- FFII: Software Patents in Europe
- For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents on rules of organisation and calculation claimed in terms of general-purpose computing equipment, called "programs for computers" in the law of 1973 and "computer-implemented inventions" in EPO Newspeak since 2000. Europe's patent movement is pressing to legitimate this practise by writing a new law. Although the patent movement has lost major battles in November 2000 and September 2003, Europe's programmers and citizens are still facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic documentation, starting from the latest news and a short overview.
The European Parliament parliament's plenary will decide on a draft report on the European Commission's software patentability directive proposal COM(2002)92 on monday, June 30th. Hartmut Pilch explains on behalf of Eurolinux, an alliance of associations and companies from all European countries and all sectors of the European software industry:
If the European Parliament accepts this report, even with amendments, it will not only find itself in complete contradiction with public opinion, as expressed in the largest online petition on IT matters which the world has seen so far. It would also be in contradiction with its own proclaimed aims. The result of passing the McCarthy Directive Proposal would be that "Amazon One Click Shopping" indisputably becomes a patentable invention, and that more than 20000 broad and trivial software and business method patents, which have been granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) against the letter and spirit of the written law, will no longer be contestable in court, except with rock-solid evidence of prior art.
Reinier Bakels from the Insitute for Information Law of Amsterdam University, author of a
study on the software patent directive, says:
Now it is up to the European Parliament to decide on a highly controversial proposal for a directive for software patents. The JURI proposal aims at improving clarity. It should have at last defined clearly what is patentable and what not. But in reality it is a bunch of magic formulas that even legal experts do not understand. In particular for small and medium sized software developers it is a disaster. A patent infringement claim can ruin such a company. It is to be hoped that the European Parliament understands this if they vote about the proposed directive in a few days.
Dr. Karl Friedrich Lenz, professor of European Law in Tokyo, comments:
If the European Parliament follows JURI in ignoring public opinion and all scientific studies, we will see large license payments from the European to the American software industry, lots of litigation based on software patents, Internet patents and business method patents, and some very unfavorable effects for open source software. And introducing a large number of new monopoly rights in the information society sector certainly won't help with the EU strategic goal "to become the most competitive and knowledge-based economy in the world."
For more statements, please read our documentation JURI votes for Fake Limits on Patentability.
- mail:
- media at ffii org
- phone:
- Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927
More Contacts to be supplied upon request
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 300 members, 700 companies and 50,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.
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