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[DMCA-Activists] Heise Online: Software Patent Controversy Heating Up
From: |
Seth Johnson |
Subject: |
[DMCA-Activists] Heise Online: Software Patent Controversy Heating Up |
Date: |
Wed, 03 Sep 2003 17:40:06 -0400 |
-----Original Message-----
From: Jonas Maebe <address@hidden>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:14:38 +0200
Subject: Fwd: Controversy about software patents in EU is heating up
Translation of the Heisse article from another list.
>> Begin forwarded message:
From: Dirk Hillbrecht <address@hidden>
Date: woe sep 3, 2003 16:39:36 Europe/Brussels
To: address@hidden
Subject: Controversy about software patents in EU is heating up
Hello everyone,
I just translated the very well written article of heise online about
the patent issue into English and pass it hereby over to list.
Perhaps, it is helpful for someone...
---
Controversy about software patents in EU is heating up
On monday evening, Arlene McCarthy, spokeswoman of the commission
responsible for the more and more controversial EU directive about
patentability of computer-based inventions, lost her temper. After the
voting about the proposal has been delayed into the last parliament's
session week of September, she complained about the "huge amount of
desinformation" against the proposal in a statement for her british
representative fellows. Her most suspicious sources for the
misinformation seem to be open-source-driven groups and small and mid-
sized companies, who temporarily closed down their web servers last
week "due to software patents" and demonstrated against the directive
in Bruxelles.
"This is an in-honest and destructive campaign, which spreads
confusion about the targets of the parliament", she outraged. The
unexpected lobbyists and demonstrants would assail the representatives
with demonstrably false claims and organize phone call campaigns to
the offices of the members of the parliament. If they succeeded, this
would be "the deathblow for the cleverst and best European inventors,
whilst the US and Japan call for license fees from European companies
for the usage of their patents." The future of the whole European
economy was at stake.
This dramatically voiced press release, which is not yet released
officially, is the newest example for the nerves to be all on the edge
in Bruxelles and Strasbourg. The dispute is now more than one and a
half years old and it seems as if noone had thought that Open Source
advocates could become a serious lobbyist party at the European
stage. Further support came from small and mid-sized programming
companies like the Berlin music software specialist Magix and renowned
European economists, who just declared to have "serious concerns". The
strong opposition against software patents seems to be simply
unforseen by the makers of the directive and therefore unplanned.
Currently, the situation is listless. The proponents of the directive
as McCarthy or commission member for the European Single Market, Frits
Bolkestein, stress again and again that software "itself" should not
be patentable. Only in conjunction with hardware and a "technical
function" this kind of monopol protection should be grantable. The
opponents like Hartmut Pilch from FFII say this to be a cant and to be
contradictive to the written content of the directive proposal. In
their opinion, the paper continues to miss any means against patents
on simple software logic. Examples are the highly controversial Amazon
patents which seem to be found worth for a patent by the European
patent office.
In the final state before the vote several changes have been
suggested. On the one hand the patent lobby tries to invalidate even
the currently existing "interoperability clause" 6(a) of the proposal.
This clause protects conversion programs between different data
schemes against patent claims. A reformulation of this clause, which
is also supported by McCarthy, now anullates this exception. On the
other hand, small parties like the Ecologists [GrĂ¼ne] and other
liberal or radical groups have introduced suggestions for changes.
They demand to change article 2(b) of the proposal in a way, that the
often cited "technical contribution" of the invention is defined in
the text. A possible definition could be based on the "connection
between cause and effect in the usage of controllable natural forces".
It is questionable whether a compromise will be found by the end of
the month or not. Even parliamentarians from the German Conservatives,
who followed the directive proposal more or less without a doubt so
far, do mention the change suggestions now on request. They even
neglect explicitly software to be a technical part on itself. The
British ministry of Foreign Affairs, contrariwise, has sent a letter
to the country's members of the European parliament, which supports
the McCarthy reasoning. The European Socialists, of which McCarthy is
a member, plan to search and agree on a common way to continue in this
week. (Stefan Krempl)
---
Best regards,
Dirk Hillbrecht
--
--- Dirk Hillbrecht, Hannover, Deutschland, Germany
----- address@hidden - http://www.hillbrecht.de/
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