Re: [Patents] IDG news service: EU headed for limited software patent law

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> EU headed for limited software patent law
> By Paul Meller, IDG News Service June 18, 2003

We discussed this here before.

Meanwhile there is a page for documenting media manipulation at

        http://swpat.ffii.org/players/media/

> http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/06/18/EU%20headed%20for%20limited%20software%20patent%20law%20(IDGNS)_1.html

> Excerpt:
> The European Parliament is likely to support a law that permits software
> patents but limits their application to inventions that have a technical
> effect outside of just a computer program. A program could only be patented
> if it runs in conjunction with some sort of device such as an intelligent
> household appliance or a mobile phone.

That is what we demand and McCarthy refuses.

> The proposed directive steers a course midway between these two extreme 
> views,
> and has won the support of organizations such as the Business Software
> Alliance (BSA), which represents firms including Microsoft and Apple.
>
> "We support the move towards a harmonized European approach to software
> patents," said Francisco Mingorance, director of public policy, Europe for
> the BSA, adding that the BSA doesn't want a U.S.-style system. "We agree 
> that
> technical effects should be a condition of patentability," he said.

Indeed this is what Francisco Mingorance would say. He is interested in
being nice and supportive to the forces in power in Brussels, not in
pushing any specific patentability law.  The focus of BSA is copyright
infringment.

The article also illustrates that the leakage of the Mingorance signature
in the original CEC document may have been intended.  It created a media
row which made people believe that, even if some irregularities were
involved, at least the proposal was driven by the software industry.
Which of course it wasn't.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
150,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/