<<<<<<<
Paris. 2001-03-25.
On Friday, March 23rd 2001, State Secretary of Industry Christian Pierret
who is directly in charge of the French Patent Policy stated in an
interview to 01 Informatique, the leading IT magazine in France: "I am
against software patents in Europe. It would kill innovation and promote
juridical terrorism because multinational software publishers would
multiply legal disputes against start-ups".
EuroLinux welcomes this brave position. "Christian Pierret is the living
proof that there still exist politicians in Europe who defend innovation
and the general interest even under the pressure of powerful multinational
software publishers, politicians who can oppose the underwater lobbying of
their national patent offices seeking to defend their own privileges" says
Stéfane Fermigier, Pdt of AFUL (Association Francophone des Utilisateurs
de Linux et des Logiciels Libres, min merkn.) for EuroLinux.
EuroLinux wishes for other governments in Europe to be able to take
similar positions. In Germany, all political parties have taken positions
against software patents. In France, many member of parliaments
(Conservative, Greens, Socialists) have taken positions against software
patents. In the Netherlands, the parliament ordered its government to
first fix the obviousness and technicality criteria before allowing
software patents. In Denmark, PROSA, an association of 13.000 computer
professionals opposed software patents. The EuroLinux petition counts 200
commercial companies in its supporters, as well as more than 70.000
individual signatures.
Still, key software patent lobbyists such as the UK Patent Office, which
organised in London in 1998 an EC conference to promote software patents,
or John Mogg, head of the General Directorate for Internal Market at the
European Commission, are pushing for the legalisation of so-called
"patents on software with technical effect". The problem with this
approach is that "the technical character of computer software should be
generally acknowledged" which means that "all computer programs are
technical" as famous German patent expert M. Betten explained in front of
EC representatives as early as in 1997, during a conference of the UNION,
an association of more than 700 professionals in industrial property from
20 European countries. It is obviously contradictory to ban software
patents and to legalise patents on software with technical effect. Recent
decisions of the European Patent Office show that the legalisation
of "patents on software with technical effect" would not only legalise
patent on file formats (ex. GIF, MP3) or network protocols (ex. WAP) but
also lead to patents on business methods such as "printing cooking recipes
on demand" (EP756731) or "managing a company through a single log file"
(EP 209907)
EU governments should understand that the General Directorate for Internal
Market is trying to fool them with the concept of "software with technical
effect". They should clearly say "NO!" to all software patents, with or
without technical effect, in order to protect innovation in Europe.
>>>>>>>
Resten av artikkelen:
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr10.html?NO_COOKIE=true
EuroLinux petition for a Software Patent Free Europe:
http://petition.EuroLinux.org/
Oddmund Garvik
______________________________________________________________________________
ifrance.com, l'email gratuit le plus complet de l'Internet !
vos emails depuis un navigateur, en POP3, sur Minitel, sur le WAP...
http://www.ifrance.com/_reloc/email.emailif
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 30 2001 - 20:00:58 MET DST