 European
Software Patents:
More Trivial than in the US
EuroLinux
Publishes
European Software Patent Horror Gallery
EuroLinux Alliance
petition.eurolinux.org
For immediate
Release
Munich, 2000-11-20 - The Association
for the Promotion of a Free Informational Infrastructure (FFII),
member of the EuroLinux Alliance of software publishers and non
profit associations, has published a database
of software patents granted by the EPO, together with some impressive
examples, statistics and articles. This database shows that software
patents granted by the European Patent Office are even more trivial
than software patents granted in the United States. This "European
Software Patent Horror Gallery" will be introduced on November
21 11-12:30 in Munich, Germany, with special guest Richard Stallman,
founder of the League for Programming Freedom.
Currently, pure software patents
granted by the European Patent Office are considered as illegal or
abusive by national courts in Europe. However, this situation may
change by the end of the week if the exception on computer programs
is removed from the European Patent Convention. It would then be no
longer legal to conduct automated medical diagnoses in Europe. The
same applies to numerous economic or social activities such as
conducting of examinations in schools, bringing traders together at
the stock exchange, generating purchasing lists from cooking recipes,
setting prices dynamically, learning languages by comparing one's
pronunciation with that of a teacher. All these activities would
infringe on European patents, as soon as they are implemented through
software. Other EPO patents encumber network standards such as MIME
and CGI and squatter the operating system level by occupying
thousands of basic methods of memory arithmetics, making programming
in these fields a hazardous endeavour.
FFII's patent data specialist, Arnim
Rupp, recommends that anybody discussing about software patents
should first take a look at that database: « by
browsing through the EPO's patents you will quickly find out that
this has nothing to do with protecting software, let alone protecting
innovative solutions. What this is really about is occupying complete
problems. Fortunately for us, these hilariously trivial and
gruesomely broad EPO patent claims are so far not necessarily
enforceable before European courts. The American mega corporations,
to whom most of these illegally granted patents belong, are still
waiting for a change in the European Patent Convention. If the
Diplomatic Conference sets the wrong signal in Munich next week,
Germany will hopefully abide by the words of the Ministry of Justice
and refuse to ratify the new European Patent Convention. The
situation is serious enough to justify this. The European patent
system will work one way or another. The issue at stake now is how to
keep 30000 mines from detonating and how to give back basic legal
security to European IT enterprises and citizens. »
For Daniel Rödding, CEO of a
software enterprise in Paderborn, the situation is very serious: « by
browsing the FFII's patent data base you can quickly grasp what
software patents mean for most European IT companies today. On such a
minefield small software companies hardly have any chance anymore.
For my company I have already drawn the consequences: Starting from
mid of next year we will conduct large parts of our software
development in a country which does not yet have such a highly
developed patent law system and in which a change of the legal
situation cannot be expected for the near future. In certain fields
the development of software is becoming too dangerous in Germany.
Given the long-term legal risks, continuing with this activity in
Germany would be irresponsible from a small entrepreneur's point of
view. » Same applies to the rest of Europe.
So far already 200 software companies
and 55000 signatories of the Eurolinux
Petition have expressed themselves in a similar way. Economists
worldwide have confirmed that the introduction of patents in the
software economy tends to harm innovation.
Meanwhile at the "Diplomatic
Conference" patent representatives of 20 European countries will
be negotiating about a "Base Proposal for the Revision of the
European Patent Convention" drafted by EPO president Dr. Ingo
Kober. Therein the EPO proposes among others to stipulate universal
patentability (Art 52) and to confer special legislative rights on
the administrative council of the EPO (Art 33). The rules or
procedure have been determined by the EPO in such a way that national
patent delegations can overrule individual items only by a 2/3
majority. Otherwise the will of the EPO will become legally binding
in all European countries whose parliaments do not opt out of the
European Patent Convention (EPC).
The "European Software Patent
Horror Gallery" will be introduced on November 21 11-12:30 by
near the EPO in Forum der Technik, Helios conference room. FFII
members will respond to questions from journalists regarding this
database and the EuroLinux petition to protect software innovation in
Europe. Special guest Richard Stallman, founder of League
for Programming Freedom, will introduce the situation related to
software patents in the United States.
References
European Software Patents: Database and Examples -
http://petition.eurolinux.org/examples/
Eurolinux Petition for a software patent Free Europe -
http://petition.eurolinux.org/
The EuroLinux Public Consultation -
http://petition.eurolinux.org/consultation
The EuroLinux File on Software Patents -
http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference
Diplomatic
Conference to revise the European Patent Convention -
http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/dipl_conf/documents.htm
Dr. Swen Kiesewetter-Köbinger: Über die Patentprüfung
von Programmen für Datenverarbeitungsanlagen -- Probleme und
Ungereimtheiten der Softwarepatentierung aus der Sicht eines Prüfers
am Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt
-
http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/prina/patpruef.pdf
Comparative report about the examination practice for software
patents at the US, European and Japanese patent offices -
http://www.jpo-miti.go.jp/saikine/repo242.htm
German Ministry of Justice demands that the computer program
exception not be removed at the coming conference and threatens to
opt out of the EPC otherwise
-
http://www.spiegel.de/druckversion/0,1588,100120,00.html
Protecting Informational Innovation against the Abuse of the
Patent System - http://swpat.ffii.org/
A simplistic but true introduction to the problem (German only) -
http://www.save-our-software.de/
GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org
Software Patents - League for Programming Freedom -
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/
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 vigorous European Software Culture
based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
Software. Companies members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or
sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for
operating systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.
The EuroLinux Alliance launched on
2000-06-15 an electronic petition to protect software innovation in
Europe. The EuroLinux petition has received so far massive support
from more than 50.000 European citizens, 2000 corporate managers and
200 companies.
The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organized
in 1999, together with the French Embassy in Japan, the first
Europe-Japan conference on Linux and Free Software. The EuroLinux
Alliance is at the initiative of the www.freepatents.org
web site to promote and protect innovation and competition in the
European IT industry.
FFII is a
non-profit association which promotes the development of open
interfaces, open source software and freely available public
information. FFII coordinates a workgroup
on software patents which is sponsored
by successful German software publishers. FFII is member of the
EuroLinux Alliance.
Press Contacts
France & Europe: Stéfane Fermigier sf@fermigier.com
+33-6 63 04 12 77
Germany & Europe: Hartmut Pilch phm@ffii.org
+49-89 127 89 608
Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard
aoe@sslug.dk
Belgium: Nicolas
Pettiaux nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org
Permanent URL for this PR
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr7.html
Legalese
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other
trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective companies.
| 