Re: [Patents] JURI amendments for 22/4 now up (in Italian)

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

In the example

> What is claimed is
>
> 1. process of operating a computer [ and a few generic I/O and
>    storage devices ], characterised by that [ something very very
>    technical happens ]
> 2. a computer program product, characterised by that upon loading it into
>    memory the [ very very technical ] process of claim 1 is carried out.
> 3. a data structure, characterised by that when loaded into memory the
>    [ very very technical ] process of claim 1 is carried out .

In this listing, claims 2 and 3 are program claims, or you might say
"information claims", or, in more obfuscating language, "Beauregard
claims".

It is very difficult to say that you do not want programs as such to be
patentable and at the same time advocate information claims.  That's why
CEC and McCarthy are careful not to admit them.  In effect of course CEC
and McCarthy advocate the same thing, but not with the utmost consequence
of turning a text into an infringing object and allowing patent owners to
sue internet providers who host this text on their computer.  According to
the CEC/McCarthy proposal, the text can only be pursued as a contributory
infringement, thus less clearly violating Art 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights (freedom of publication).  But of course the
will to violate this article is common to CEC/McCarthy and the
EuPP/ELDR/AT-PSE politicians who are proposing to worsen McCarthy's
proposal.

I suspect that in reality these politicians want to support McCarthy, but
they are creating a fictitious extreme position in order to allow McCarthy
to appear as centrist and her paper as a "compromise".

It is quite sad to see that Diana Wallis of the british libdems, which
have a clear anti-swpat statement in its programmatic document
makeitpolicy.org.uk, has not come forward in support of any amendment
proposals and must therefore be assumed to be going with the leading
pro-swpat people from the "liberal" fraction in JURI.

Recently in Germany the "Liberal" party (fdp.de) criticised the EuroDMCA
for not going far enough and asked for a SuperDMCA, calling itself the
"Party of Property" (Partei des Eigentums).  Since "property" and
"freedom" in this context are directly opposed poles, one could rename
their party from

        Freie Demokratische Partei
        Free Democratic Party

        ==> Propietary Plutocratic Party (PPP)

Which apparently also applies to the party of DeClercq.  A party for the
appropriation of democracy to a few people speaking in the name of big
business, and for occasionally freedom, as long as these few are among the
prime beneficiaries of the proposed freedom, otherwise for unfreedom of
the masses and welfare (free lunch) for the plutocrats.

-- 
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/