Re: [Patents] Which companies are against art 2a and 4.3a?

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> I suspect most of the electronics industry are against this formulation, 
> because they process information. E.g. producers of television and mobile 
> telephones. So, they join the forces with Microsoft and IBM. 

If the patents are about processing information, they will usually be
enforcable in the context of pure software as well, especially in an age
of convergence.  The claims will regularly be broad enough for that.
 
> Perhaps this fear are used by the hardliners in the EU-commissoin to not 
> formulate a "compromise" that is more radical than the original purpose. I 
> order to have their proposal passed, they utilise that there is no 
> compromises available (from the point of view of the electronics industry). 

The call for program claims was in the Council proposal long before the
Parliament gave any opinion on this.

The patent lawyers from the electronics industry and from the chemistry
industry (e.g. Air Liquide) etc are clamoring that they badly need claims
to "a program, characterised by ..." because otherwise electronics,
chemistry or space industry will collapse.  They will always claim that,
no matter what we demand or propose, and they have a bandwagon that was
formed more than ten years ago and has a strong momentum but a weak 
steering capability.  So they want to continue to keep it running into its 
old direction, with as little discussion as possible.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
330,000 votes 3000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/