[Fsfe-ie] Conference on s/w patents
Malcolm Tyrrell
malcohol at eircom.net
Tue Nov 9 17:20:08 CET 2004
This was on the ffii news list.
+++ For Immediate Release, Please Spread +++
Members of European Parliament Invited to Two Software Patent Events
this Week
Members of European Parliament Invited to Two Software Patent Events
This Week
Campaigners for and against patentability of software are doing their
best to attract members of the European Parliament to two contrasting
conferences in Brussels on tuesday and wednesday this week.
Leading innovation economists and patent insurance experts are coming
to Brussels at the invitation of the Foundation for a Free Information
Infrastructure (FFII) and the Maastricht Institute for Economic
Research on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) in cooperation with the
European Federation of Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises
(CEA-PME), the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) and the
Greens / European Free Alliance for a [11]two-day conference to study
some fairly new issues.
Among the participants of this conference are
* Brian Kahin, University of Michigan, formerly White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy,
* Jim Bessen, Boston University, main author of the most detailed
studies on software innovation and patents to date, the latest of
which concludes that such patents have been slowing down
innovation even in large enterprises.
* Koen Martens of the Sender Policy Framework (SPF/Sender-ID) group
whose anti-spam standardisation work has recently stalled due to
patent conflicts within the group
* Simon Phipps of Sun Microsystems, a company that has been torn
between recent painful patent litigation experiences and a strong
patent department that has obtained one of the largest software
patent portfolios in Europe
* Jean-François Abramatic, board member of ILOG, a world-leading
producer of industrial process-optimisation software and a former
Chair of of the World-Wide Web Consortium,
* Dan Ravicher, president of the Public Patent Foundation and author
of a study that finds the Linux kernel possibly infringing on 283
US patents,
* Bruce Perens, formerly at Hewlett-Packard, an open-source
community leader and author of many articles about the
* David Martin of M-Cam Inc., an consulting company based in the US
that works with large companies and governments around the world
to analyse risks and evaluate financial imponderabilities of the
patent system
* David Sant, representative of the European Patent Office in
Brussels, who will discuss the significance of the Parliament's
and Council's legislative proposals for patent granting with
Hartmut Pilch, president of FFII
* Jozef Halbersztadt from the Polish Patent Office, who will conduct
a workshop about the expected effects of the different proposed
directives on the patent granting and explain the viewpoint of the
Polish Patent Office, which has strongy criticised both the EPO
practise and the Council proposal and adhered to a practise which
is closer to that proposed by the European Parliament
* Luc Soete, director of the Maastricht Institute for Economic
Research on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)
* Dietmar Harhoff, director of the Institute for Innovation
Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship of the
University of Munich
* Wendy Seltzer, as fellow of Berkman Center of Harvard Law School
author of the [12]chilling effects website and staff attorney of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation
* Stefan Zickgraf, secretary general of [13]CEA-PME
* Rita Heimes, Director of the Technology Law Center of the
University of Maine, who oversees the Patent Program of the US
state of Maine
* Marianne van der Steen of Delft Technical University who formerly
oversaw patent studies at the [14]Dutch Ministry of Economic
Affairs
Members of the European Parliament and representatives from the
Commission give greeting addresses and preside as moderators over some
of the panels.
On wednesday evening the conference audience is invited to an evening
speech and dinner event of the [15]European Internet Foundation (EIF),
a club of members of the European Parliament and Brussels diplomats of
large companies and associations, most of whom favor software patents,
as currently granted by the European Patent Office and endorsed by the
Council's directive proposal.
Erika Mann will be moderating the last panel of the FFII/MERIT
conference and the registered members of this conference are invited
to the following EIF event and allocated some speaking time. The
FFII/MERIT event is open to the general public free of charge.
You can follow the events in the web at http://tv.ffii.org/.
Backgrounds
* [16]Latest News on European Software Patents
* [17]The Future of the Software Patent Directive
About the FFII
* FFII EU Website http://eu.ffii.org/
* Contacting the FFII http://eu.ffii.org/sections/kontakt/
+ Brussels Office (Erik Josefsson) +32-27396271
+ Munich Office (Hartmut Pilch, Holger Blasum): +49-89-18979927
* info at ffii org
References
11. http://eu.ffii.org/sections/bxl0411/
12. http://www.chilling-effects.org/
13. http://www.ceapme.org/
14. http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatnlEn
15. http://www.eifonline.org/
16. http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn
17. http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatfuturEn
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