NEW EU PATENT POLICY PROJECT: ANTI-SOFTWARE PATENT CAMPAIGNER RESPONDS TO EUROPEAN COMMISSION'S QUESTIONNAIRE
Companies, organizations and citizens encouraged to submit prepared set of answers to the EC in their own name "in order to stress that most of Europe's IT industry is against software patents and patent inflation" --
Deadline for writing to the EC is March 31
Brussels (March 8, 2006) -- On January 16, the European Commission (EC) published a questionnaire on the future of the European patent system, covering a broad range of policy issues such as an EU-wide community patent, the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), and other measures of streamlining the European patent system. Such consultations are preparatory to new legislative proposals, which pundits expect the EC to put forward after the summer.
Some campaigners have already warned that the EU is once again working on ways to strengthen the legal basis of software patents in Europe. Pro-patent lobbyists such as SAP lawyer Guenther Schmalz confirmed in public that "it is starting again". The European Parliament had thrown out a proposal for a software patent directive on July 6 last year.
Companies, organizations and individuals who would like to tell the EU their opinion on what its patent policy should look like have until the end of this month to answer the EC's questionnaire. But in order to do so, "one has to wade through hundreds of pages of legislative proposals and related documentation", according to Florian Mueller, the founder of the award-winning NoSoftwarePatents campaign: "It's the usual EU lobby-cracy. Still it's very important that many of us write to the EC in order to stress that most of Europe's IT industry is against software patents and patent inflation."
The campaigner, who has been listed among the "top 50 most influential figures in intellectual property", today published a 13-page position paper as a PDF file (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/PATSTRATpositionpaper.pdf) and related explanations (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/position-paper/) in his blog. Everyone is free to submit that document to the EC in his own name.
A three-page "Quick Facts" PDF document (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/PATSTRATquickfacts.pdf) explains what the new EU patent policy project is about and why it is important from the perspective of software patents. According to Mueller, some of the proposals could be agreed upon at the intergovernmental level without any decision-making authority on the part of the European Parliament, which is feared by pro-patent lobbyists because of its landmark decisions in 2003 and 2005. But national parliaments, several of which expressed opinions during the row over the software patent directive, may have a more influential role this time: some decisions may have to be ratified by them.
Mueller's position paper is already supported by 1&1 Internet AG (Europe's largest Web hosting company), Materna GmbH (a German IT and telecommunications company), and MySQL AB (Europe's largest open-source software company).
NOTE: Florian Mueller founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign in 2004 with the support of three corporate sponsors (1&1, Red Hat, MySQL AB), and managed it until March of 2005. He then gave his website to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), the leading European pressure group that opposes the patentability of computer programs. In connection with the EU's new patent policy initiative, Mueller is active on behalf of a group of European IT companies, including Europe's largest Web hosting company 1&1 Internet AG, German IT and telecommunications company Materna GmbH, and Swedish-based MySQL AB, Europe's largest open-source software company.
For his efforts against software patents, Mueller has been nominated as one of the "top 50 most influential figures in intellectual property" by Managing Intellectual Property magazine, and as one of the 50 "Silicon Agenda Setters". His NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign received the "CNET Networks UK Technology Award" in the "Outstanding Contribution to Software Development" category, and the EU-focused newspaper European Voice lists him as the European "Campaigner of the Year 2005" (www.EV50.com) after he received more votes in a public poll than U2 frontman Bono and other candidates.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Florian Mueller fmueller.nosoftwarepatents@gmail.com phone +49-8151-21088
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