Tr: Ljubljana conference : summary

["Sylvain Perchaud" <sylvain@europe-shareware.org>]

You will find below a short summary of the Ljubljana conference on
software patents.

It is a message written for Europe Shareware members, so it is focussed
on the details we are interested in.



---------------- Début du message transmis ----------------
Sujet: Ljubljana conference : summary
Envoyé: samedi 24 avril 2004 15:15
De: Sylvain Perchaud <sylvain@europe-shareware.org>
À: Europe Shareware <**>

[English only]

Hello everyone,


Here is a short summary of the 22 April 2004 Conference on software
patents in Ljubljana.


About the conference
====================

The conference was organized by :
- "Strankamladihslovenije" (the Youth party of Slovenia) <http://www.sms.si>.
- the European Greens <http://www.greens-efa.org>.
- FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) <http://
www.ffii.org>.


The programme can be found here :
<http://plone.ffii.org/events/2004/ljub04/>




Greetings
=========

    - FFII (particularly H. Blasum and H. Pilch) <http://www.ffii.org>
    - all people from LUGOS (slovenian Linux users group) <http://
www.lugos.si>
    - Laurence Van de Walle & Darko Krajnc




The speakers
============

I only discuss here the interventions of slovenian speakers, I believe
the positions of Europe Shareware and FFII are already known.

For info, the three non-slovenian speakers were :
- B. Henrion, representing AEL.
- S. Perchaud, in charge of proprietary software at FFII and president of
Europe Shareware <http://www.europe-shareware.org>.
- R. M. Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation <http://
www.gnu.org>.



Now, about the slovenian speakers :

    - U. Mesojedec (Monitor Magazine, Slovenia) :
    introduced the audience to software patents. He explained why you
can't distinguish between mathematics and software, patenting software
algorithms means you patent mathematics. He also said that applying non-
obviousness criteria to software is a very difficult task. Another point
of his speech was that lawsuits compel SMEs to settle or go out of business.

    - A. Kosir (LUGOS) :
    explained how free software would be terribly harmed if sofware
patents were made legal. How the European Council of Ministers
"compromise" is even worst than the EU Commission draft directive. Why
the EU Parliament amendments have to be supported.

    - G. Perenic (Perenic svetovanje d.o.o.) :
     explained why software patents create so many legal problems, why
there are so many "junk" patents granted, how legal insecurity would
impact day-to-day business.

    - M. Kranjc (Ministry of Information Society of Slovenia) :
    very interesting speech. Explained that currently his ministry
doesn't want software patents "as such" (noticeable precision), that such
patents aren't good at all for SMEs and even cause some problems for
large companies, that it is not a problem between proprietary vs free
software (he wasn't fooled by this myth). Moreover he said that improving
of somebody else ideas was always part of the innovation process in the
software market and that proprietary software publishers should take care
of the software patents debate. He seems, at least, very skeptic about
any benefit from introducing software patents in Europe.




My speech
=========

I was a speaker on the second panel "The draft directive on computer-
implemented invention's economic impact".
My speech was about the fact that Europe lacks a strong venture
capitalism (an important factor in the Silicon Valley's success) and that
introducing software patents will probably make things worst.


In a few points, here is what I said :
- Europe has lots of promising software in strategic markets, especially
as shareware (Opera for browsers, oXygen for XML editors...).
- you need funds to start your company and pay your employees during the
development (that means that during a 6-24 months period you don't sell
any product but you have costs to pay).
- it is very difficult to have a strong european venture capitalism since
they are too many problems :
    - no tax harmonisation. As a result venture capitalists can't compare
the profitability of each startup at the european level. It makes
benchmarking very difficult. Almost all VC funds are based in London (no
tax for VC here), so they invest in local companies.
    - no good expertise. European venture capitalists traditionnaly
invest in biotech or pharma, they have a low understanding of the
software market.
    - no accountability standard (IAS/IFRS is coming).
    - no large stock market for IPO.
    - some european countries (mainly south european countries) don't
invest enough in software while scandinavian countries are catching up
with the USA. It is very difficult to do venture capitalism on a European
level, still better to work on a national level.
    - administrative processes are too different from one european
country to another to create a company.


Main conclusion :
- Europe should focuss its efforts on harmonisation (tax, regulation),
not on tax competition which makes european benchmarking impossible.
- European software publishers are still small or medium-sized (compared
to their US competitors). Adding software patents means importing costly
lawsuits in Europe, this could be a very dangerous move since our air-
supply (money from VC funds) is already low. Software patents would
detter venture capitalists to invest in european software startups.




General impression on the conference
====================================

The organisation was good, I would even say very good since the
organisators only had a few weeks to prepare everything from scratch.

The moderator, Andraz Tori (a slovenian TV presentator), was particularly
good at driving the debate and asking the good questions to politicians
and stakeholders during the round table.

I hope now that the Slovenian government will consider the position of
slovenian software companies and resist pressure coming from non-european
 multinationals.



--
Sylvain Perchaud
Tel : +33 (0) 674 758 551
Fax : +33 (0) 251 280 898
http://www.europe-shareware.org
----------------- Fin du message transmis -----------------

--
Sylvain Perchaud
Tel : +33 (0) 674 758 551
Fax : +33 (0) 251 280 898
http://www.europe-shareware.org