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Dynamic competition in software development. How copyrights and patents, and their overlapping, impact on derivative innovation.
No full textThe debate on which intellectual property (IP) paradigm would be best suited to protect software
innovation is probably among the longest in the history of IP law. It began in the late
sixties in the United States, spurred by the vertical disintegration process of IBM PCs and
seemed to reach its completion in 1991, when Europe followed the North American blueprint
by adopting a Directive promoting copyright law as a tool of protection. It is well known, however,
that this was not the end of the story. Later, both North American Courts and the Technical
Boards of the European Patent Office turned to patents as a valuable and more incisive
instrument of protection. Since then the two forms of protection actually overlap in the absence
of legal regulation of their coexistence both in the United States and in Europe.
In the first part of this paper, the authors explore the legal evolution of the software
regime, focusing on the reasons that have led legislators to adopt copyright as a tool of
protection instead of patents, as well as those that afterwards led courts and the Technical
Boards to ‘rediscover’ patent protection. The paper then examines the impact of the two
paradigms of protection, and their overlap, on software innovation (which typically is
incremental) and related competitive dynamics. Finally, the authors tentatively suggest
normative solutions aimed at achieving an overall more innovation- and competitionenhancing
regime of software protection
Tv cavo e regolamentazione asimmetrica: riflessioni a partire dall’esperienza nord-americana
No full textGli autori affrontano il tema della regolazione negli USA sulla tv via cavo per verificare se e come misure asimmetriche possano compensare le asimmetrie di mercati che si aprono alla concorrenza, e in che modo tali misure possano risultare più efficaci. Dall'esperienza settoriale statunitense gli autori provano a tracciare linee guida per la riforma complessiva di settore in Europa.The Authors deal with cable TV regulation in the U.S. in order to analyze: if and how asymmetrical measures can compensate for asymmetries in markets that are moving toward competition, and how these measures might be more effective.
The Authors try to draw guidelines for a sector reform in Europe starting from U.S. industry experience
“One, none or a hundred thousand: How many layers of protection for software innovation?”
No full textIn 2002, the European Commission embarked in the arduous project of drafting a Proposal of a Directive (hereinafter PD) for the patentability of computer implemented inventions (so called CIIs).
The PD was officially aimed at harmonizing different trends emerged in national patent systems and creating a uniform regime following, more or less, the imprinting drawn by the European Patent Office case law. Such discrepancies within (software) patentability trends in Europe were considered a further obstacle towards the creation of a uniform patent policy in the EU and, consequently, discouraging the recourse to patent, especially by SMEs.
Rightly, the European Commission thought that uniformity in the law would enhance legal certainty, hence confidence in patents as a valuable instrument to foster progress in such a prominent sector for European economy.
At the same time, however, the PD reflected a “defensive” concern: the massive number of software patents (especially those concerning business methods) released in U.S.A. and the seemingly huge numbers of European patents granted to American patent applicants in Europe had stimulated a severe restrictive approach towards the patentability of software “as such” and business methods — an approach which in particular permeated the amendments proposed by the European Parliament.
The same defensive concern probably motivated, aside from its (official and unofficial) goals, Commission’s decision to preserve copyright protection for computer programs, as per Directive 250/91. Indeed, the reason of such decision, which ostensibly carries no contradictions, surely lied in a desire to maintain an alternative means of protection for European firms — mostly SMEs — accustomed to protect software through a much cheaper and easy-to-obtain tool.
As well known, the defensive concerns expressed above eventually prevailed and, almost at the end of a tortuous and complex legislative iterprocess, in July 2005 the European Parliament rejected, in second reading, the Council’s Common Position which led to the definitive closing of the procedure.
The dismissal of the PD has been applauded throughout Europe as a victory against evil, especially by the European supporters of the open source movement, fearing that the adoption of the Directive would put an end to open source licensing practices. The legislative process has attracted a big deal of attention and since the very beginning of the drafting process the European Commission has been blamed to serve foreign interests.
However, as noted by Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, the PD failure does not amount to an elimination tout court of the patentability of CIIs. Quite on the contrary, it simply means that there will not be any harmonization at the European level. Everything will stay the way it was before, which means that computer implemented inventions will still be granted by national patent offices and by the EPO, whose prominent role in such central area of patent policy has become even more stronger.
So, what is the future of European software industry going to look like? Should we try to convince the EPO to step back, erase a twenty years old case law, and just leave the floor to copyright protection? Are patents truly bad for our economy? Is copyright really the best alternative?
This article will try to answer at least some of these questions, hoping that the answers that we will provide might be of (at least little) guidance on how to deal with the problem at issue
L’assalto fallito? Riflessioni sulla proposta rivisitazione della disciplina dell’abuso di posizione dominante in chiave “più economica” e sulla Comunicazione della Commissione riguardante l’applicazione dell’art. 102 del Trattato CE alle pratiche escludenti
No full textIn Europa, l’affermazione del cd economic approach alla interpretazione ed applicazione del diritto antitrust cominciò, come noto, con la distinzione fra accordi orizzontali e verticali, per proseguire con il nuovo regolamento concentrazioni che codificò il criterio dell’efficienza pro-consumatori quale fattore ‘bilanciante’ (countervailing factor) atto a giustificare la concentrazione del potere di mercato in capo a poche imprese. Recentemente, poi, sulla scia della c.d. modernizzazione, quell’indirizzo si è ulteriormente riflesso in recenti (2008) Linee Guida della Commissione espressive di un sostanziale favor per le concentrazioni non-orizzontali.
Questa prospettiva metodica, dalle chiara ascendenza dalla Scuola di Chicago (ma il primo debito culturale è con Richard Posner ), ha affermato il primato della rule of reason attraverso un più penetrante ruolo dell’analisi economica nella interpretazione e nell’applicazione del diritto antitrust: pegno per valutazioni insieme più realistiche e più approfonditamente motivate. Tuttavia, gli ulteriori sviluppi che taluni ambienti professionali ed accademici propongono, prospettando come criterio di qualificazione principe l’efficienza specificamente pro-consumer della pratica o dell’operazione (qui in sostanziale linea con l’indirizzo scientifico post-Chicago: Salop et al.), hanno suscitato diffuse perplessità, echeggiate anche nel recentissimo dibattito riguardante la fattispecie dell’abuso di posizione dominante, in particolare dei comportamenti escludenti, e la suggerita rivisitazione della detta dottrina in chiave ’più economica’
“Il software fra brevetto e diritto d’autore. Primi appunti sulla Proposta di Direttiva comunitaria sulle ‘invenzioni attuate per mezzo di elaboratori elettronici’”
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