[Patents] FFII Database of European Software Patents and Press Conference

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

     _________________________________________________________________
                                                                        =20
  =20
          European Software Patents: "More Trivial than in the US"
                                     =20
       Programmers publish "European Software Patent Horror Gallery"
                                     =20
      European patent officials want to activate 30000 mines next week
                                     =20
  =20
                           For immediate Release
                                     =20
   Munich - The European Patent Office (EPO) has in recent years granted
   30000 patents on programming problems, business ideas and
   organisational procedures. If national courts consistently followed
   the will of the EPO, it would no longer be legal to conduct automated
   medical diagnoses in Europe. The same applies to numerous mundane
   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 pronounciation with that of a teacher. All these
   activities infringe on European patents, as soon as they are organised
   in an obvious way using computers. 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 a hazardous endeavour.
  =20
   The Association for the Promotion of a Free Informational
   Infrastructure (FFII) has published a database of software patents
   granted by the EPO, together with some impressive examples, statistics
   and articles.
  =20
   The FFII's patent data referent, Arnim Rupp, recommends that anybody
   discussing about software patents should first have a look at that
   database:
  =20
     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 enforcable 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
     Ministery 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.
    =20
   For Daniel R=F6dding, CEO of a software enterprise in Paderborn, the
   situation is very serious:
  =20
     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 developped 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 longterm legal risks, continuing with this
     activity in Germany would be irresponsible from a small
     entrepreneur's point of view.
    =20
   So far already 200 software companies and 55000 signataries of the
   Eurolinux Petition have expressed themselves in a similar way.
  =20
   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).
  =20
   The FFII will together with sponsoring software companies and system
   architects like Richard Stallman present its "European Software Patent
   Horror Gallery" on November 21 11-12:30 near the EPO in Forum der
   Technik, Helios conference room, and respond to journalists'
   questions. Richard Stallman has founded GNU project and the League for
   Programming Freedom, which argued the case against software
   patentability in the United States since 1990.
  =20
References

     * European Software Patents: Database and Examples -
       http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/indexen.html
     * Eurolinux Petition for a software patent Free Europe -
       http://petition.eurolinux.org/index.en.html
     * Dr. Swen Kiesewetter-K=F6binger: =DCber die Patentpr=FCfung von
       Programmen f=FCr Datenverarbeitungsanlagen -- Probleme und
       Ungereimtheiten der Softwarepatentierung aus der Sicht eines
       Pr=FCfers am Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt -
       http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/prina/patpruef.pdf
     * comparative report about the examination practise for software
       patents at the US, European and Japanese patent offices -
       http://www.jpo-miti.go.jp/saikine/repo242.htm
     * German Ministery 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 - Leage for Programming Freedom -
       http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/
      =20
About FFII - www.ffii.org

   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.
  =20
Press Contacts

   email:
          info@ffii.org
         =20
   Tel:
          Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927
         =20
Permanent URL for this PR

   http://swpat.ffii.org/news/pikta
     _________________________________________________________________
  =20
                                                                        =20
    http://swpat.ffii.org/news/pikta/indexen.html
    2000-11-19 SWPAT-AG des FFII