Green Party, Bitkom, EuroParl

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

At a moment where the german government has taken an approach of
silence or even approval (according to a report from the CEC
Industrial Property Unit) toward the CEC proposal, the Green Party is
coming forward with a clear statement of rejection, calling instead
for a confirmation that software isn't patentable.  The Social
Democratic Party's internet association and several of its MPs (those
who are concerned with software and the Internet) have taken a similar
stand.

Meanwhile the German Industry Association Bitkom has, by a vote of 7
megacorp patent lawyers against 1 SME representative in its
"industrial property workgroup", called for support of the CEC
proposal.  The trouble here again is that software companies, be it
small and medium sized (SME) or large sized ones, do not care about
the patent system and therefore leave the field of public policy to
"the experts" i.e. patent lawyers.  Indeed the Bitkom vote can be said
to be a vote of the patent industry against the (absent) software
industry.  Therefore we still lack evidence to judge whether software
patents are in the interest of *anyone* in the software industry.  By
looking at the Bitkom statement you will find again that it contains
only lawyer mantras and no reasoned argument of why swpat would be in
anyone's interest.

I have been invited to speak in the European Parliament on wednesday.
We can bring a few people with us as listeners or witnesses.  Please
contact me by tomorrow morning if you want to come along.

See more details on our news page

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

-- 
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/