bitkom swpat statement

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

The German IT association Bitkom has issued another pro swpat
statement, urging the german government to support the CEC directive
proposal, applauding this proposal's acknowledgment that programs
are inventions, and demanding that consequently program claims should
also be permitted.  The paper says on the one hand that software per
se should be an invention and recognises that the CEC proposal is of
the same opinion.  On the other hand the proposal welcomes the
"technical contribution" gibberish as a way to assure high patent
quality.  It contains quite a lot of nonsensical reasoning of this
kind, which must once again have emanated from the IBM patent
department, whose german head, Mr. Teufel, is the mastermind of Bitkom
patent policy.

Bitkom membership fees start at 2000 EUR/year.  Bitkom is currently
also campaigning for Digital Rights Managment and DMCA-like
legislation.  From listening to the campaign, one would think that
they also support Fritz Hollings.   They also support abolishing
workers' rights, in short anything that prima facie gives more power
to the boards of large companies will get the support of the Bitkom
speakers.

The board is dominated by people from Siemens, Microsoft etc, and the
cadres working for the organisation are unknown servants without any
independent stature as programmers or intellectuals.  Their statements
are in general of a naive dogmatic nature that would not earn them any
respect in either circle.  Thus they are probably forced to go by
their instinct.

See more at

        http://swpat.ffii.org/news/index.en.html
        http://swpat.ffii.org/players/bitkom/

Note also that similar large trade organisations in other countries
such as Holland, Denmark and France have opted against swpat.  Public
opinion in Germany is totally against Bitkom, as can be seen from
commentaries to 

        Heise Newsticker        
        http://www.heise.de/newsticker/         ;

which also reported about the Bitkom move.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608   
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
115,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/