Worse climate with software patents, says small study investigating IT-companies in Sweden
A new master thesis titled "(while) waiting for software patents" (I väntan på mjukvarupatent) from the Economic School at Gothenburg University includes a survey of Swedish IT-companies with regards to software patents.
The results are similar to the larger German study Ifis050404En .
The study is published under a Creative Commons license at: http://www.ffii.se/erik/Patent-Petterson-Sandblom.pdf
45 companies have been asked about software patents:
- - Do you think competition will be better(grow?) or worse with software patents?
- 62% worse, 12% better, 26% dont know
- No 44%, Yes 24%, Dont know 38%
- Yes 85%, No 15%
- Yes 91%, No 9%
- Yes 26%, No 62%, Dont know 12%
The thesis concludes that everyone believes that software patents will come. (???) That uncertainty and lack of knowledge in the market is not good...