Our goal this year is to do outreach to at least one policy maker/influencer every week on the software patents issue, and request them to support our efforts. This is a painstaking process since awareness of software patents is very low, but we are making progress. We have received two expressions of support that shall be updated on the End Software Patents website (www.endsoftwarepatents.in) soon. As we get more expressions of support, we shall keep updating this thread and the ESP website.
“The last two decades have firmly established that property in FOSS software, defined as a right to distribute, results in rapid innovation and more resilient infrastructures. Patents are premised on the right to exclude and are especially ill-suited for software where simultaneous conception and execution of ideas are the norm, and products grow through rapid iteration. Patents, instead of incentivizing innovation, impose a legal construct mismatched with the materiality of software production and slow down innovation. India needs to build on its legacy of defending against spurious use of IPR not only to spearhead the cause of equitable development, but to also ensure that it continues to grow as a technological powerhouse.”
Tarunima Prabhakar, Research-lead and Co-Founder, Tattle
“In the past few decades India has shown how open innovation in software and information technology can accelerate development goals, by transforming access to public services. The creation of open source digital public goods and infrastructure in multiple spheres is leading to new growth pathways that the rest of the world is emulating. Now we are witnessing the advent of Artificial Intelligence that can further accelerate development and economic growth. It is important to ensure that access to such critical information technologies is open for all to innovate on and are not locked behind patent walls.”
Manish Srivastava, CTO, eGov Foundation