[DMCA-Activists] Fwd: German Software Businesses Opinions on Software Patents

[Seth Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: German Software Businesses Opinions on Software Patents
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:34:19 +0200
From: Laurent GUERBY <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden

Just FYI, for those interested in opinions on software patent by
software businesses (FS or not), please see below.

Laurent

http://wiki.ffii.org/Ifis050404En
<<
Official Results of German governmental survey show industry
consensus against software patents

With a delay of 7 months the results of a government-ordered
survey on software patents and a interoperability study have been
published. Previously the Ministry of Economics had suppressed
publication of the study after protests from Bitkom, the German
branch of EICTA, and from the Ministry of Justice, which resented
the interference in its turf. A partial evaluation showed last
month that the study revealed nearly unanimous animosity against
software patents among German companies in the ICT sector, based
on fairly detailed knowledge of the problems. The full
publication of the results from all 1200 participants confirmed
this picture. A study about Interoperability/Patent protection
and Competition recommends improvements with regard to Article
6a.  Key facts in English

* There were 1214 answers to the study (585 1-4 employees, 159
5-9 e., 122 10-19 e., 92 20-49 e., 67 50-199 e., 34 200-499 e.,
51 >=500 e., 104 no data, at least representing 40,194 employees)

* A large majority of the responding companies fears impairing
effects

* 1011 companies (83%) indicate they lack the means and expertise
to discover whether or not their products infringe on patents

* 902 companies (74%) insist on an interoperability exemption

* 915 companies (75%) fear that due to software patents they
won't be able to effectively compete in the market anymore, only
23 companies (2%) anticipate the contrary option, to be able be
"better dominate certain markets", among companies > 500
employees the ratio is 29:6, 200-500 employees the ratio is 19:1.

* On a scale of -3 to 3 "How will software patents influence the
innovation ability of your company" scored -1.5 (negative
influence, 94% of interviewees responding), and "Do software
patents have supporting or inhibiting effects on your programming
activities now or in the future?" scored -2.58 (inhibiting,
97.12% of respondents). "How do software patents affect the
calculation of product prices?" ranked 2.45 (higher prices,
96.62% responding). "How much use for you has the know-how gain
by the publication of the software patents by third parties?"
scored -2.41 (no practical use, 89.30% responding).
[...]
News (German)
[links to German sites]
>>