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Software Patents > Diary > News of 2003 > EICTA 2003-11-27
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EICTA calls on Commission, Council to Kill Parliament Vote

EICTA, a lobbying group representing most large telecommunication and consumer electronics companies in Europe as well as some SMEs has published a press release which literally echoes the letter signed by CEOs of Nokia, Ericsson, Alcatel, Philips and Siemens earlier this month, complaining about the European Parliament's amendments to the proposed software patent directive and asking the Commission and the Council to undo these amendments and immediately go on a confrontation course with the Parliament. The Council did not follow this call during its meeting of today but postponed the debate to next spring, when the Irish presidency takes over. EICTA expresses dismay at this postponement and directs demands of "the industry" to the Irish presidency as well as to the Belgian government. The latter demands are based on the false claim that the Belgian EICTA member organisation AGORIA represents Belgian SMEs.

Press Release

The EICTA press release can be found via

http://www.eicta.org/Content/Default.asp?PageID=207

Please look for press releases 2003.

This press release uses wordings from a letter signed by the CEOs of large telecommunication and consumer electronics companies.

Industry Calls on Council to Correct Damage Done by the European Parliament -- European R&D Will Be Jeopardised If CII Patents Are Eliminated
[...]
For further information,

EICTA:


Leo Baumann +32-2-706 84 77   leo.baumann@eicta.org


AGORIA:


Filip Geerts +32-0475 62 06 62  filip.geerts@agoria.be

Leo Baumann was until recently the assistant of Angelika Niebler, bavarian party colleague working closely with shadow rapporteur Joachim Wuermeling, and thereby influential on much of the policy formulation in the EPP (conservative block in Europarl).

The argumentation of EICTA statements on patent policy usually relies on no evidence, no reasoning, only false representation claims -- corporate patent lawyers masquerading as "the industry".

EICTA Press Briefing 2003-11-26

http://www.eicta.org/dls/Common/GetFile.asp?&logonname=guest&ID=7564&mfd=off

EICTA, the European ICT and consumer electronics association, together with AGORIA, the Belgian multi sector federation for the technology industry would like to invite you to our joint press briefing over breakfast on the Commission's proposal on a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, taking place in Brussels on 26 November 2003 from 9.00 until 10.30 am (Diamant Building, 80 BD. Reyers). The Competitiveness Council will discuss the Commission's proposal on 26/27 November. The Council will react to the damaging amendments proposed by the European Parliament in September 2003. Given the negative effect which the Parliament's recommendations would have on European research and development as well as competitiveness, industry expects the Competitiveness Council to express its concern over recent developments which are contrary to the goals of eEurope and the Lisbon process. Tim Frain, Director of IPR Nokia will explain the impact, the directive will have on European Industry in terms of R&D and competitiveness. Roland Lousky, Vice-President info2clear will present the issue from an SME perspective.

Press briefing on the Commission's proposal on a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in Brussels on 26 November 2003. Venue: EICTA, Diamant Building, 80 BD. Reyers. Venue: EICTA, Diamant Building, 80 BD. Reyers Programme:
9.00Welcome by Leo Baumann, EICTA and Filip Geerts, AGORIA
9.10Introduction into the topic: Tim Frain, Director of IPR Nokia
  • Commission proposal, implementing the status quo of EPO practice in European law
  • importance of the directive for the European Economy as a whole
  • answers to concerns raised in the debate (co-existence of open source and patents, patents as addition to copyright etc.)
  • consequences of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament in first reading
9.40Patents on CII from an SMEs perspective: Roland Louski, Vice-President info2clear
9.50Q&A session
10.30end of programme, possibility for one-to-one discussions

Annotated Links

->CEOs of big telcos sign letter against Europarl Amendments
The chief executive officers of Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens have signed a letter to the European Commission and the European Council which complains about the European Parliament's amendments to the proposed software patent directive, saying that these will effectively remove the value of most of the patents of their companies and thereby harm the competitiveness of Europe's industry and violate the TRIPs treaty. FFII points out that the Directive indeed threatens the interests of the patent departments of such companies, but not of the companies themselves: The letter is characterised by untruthful dogmatic assertions which say much about the thinking of patent departments and little about the interests of their companies, many of whose employees, especially software developers, support the positions of FFII.
->EICTA and Software Patents
The European Information and Communication Technology Association (EICTA) is a coalition of national associations for lobbying at the EU level. Their positions on software patents have been dominated by patent lawyers from the patent arms of large corporate members, such as IBM's Fritz Teufel, who has alsow dominated the position of the german EICTA member BITKOM, and not been supported by any information about the enterpreneurial calculus of the member companies or other informations beyond the usual patent lawyer belief statements. The BITKOM decision was taken by a committee consisting of 7 mega-corporporation patent lawyers and one SME representative who opposed software patentability.
->Nokia and Software Patents
Tim Frain, head of Nokia's patent department, is a "permanent resident" of the European parliament and has used every opportunity to ask politicians in Brussels and in Finland to support the European Commission's software patentability directive. He is present at conferences everywhere. He argues that small companies badly need software patents because otherwise their ideas might be stolen by large companies. Interestingly, most of the software which Nokia uses in its mobile phones is written by Opera, a relatively small (120 employees) company which has actively supported the Eurolinux campaign against software patents. Frain's department is one of the most active producers of software patents in Europe. Here you find an overview of their applications at the European Patent Office.
->infoclear.com
A company focussing on enforcement of copyright in digital environments, presents itself as "your one-stop site for registration and clearance of intellectual property".
->La détermination du cadre jurisdictionnel et législatif
Roland Lousky, whom EICTA presents as its SME representative, is a lawyer working for the IPR clearance company info2clear. Lousky has written french articles on EU legislation in legal journals, of which one titled "Compétence judiciaire pour l'e-commerce : le nouveau Règlement européen est adopté et publié", published 2001-01-19 in the french law journal Droit et Nouvelles Technologies, is cited here.
[ FFII Software Patent News 2003 | CEOs of big telcos sign letter against Europarl Amendments | Amazon Ordering Method Patented in Europe | Software Patent Hearing 2003/07/15 in Porto | European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Software Patent Directive | Vote in 8 days: 2000 IT bosses ask European Parliament to say NO to software patents ]
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english version 2003/12/02 by PILCH Hartmut