

Not April Fools: New Zealand Proposing Software Patent Ban - CoryOndrejka
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/new-zealand-patent-reform-bill-says-no-to-software-patents.ars

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keltex
Sounds like a new business opportunity to setup hosting SAS hosting in New
Zealand.

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jhancock
You mean SAS as in the products made by bigco sas.com ???

If your talking about writing your own SAS competitor which infringes on SAS
patents, thats one thing. But your comment seems to indicate your talking
about software piracy, which does not seem to be what this NZ proposal is
about.

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warfangle
I do believe he meant Software as Service (aka, Software As A Service aka
SaaS), not SAS Institute, Inc.

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josh_on
Or this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Special_Air_Service>

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JCThoughtscream
Not sure if a universal ban on software patents is ideal, but this is
certainly a step in the right direction. Rather think NZ has just set itself
up as a potential software development mecca.

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hartror
But not an R&D mecca . . .

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naner
Xerox PARC manged to do a lot of good before the prolifieration of software
patents.

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hartror
My point is if you are an investor or large corp where are you going to put
your money? In the country that won't allow you to control your "IP" or the
one that will?

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mooneater
So would this mean we could sell software that technically infringes US
patents, in NZ?

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winter_blue
You can do that anywhere in the world that the US does not have a patent
agreement with.

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BerislavLopac
Correct. Most of Europe already have that approach.

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codexon
Would you have to revoke your US citizenship and become a European citizen to
do this legally?

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pmjordan
I don't think your citizenship matters, it's where you carry out your
business. This is probably more difficult to nail down than you think, e.g. if
you advertise to US customers, are you actually doing business in the US?

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tjpick
you might end up paying tax in 2 countries though. I think NZ has some tax
agreement with the USA but I'm not sure on the finer details.

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Vivtek
If you're an American citizen, you'll be paying tax in two countries anyway.

