From seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org  Wed Nov  7 23:42:47 2001
From: seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson)
Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 18:42:47 -0500
Subject: [Patents] Alert: Software Patents in Europe: Juridical Coup at the EPO
Message-ID: <20011108005251.54B5614A33@stabilite.aful.org>


(I got this from the DMCA Discussion list, 
DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org)

(Time to mobilize -- Seth)


Juridical Coup at the European Patent Office

EuroLinux demands European governments to replace the current board of 
the European Patent Office and to strengthen democratic control

EuroLinux Alliance

petition.EuroLinux.org

For Immediate Release

Munich, Paris. 2001-11-05 - Without waiting for the expected vote by 
the  European Union of a directive on the patentatibility of software, 
the  European Patent Office just published a new examination directive 
which extends the realm of the European patent practice to software, 
business methods and mathematics [1,2].

This decision constitutes a violation of the European democracy and a  
provocation against European governments which had publicly stated last 
November 2000 that they wanted tighter political control over the  
European Patent Office and decided to preserve the exception for 
computer  programmes. [3] This shameful and unacceptable decision also 
constitutes  a violation of Article 22 of of the European Patent 
Convention which  stipulates that only the Enlarged Board of Appeal may 
take decisions on significant patent policy issues. However, the 
European Patent Office has  extended the realm of the European patent 
practice through hidden  decisions of technical boards in order not to 
ask their opinion to  European governments. The European Patent Office 
has tried to circumvent  the democratic control of European Governments 
through adventurous  administrative processes. The European Patent 
Office ignores its ruling authorities. [4] The European Patent Office 
scorns the 80% of software  companies which are against software 
patents. [5, 6]

EuroLinux demands that European governments act firmly.

All projects of directive on the patentability of software, based on 
the  opinion of European governments, and written by the General 
Directorate for Internal Market, require the European Patent Office to 
act in a  controlable and sensible way. However, control and common 
sense do not  seem to be appropriate terms for the current behaviour of 
the European  Patent Office. Therefore, EuroLinux demands governments 
to * clearly  state their oppositions to the patentability of software 
and intangible innovations, * demonstrate to the public opinion their 
ability to control  the European Patent Office by replacing urgently 
the current board,  responsible of repeated violations of the European 
Patent Convention and  of the Diplomatic Conference.

EuroLinux urges all companies, all software users and all citizens who  
whish to protect software innovation in Europe and free competition in  
the information society to join the 90.000 individual supporters and 
300  corporate supporters of our petition for a software patent free 
Europe  [7].

References

[1] EPO Press Release for the new examination rules for software - 
http:/ /swpat.ffii.org/cnino/epgl01A/indexen.html

[2] New EPO examination rules for software - 
http://www.epo.co.at/legal/ gui_lines/f/c_iv_2.htm

[3] EPO Press Release after the November 2001 conference 2001 - http:// 
www.european-patent-office.org/news/pressrel/2000_11_29_e.htm

[4] Stealing with a Righteous Effect, a tale explaining how the EPO 
could  patnet the unpatentable - 
http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/epc52/moses/ indexen.html

[5] The Results of the European Commission Consultation Exercise - 
http:/ /europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/softanalyse.pdf

[6] Acceptable protection of software intellectual property: a survey 
of  software developers and lawyers - http://www.pro-innovation.org/ 
rapport_brevet/economy/elsevier/acceptab le.pdf

[7] EuroLinux Petition - http://petition.eurolinux.org

About EuroLinux - www.EuroLinux.org

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 vigourous 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 90.000 European 
citizens,  2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.

The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organised 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.

Press Contacts

France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets jp@smets.com +33-6 62 05 76 14 Germany 
&  Europe: Harmut Pilch phm@ffii.org +49-89 127 89 608 Denmark and 
Northern  Europe: Anne stergaard aoe@sslug.dk Belgium: Nicolas 
Pettiaux  nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org

Permanent URL for this PR

http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr14.html

Legalese

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks 
and copyrights are owned by their respective companies.

--  Petition contre les brevets logicielshttp://petition.eurolinux.org/ 
Frederic Couchet Tel: 06 60 68 89 31 / 01 49 22 67 89 APRIL http:// 
www.april.org/ Free Software Foundation Europe 
http://www.fsfeurope.org/ 
_______________________________________________
Announce mailing list 
Announce@fsfeurope.org http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/cgi-bin/mailman/
listinfo/announce

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