Re: [Patents] Openforumeurope.org clarifies swpat position

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> Below is a letter that I emailed to the Register at the weekend, but it
> looks as though they are not going to run it.  Probably it was too long
> or too clumsy or too boring or too political (or all four).

I find it quite good on all four accounts.

> It doesn't quite take the FFII line, but I thought it would have hit the
> main points.

I can't see any deviation from an "FFII line".

> Anyhow, here it is for the archive, for search engines, and in case
> there's anything anyone might want to cut or paste:

It would have looked nicer in the archive without the HTML, so I'll
try to reuse it on swpat.ffii.org.

> <p>Again the truth is rather different.
>
> <p>The relevant passage is Article 6, as amended by McCarthy (<u>Am 16
> McCarthy</u>):
>
> <blockquote>
> Acts permitted <i>as exceptions</i> under <i>Articles 5 and 6 of</i>
> Directive 91/250/EEC on the legal protection of computer programs by
> copyright, in particular provisions thereof relating to decompilation
> and
> interoperability, shall not be affected through the protection granted
> by
> patents for inventions within the scope of this Directive.
> </blockquote>
>
> <p>McCarthy's change (the italics above) is trivial: merely adding seven
> words to name the relevant articles of directive 91/250/EEC.

Indeed McCarthy is hereby responding to requests from the patent lobby to
make sure the effects of Art 6 stay clearly limited, so that nobody can
even hope to be able to use this article to restrict patentability or
patent enforcability in any way which could ever hurt a patent owner.

As said, McCarthy's modifications to the CEC proposal all come from EPO,
UKPO and patent owner lobbies and achieve nothing except to build in
additional safeguards to ensure that swpat owners needn't fear anything.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance             tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
145,000 votes 400 firms against software patents     http://noepatents.org/