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Software Patents in France

The french government understands well that software patentability is harmful to the interests of France and has documented this understanding by political interventions from time to time. Yet, in general, France's patent policy is in the hands of the French Patent Office (INPI), whose representatives regularly hold the government's policies in contempt and follow only the consensus of the European Patent Organisation. Recently, the Raffarin government has softened its stance of opposition to software patentability. All advisors who have acquired a knowledge of the dossier were dismissed and instead a person of trust of the patent movement was entrusted with patent policy. In Raffarin's election district, a major public infrastructure project called Lunapark is said to be financed by Microsoft.

Commissariat général au plan 2002-10-17: Rapport sur l'Économie du Logiciel: A report of the French State Commission on Economic Planning published on 2002/10/17 gives figures about the software industry in France (270000 employees, 31,6 bn eur turnover in 1999), sees France's software economy handicapped by proprietary standards and patent dangers and recommends that algorithms and business methods should not be patentable, formats and standards should be exempted and patents for technical inventions that use software should be limited in duration to 3-5 years.
France 2002-03-01: EU Commission Directive Proposal Unacceptable: The french government has crticised the CEC/BSA Software Patentability Directive Proposal at the European Internal Market Council's meeting of 2002-02-28, in which commissioner Bolkestein explained this proposal to the patent policy representatives of the European Union's member states. France expressed dismay about the proposal's apparent failure to outline a clear limit on patentability, to critically assess the economic effects of the EPO's recent practise, to take serious research into account and to provide a valid rationale in view of european public policy targets such as those laid down in the e.Europe plan. Industry minister Christian Pierret immediately published this position in a press release.
(All French Presidential Candidates against Swpat): The top candidates of all french parties have expressed themselves clearly and even fervently against software patents. Each candidate seems happy to find that his particular political thinking can serve as a good basis for explaining why software patents are bad.
French Socialist Party Program: contains a passage against software patents
Freepatents.org: The first major european website against software patents, mostly in English, launched in France in 1999.
INPI
Information Economy and Swpat Conference Paris 20020610-1: Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI.org) and Center of Information Policy Research at Mariland University (CIP.umd.org) are organising a transatlantic conference on information economy and in particular on the limits of patentability as well as the problems in neighboring areas such as database exclusion rights and copyright. Hartmut Pilch is participating on behalf of FFII and Eurolinux on two of the panels.