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Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Directive Plans

The European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a directive proposal of its Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) which would, as critics point out, "make it impossible for a patent judge anywhere in Europe to revoke US-style patents on calculation rules and business methods framed in terms of general-purpose computing equipment, as have been granted in great numbers against the letter and spirit of the law by the European Patent Office". A coaltion of organisations representing 2000 software companies, 2500 scientists and 160,000 individuals, mostly software professionals, are calling on the public to demonstrate against this "indecent and dangerous proposal", either by attending a rally in Brussels on August 27th or by blocking access to a series of web pages.

Details

Media Contacts

mail:
media at ffii org
phone:
Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927

Benjamin Henrion +32-10-454761

More Contacts to be supplied upon request

About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org

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.

About the FFII -- www.ffii.org

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.

Permanent URL of this Press Release

http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/itop0825/index.en.html

Annotated Links

->2003/08/25-9 BXL: Software Patent Directive Amendments
Members of the European Parliament are coming back to work on monday August 25th. It is the last week before the vote on the Software Patent Directive Proposal. We are organising a conference and street rally wednesday the 27th. Some of our friends will moreover be staying in the parliament for several days. Time to work decide on submission of amendments to the software patent directive proposal is running out. FFII has proposed one set of amendments that stick as closely as possible to the original proposal while debugging and somewhat simplifying it. An alternative small set of amendments would "cut the crap" and rewrite the directive from scratch. We present and explain the possible approaches.
->Netzdemo Gegen Softwarepatente
Wir können unseren Sorgen durch physische Präsenz ebenso wie durch mehr oder weniger sanftes Blockieren von Webseiten Ausdruck verleihen.
->European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Software Patent Directive
The European Parliament has postponed the vote on the software patent directive back to the original date of 1st of September, thereby rejecting initially successful efforts of its rapporteur Arlene McCarthy (UK Labour MEP of Manchester) and her supporters to rush to vote on June 30th, a mere twelve days after publication of the highly controversial report and ten days after the unexpected change of schedule.
->JURI votes for Fake Limits on Patentability
The European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) voted on tuesday morning about a list of proposed amendments to the planned software patent directive. It was the third and last in a series of committee votes, whose results will be presented to the plenary in early september. The other two commissions (CULT, ITRE) had opted to more or less clearly exclude software patents. The JURI rapporteur Arlene McCarthy MEP (UK socialist) also claimed to be aiming for a "restrictive harmonisation of the status quo" and "exclusion of software as such, algorithms and business methods from patentability". Yet McCarthy presented a voting list to fellow MEPs which, upon closer look, turns ideas like "Amazon One-Click Shopping" into patentable inventions. McCarthy and her followers rejected all amendment proposals that try to define central terms such as "technical" or "invention", while supporting some proposals which reinforce the patentability of software, e.g. by making publication of software a direct patent infringment, by stating that "computer-implemented inventions by their very nature belong to a field of technology", or by inserting new economic rationales ("self-evident" need for Europeans to rely on "patent protection" in view of "the present trend for traditional manufacturing industry to shift their operations to low-cost economies outside the European Union") into the recitals. Most of McCarthy's proposals found a conservative-socialist 2/3 majority (20 of 30 MEPs), whereas most of the proposals from the other committees (CULT = Culture, ITRE = Industry) were rejected. Study reports commissioned by the Parliament and other EU institutions were disregarded or misquoted, as some of their authors point out (see below). A few socialists and conservatives voted together with Greens and Left in favor of real limits on patentability (such as the CULT opinion, based on traditional definitions, that "data processing is not a field of technology" and that technical invention is about "use of controllable forces of nature"), but they were overruled by the two largest blocks. Most MEPs simply followed the voting lists of their "patent experts", such as Arlene McCarthy (UK) for the Socialists (PSE) and shadow rapporteur Dr. Joachim Wuermeling (DE) for the Conservatives (EPP). Both McCarthy and Wuermeling have closely followed the advice of the directive proponents from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission's Industrial Property Unit (CEC-Indprop, represented by former UK Patent Office employee Anthony Howard) and declined all offers of dialog with software professionals and academia ever since they were nominated rapporteurs in May 2002.
->Why Amazon One Click Shopping is Patentable under the Proposed EU Directive
According to the European Commission (CEC)'s Directive Proposal COM(2002)92 for "Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions" and the revised version approved by the European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI), algorithms and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping are without doubt patentable subject matter. This is because
  1. Any "computer-implemented" innovation is in principle considered to be a patentable "invention".
  2. The additional requirement of "technical contribution in the inventive step" does not mean what most people think it means.
  3. The directive proposal explicitly aims to codify the practise of the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO has already granted thousands of patents on algorithms and business methods similar to Amazon One Click Shopping.
  4. CEC and JURI have built in further loopholes so that, even if some provisions are amended by the European Parliament, unlimited patentability remains assured.
->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.
[ Amazon Ordering Method Patented in Europe | EU Software Patent Plans Shelved Amid Massive Demonstrations | Economists Slam McCarthy Software Patent Directive Proposal ]
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