If anyone is interested in reading the draft before (or after), you can find it at <http://wendy.seltzer.org/drafts/seltzer-softwarepatent.pdf>
Software Patents and/or Software Development

Abstract:
Many contemporary treatments of the patent system begin by recognizing that patents may introduce costs and inefficiencies, but conclude that since patents serve a necessary function as incentives to innovate, we must bear and mitigate their costs.

In the case of software patents, Wendy challenges the incentive side of the equation: Patents do not provide a useful incentive to innovation in the software industry, because the patent promise ill-suits the engineering and development practices and business strategies of software production.

Even an ideally implemented software patent — well examined, fully disclosed and enabling, properly scoped in light of the prior art — would fail to serve the incentive functions intended by the Constitution, the Patent Act, and standard patent theory.

Bio:
Wendy Seltzer is a Fellow with Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, researching “openness” in intellectual property, innovation, privacy, and free expression online. As a Fellow with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Wendy founded and leads the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, helping Internet users to understand their rights in response to cease-and-desist threats. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Tor Project, promoting privacy and anonymity research, education, and technology.

She has taught Intellectual Property, Internet Law, Antitrust, Copyright, and Information Privacy at American University Washington College of Law, Northeastern Law School, and Brooklyn Law School and was a Visiting Fellow with the Oxford Internet Institute, teaching a joint course with the Said Business School, Media Strategies for a Networked World. Previously, she was a staff attorney with online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in intellectual property and First Amendment issues, and a litigator with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel.

Wendy speaks and writes on copyright, patent, privacy, free and open source software, and the public interest online, seeking to improve technology policy in support of user-driven innovation. She has an A.B. from Harvard College and J.D. from Harvard Law School, and occasionally takes a break from legal code to program (Perl and MythTV). She blogs occasionally at http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/ and http://freedom-to-tinker.com/

We look forward to seeing you there.

“Cato, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation—have submitted an amicus brief in the case of Mayo v. Prometheus. As far as I know, this is the first time any of these think tanks has filed an patent-related amicus brief with the Supreme Court, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m listed as a co-author on the Cato site, but the brief was actually written for us by the brilliant Christina Mulligan at Yale’s Information Society Project.”

More here.

Update, dated 9/19: Christina’s Cato brief got mentioned in Techdirt, as well.

February 11-13, 2010 at Yale Law School

This conference seeks to lay the groundwork – conceptual and strategic – to build bridges between the A2K and human rights communities pursuing common goals of promoting greater access to knowledge, culture, technology and tools for innovation worldwide.

Conference Organizing Partners include:

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Friday, February 12, 2010

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Panel I. Perspectives on Access to Knowledge and Human Rights

Panel II. Technologies of Dissent: Information and Expression in a Digital World

Panel III. The Right to Health: Promoting Innovation and Equity

Panel IV. The Right to Education: Realizing the Potential of Digital Tools

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Panel V. Freedom to Innovate: Knowledge, Technology, Culture

Panel VI. The Right to Science and Culture: Participation and Access

VII. Concurrent Workshops

Identifying Challenges & Opportunities for an African Information Ethics

The Right to Read: Copyright and Access for Persons with Disabilities

The Right to Development: Bridging the Gap between Human Rights & IP?

Panel VIII. Rights-Based Strategies for Advancing Access to Knowledge

Click any of  the links above for A2K4 panel descriptions, photos, summaries, video archives, and additional resources.

For more information about the conference, visit: A2K4: Access to Knowledge & Human Rights