New EU patent fight to break out in Brussels on Wednesday (July 12)

[Florian Mueller <fmueller.nosoftwarepatents@googlemail.com>]

NEW EU PATENT FIGHT TO BREAK OUT
IN BRUSSELS ON WEDNESDAY (JULY 12),
SAYS CAMPAIGNER FLORIAN MUELLER

European Commission hearing on the future of European patent policy
pits the same opposing camps against each other as the proposed
software patent directive that the EP voted down one year ago

Brussels (July 10, 2006) - Florian Mueller, the founder of the award-winning
NoSoftwarePatents campaign that helped to defeat the EU software patent
directive last year, expects a new fight over European patent policy to
break out on Wednesday. On that day, the European Commission will hold a
public hearing on the future of the European patent systems in Brussels
(http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/patent/hearing_en.htm). A
little over a year after the European Parliament threw out the "directive on
the patentability of computer-implemented inventions", the same opposing
camps are at loggerheads again.

This time around, the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), a
proposal for an international treaty that would establish a new European
Patent Court, is at the center of the dispute. In front of approximately 250
politicians, public servants and journalists, the Foundation for a Free
Information Infrastructure (FFII, http://www.ffii.org) and Mueller will
speak out strongly against the EPLA, while representatives of such large
corporations as Nokia and lobbying organizations close to Microsoft will
demand the EPLA's ratification.

In his blog (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/),
Mueller predicts that EU internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy "is
determined to back the EPLA"
(http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/mccreevy-epla/).
According to Mueller, McCreevy was a driving force behind the software
patent directive, and "Microsoft and the other usual suspects" have already
lobbied members of the European Parliament to support the EPLA.

In his speech at the Wednesday hearing
(http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/hearing-speech/),
Mueller is going to state that the EPLA "is just another attempt to give
software and business method patents a stronger legal basis in Europe than
they have now. [...] From a software patents point of view, the EPLA would
have far worse consequences than the rejected patentability directive would
have had: not only would software patents become more enforceable in Europe
but also would patent holders in general be encouraged to litigate."

Mueller also complains about an expected "doubling or tripling of the total
cost of litigation" per patent dispute in Europe.

The legal status of software patents in Europe is contradictory. While the
existing written rules, which go back to the year 1973, disallow patents on
computer programs "as such", the European Patent Office (EPO) and various
national patent offices have granted tens of thousands of software patents.
However, European patents, even if granted by the EPO, can only be enforced
country by country as of now, and national courts declare many EPO software
patents invalid when their holders try to use them against alleged
infringers. Critics argue that the EPLA would create a new court system that
would be under the control of the same group of government officials who
already govern the EPO, and that the judges appointed by those people would
support the EPO's granting practice and its broad scope of patentable
subject-matter with respect to software and business methods.

Last week, the European Commission published a preliminary evaluation
(http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/preliminary_finding
s_en.pdf) of the responses it received to a patent policy questionnaire
published in January. The Commission's questionnaire addressed different
policy initiatives, first and foremost the unitary "Community patent", a
patent that would be valid across the entire EU. But the Commission's
preliminary findings indicate that disagreement over the language regime of
such a Community patent has thus far prevented the EU from moving forward
with the project. The Commission's analysis shows that industry
organizations show a strong preference for the EPLA instead.

The Commission will listen to approximately 40 speakers at the hearing on
Wednesday, and will formulate a policy recommendation after the summer.
Mueller wrote
(http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/ecj-epla/) that
one of the next steps will be for the European Commission to ask the
European Court of Justice for an opinion on whether the ratification of the
EPLA requires direct involvement on the part of the EU or whether any EU
member states would be free to conclude the EPLA on their own. The EPLA's
proponents would prefer to eliminate the need to reach a decision at the EU
level, fearing that the European Parliament might once again wreck their
plans.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Florian Mueller
fmueller.nosoftwarepatents@gmail.com
fixed line +49-8151-21088
mobile phone +49-171-2632226