Donald Knuth, distinguished computer scientist, recipient of the Turing Award, creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, and author of The Art of Computer Programming, which some call the Bible of computer programming, has submitted a letter [PDF] to the European Patent Office for submission to the EPO's Enlarged Board of Appeal considering the question of software patents and whether th

A look at some new articles about software patents in the United States

"PROFESSOR DONALD KNUTH IS nobody to sneeze at. He is considered one of the world’s masters or authorities in algorithms and his letter opposing software patents in the United States is rather famous. A short while ago Knuth was kind enough to worry for Europeans too.

"In this study, Kevin Carson reviews libertarian perspectives on “intellectual property”; the ethics of the practice itself and the harms resulting from it. He finds that IP is an artificial, rather than natural, property right; creating scarcity rather than managing it.

Six months ago I noted that the European Patent Office had embarked upon a fairly abstruse process:

"After a quite interesting month, in which I attended two very interesting lectures (Carlos Guerreiro and Richard Stallman lectures) and a very good fortnight in London I wasn’t sure what to talk about in this post. However, I liked so much an example that Richard Stallman told us talking about software patents that I needed to say some words..."

"One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society is the free software movement. The most famous and influential leader of this movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the value of a new model for software development and the various risks to that model.