawyers fees. Just thinking.
Did you need to come up with another good reason to live in New Zealand?
Better healthcare
great scenery
great beer
good food (if you don’t go to fast food)
the women have a beautiful accent
Primary and secondary education is great
Good universities
Downside?
They don’t understand what a milk shake is.
Glad to see there’s at least ONE country without its collective head up its ass!
Wooohoo! Go NZ!
-now if the rest of the planet could get an f’n clue…
-s
New Zealand has a very, very tiny IT industry, the real money is in agriculture, agri-technology and biotechnology. Our biggest foreign exchange earner in the cities is education, not IT. If this attracts just one multinational company, Oracle, the number of IT related jobs would quadruple. It is a cunning and clever move, that only a very small country could achieve.
#6: New Zealand also is a place where movies are made that use beautiful, mountainous scenery in the background. For example, see the three Lord of the Rings movies.
OK, so if a software developer in NZ writes some code, which happens to infringe on a US-based company patent, what stops the US company from suing the crap out them in a US court, and getting a world-wide (except NZ) injunction against the NZ developer?
OR, let’s say a NZ software developer invents a fancy new algorithm for compressing HD video which is 100 times better than anything else. What prevents everyone else in the world from copying the algorithm (not the code) and so the NZ developer gets nothing?
One of my favorite computer programs hails from New Zealand, GBPVR. I’m not affiliated, this guy just makes some nifty media center software. Free, donation optional. He also happens to do programming work for Hauppauge.
You can still copyright it. Not the same thing of course.
Aaahh New Zealand…..
Where the Men are Men
and the Sheep are nervous.
#11 Grim said:
HA!
..not as nervous as the sheep in Greece. (esp when they are facing a cliff)
-s
Didn’t Trumpet WinSock originate from NZ?
(Yeah, OK, that’s kind-of irrelevant, but it’s about the only NZ + IT anecdote I can think of).
Here in Australia, I know our impending “+1 enchanted firewall of swiftness” will protect us from being infected by these dangerously open-minded ideas from across the Tasman Sea.
“Your lack of patents troubles me.”
I would think that patent holders from elsewhere in the world could still sue offending software makers/vendors?
All according to international treaties and such?
Like all better/good ideas, I’m sure this is illegal or won’t work unless NZ wishes to become a rogue state.
@ #3, gmknobl
How would you like a milkshake be made? I’m sure somebody here in NZ could create something that would be close enough to appease.
Milkshake, Old Fashion Malt.
Ice Cream, Milk, maybe some fruit.
Mix it up real good.
[Fail! 6-7-5. – ed.]
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