Re: [Patents] EU Commission: Competitive and efficient European enterprises

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

Carsten quoted:

[...]

> ensure that a balanced approach is maintained in the EU framework
> and that European enterprises remain competitive and operate on a
> level playing field in the global economy.

[...]

> * EU needs to improve the environment for innovation in order to
> close the gap with major trading partners.

[...]

and wrote:

> So that is the reason why the commission wants to software to
> be patentable? E.g. to help make software development like
> tapdancing in a minefield especially for SME.

Indeed the above statements sound like encrypted wording for something
like

        "we must adopt US patent practises in Europe"

        "we must reeducate SMEs"

WIPO, CEC.eu.int, EPO and others are already spending a lot of money on
such reeducation campaigns, and the rationale for such campaigns uses the
same kind of encryption as above.

Recently, the german and austrian parliaments have ratified EuroDMCA, and
some politicians, particularly from the conservative camp, said that this
was overdue, because it had been decided by EU & WIPO long ago.  Indeed
there was even an unencrypted statement from the US ambassador in Berlin,
criticising the governmental coalition's attempts to have a few exemptions
for private copying.  The law leaves such exemptions, but its explanatory
text hides the issues at stake.  Even those who opposed the text (such as
austrian socialists) did not really seem to know what was at stake and
appeared as if they were trying to sneak in some means of circumvention.
It appears we are in an era where legislators are willingly blindfolded by
obscuring language.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
140,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/