Urgent Call to National Governments and Parliaments

Recipients:: Heads of 25 governments and parliaments, other concerned politicians
Subject:: Software Patent Directive: Request to reopen Council Discussion

Qualified? Way Out Parliament see annex A

We are concerned that
For these reasons we urge you to
Signatories
Annexes

We are concerned that

The Competitiveness Council session of 18 May 2004 reached a qualified majority for a version of the software patent directive 2002/0047 COM (COD) that would impose unlimited patentability and unfettered patent enforcement of "computer-implemented" algorithms and business methods on Europe. There is a general consensus among economists and software professionals that such a regime, as exists in the USA, is disastrous for innovation, competition and growth of the information-based economy.
The proposed text is designed to mislead ministers about its real effects. It consists of many sentences of the form or "software is ... [ rhetorically bloated emphasis ] ... unpatentable, unless ... [ condition, which, upon closer scrutiny, turns to be always true ]". Fake limits of this type pervade the proposal and especially the central provisions which were used for persuading the ministers (see annex A).
The moderators of the Competitiveness Council session pushed the participants toward accepting the proposal by deception, pressure and surprise tactics, thus even making it questionable whether a valid majority was achieved. It can be said with certainty that only a minority of governments really agrees with what was negotiated, but several governments were misrepresented by their negotiators, who broke intra-ministerial agreements or even violated instructions from their superiors (see annex B).
the Council's proposal is largely identical in wording and spirit to the texts from the Commission and the JURI Committee, which the European Parliament has already rejected by means of a series of amendments. The Parliament's amendments reflected the demands of the vast majority of software innovators and innnovation policy researchers in the EU, including the authors of studies ordered by the Commisson as well as the members of the EU's consultative organs (see annex C).
The Council has ignored and rejected all the work of the Parliament and the consultative organs of the EU without any justification and without democratic legitimation. The text is not presented as a means of achieving any policy objective, but rather as a "compromise" between governments. It was negotiated under a veil of secrecy between anonymous ministerial officials, most of whom are in charge of running national patent offices and thereby part of a community with a vested interest in unlimited patentability.

For these reasons we urge you to

ask the Council Presidency to withdraw the voting on the software patent directive (2002/0047 COM (COD)) from the agenda of the next Council session where it is awaiting formal approval.
take the dossier out of the hands of the patent bureaucracy, and restore true political scrutiny of the impact of the proposed text. The designation of representatives in the Council working party should be publicly presented and debated (in Parliaments where the institutional framework allows).
urge other governments to do the same and ultimately to reform the EU Council so as to prevent catastrophes such as the present one from happening in the future.

Signatories

: Confédération Européenne des Associations Petites et Moyennes Entreprises
22 member associations from 19 European countries representing in total more than 500,000 enterprises.
: Consortium for Open Source Middleware Architectures
Among the members are many large companies
: represents interests of 60000 supporters and 1000 companies on matters of software property
: Association of Polish Software producers. Almost all members create and sell copyrighted proprietary software. They cooperate with SIIA and other anti-piracy activities.
: Association of Portuguese software producers. Allmost all members create and sell copyrighted proprietary software. They organise campaigns against software piracy in close cooperation with SIIA and BSA.
contact: Dr. Manuel Cerqueira, president
Jörg Tauss: member of Parliament, Germany, Speaker for IT, Media and Education of Social Democratic Party
Marek Balicki: Polish Senator, Poland, Social Democratic Party of Poland
José Magalhães: member of Parliament, Portugal, IT expert of Socialist Party
Maurice Ronai: National delegate on information technology, Socialist Party, France
Olga Zrihen: MEP, PSE, Belgium, PS
Johanna Boogerd: MEP, ELDR, Netherlands
Carl Schlyter: MEP, Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, top candidate for the European Parliament, The Green Party of Sweden
Gustav Fridolin: Sweden, Greens/EFA in the European Parliament
Pernille Frahm: MEP, Denmark, GUE/NGL (SF)
Margrete Auken: Denmark, SF
Jonas Sjöstedt: MEP, Sweden, GUE/NGL, Vänsterpartiet
Jens Holm: MEP candidate, Sweden, GUE/NGL, Vänsterpartiet
Kerstin Andreae: Germany, Greens/EFA in the European Parliament
Cem Özdemir: MEP, Germany, Greens/EFA in the European Parliament

CC.OO. (Comisiones Obreras): one of Spain's largest trade unions
Hispalinux: libre software association of Spain, with more than 7,500 members
ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática): largest Spanish association of computer professionals, about 5,000 members
Asociación de Internautas: Spanish association of Internet users and professionals
UTS (Unión Telefónica Sindical): a trade union of the workers of Grupo Telefonica, Spanish largest PTT
: Spanish working group on software innovation
: 5000 members
ESR Pollmeier GmbH: contact: Stefan Pollmeier, Managing Director
: contact: David Axmark, Michael Widenius, Florian Mueller
: contact: Jacque Le Marois, CEO
Oddlabs: Game software company
contact: Elias Naur, CEO
BVSI: Association of self-employed computer scientists
: contact: Martin Michlmayr, Debian Project Leader
: contact: Marion Ziegelwanger, Büroleiterin
: contact: Marion Ziegelwanger, Büroleiterin
: contact: Jerzy Ludwichowski, president
: contact: Rosaire Amore
more signatures: 16991 persons have so far signed this appeal via the FFII participation system.