Austrian Gov't Instructions for Unlimited Patentability

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

Via the news page

        http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn

you can click to a new government from the Austrian Technology Ministery 
(BMVIT) which instructs the Coreper diplomats to give 100% support to the 
Council presidency, arguing that

  - the text excludes patentability of software and business methods
  - EPO practise must be upheld
  - calculation rules that make a computer run faster must be patentable
  - Parliament was swayed by anti-patent extremists
  - there is a "growing consensus" for the Council position, no need
    for discussion at ministerial level

Austrian MEPs of all parties have mostly taken the "anti-patent" view in 
the EP, whereas the government continues to leave matters to the PTO, 
which has been promoting 100% pro-swpat views for years and was even quite 
isolated at the 2000 inter-governmental conference in this respect 
(AT and CH being the only countries to insist on deletion of "programs for 
computers" from list of non-inventions in Art 52 (2)).

I have written to at-parl at ffii org and rung up some people.
It is really time for austrians to activate their parliament now.

A template for a parliamentary resolution is found at

        http://kwiki.ffii.org/ParlReso0405De
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/ParlReso0405En
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/ParlReso0405Fr

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
320,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/