Commission Cheats European SMEs in Patent Consultation

[Jonas Maebe <jonas.maebe@ugent.be>]

PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / ICT ]

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Commission Cheats European SMEs in Patent Consultation
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Brussels, 10 July 2006 - The Commission made an undercover move to  
get more "useful" answers following the 12 April closing date of its  
Patent Policy consultation.  It sought out small firms across Europe  
who had used the patent system.  It then provided these firms with  
new documentation and specialist assistance to help them write  
individual answers.  None of the firms answering the online  
consultation got this help.  But when the software firms in this new  
group came to the same conclusions as the FFII, the Commission  
concluded that these firms were "lacking knowledge about the patent  
system".

FFII researcher Benjamin Henrion, who uncovered the facts says, "The  
Commission published its procedures for the consultation, and on this  
basis many hundreds of people invested time and money to answer.  At  
the FFII we invested several hundred man days to prepare a collective  
answer supported by over a thousand SMEs.  Now we learn that the  
Commission changed the rules, after the close of the consultation."

"It selected over 600 SMEs who were known to hold patents or be  
involved in patent litigation, and helped them to answer by providing  
expert assistance.  Finally, it discounted our collective answers,  
and promoted its own SME answers", he continues. FFII president  
Pieter Hintjens adds: "If the Commission wanted to delay the  
proceedings to get more SME input, it should have followed our  
recommendations."

During the consultation, the FFII documented many faults with the  
consultation in an open letter, and made suggestions for fixing  
these.  Hintjens continues: "The Commission's behaviour is  
inconsistent with its pretended role as a neutral party.  It puts a  
strong shadow over the credibility of the consultation procedure and  
any results the Commission may announce."

Ironically, the responses from the Commission's ICT SME sample  
nevertheless match the FFII's conclusion. They see the danger of  
software patents being legalized European-wide by the back door via  
both the Community Patent and the EPLA initiatives. The Commission  
however discredits this opinion by claiming these SMEs lack  
understanding of the patent system.

"Speaking as an SME, I'm outraged that while I had to spend huge  
amounts of time trying to understand this document, some patent- 
holding non-producing entity got secret financial assistance from the  
Commission to write an answer" concludes Hintjens, who is also CEO of  
iMatix Corporation.


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Background information
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The Commission contacted over 170 European Information Centres (IECs)  
in over 19 countries to find the SMEs with the desired profiles  
(either used or wanted to use the patent system, or have been  
involved in patent litigation). They were invited to a presentation  
on the topic, and later either filled in their consultation with the  
help of IP specialists, or the EIC filled it on for them during a  
phone interview.


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Links
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* Commission instructions and documentation sent to the EICs
 http://wiki.ffii.org/SmePanel0607En

* FFII open letter concerning inaccessibility of the consultation
 http://consultation.ffii.org/Open_Letter

* FFII patent consultation documentation
 http://consultation.ffii.org/

* Permanent link to this press release
 http://wiki.ffii.org/PatConsultPr060710En


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Contact Information
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Benjamin Henrion
FFII Brussels
+32-2-414 84 03 (fixed)
+32-484-56 61 09 (mobile)
bhenrion@ffii.org
(French/English)


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About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org
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The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the
public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards.
More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have
entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions
concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.