1. Poland disapproves software patent directive in EU Council
2. First victory for EU and FSFE in Microsoft trial
3. FSFE Chapter Italy meets the Italian audience
4. Chapter Italy awarded Prof. Stefano Rodotà
5. Other public appearances
1. Poland disapproves software patent directive in EU Council
With its veto, Poland blocked the final approval of the software patent
directive in the EU Council. This means that the directive will have
to be discussed again in the Council. Several countries are expected to
have changed their mind against software patents since the last
discussion in May, where only a thin majority was pro software patents.
The FSFE and its associate organisations worked hard on a political
level both in Poland itself and in other countries backing Poland in
this decision to make the veto possible.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/
2. First victory for EU and FSFE in Microsoft trial
Bo Versterdorf, President of the European Court, has rejected
Microsoft's appeal to delay execution of the sanctions. Microsoft has
been forced by the European Commission to publish technical information
about the interfaces of their Windows Operating System to enable
competitors to reach interoperability between their systems and Windows.
The fact that the rest of Microsoft's opponents have decided to resign
from this case, means that this becomes an even more important victory
for the EU Commission and the FSFE.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ms-vs-eu/
3. FSFE Chapter Italy meets the Italian audience
From December 15th until December 18th, the Italian Chapter of the FSFE
attended four events in Trieste, Torino, Bologna and Milano.
During the four days, Stefano Maffulli gave a speech about the
activity of the FSFE and future perspectives of Free Software in
Italy, Alessandro Rubini spoke about "Gnu General Public License Vs
Creative Commons Public License", Lele Rozza underlined the importance
of Free Software for the public administration. More meetings will be
organized for next months.
4. Chapter Italy awarded Prof. Stefano Rodotà
During the event in Milano, the Italian Chapter of the FSFE awarded
Prof. Stefano Rodotà (head of the Italian Data Protection Authority)
the 2004 Italian "Free Software, Free society" award. Prof. Rodotà
was awarded for his commitment in building awareness around the issue
of personal data protection and into protecting freedom in a digital
society.
5. Other public appearances
Georg Greve gave two public speeches in December: At the University of
Lüneburg, Germany, he gave an introduction to Free Software with a
focus on the effects of Free Software on society, also introducing the
FSFE. At an event held by the University Hamburg, Germany, under the
heading of "programmers and other lawmakers" he also talked about the
current developments in the EU software patent issue and the Microsoft
trial.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
For the attention of The Director General of the WHO
Dear Mr LEE Jong-wook,
Software patents grant a monopoly on their specific idea. The patentee
can grant or withhold authorisation to use that idea and unilaterally
define the terms under which such authorisation is granted or
withheld. This is before even a single line of source code has been
written. In fact: lawyers are generally in a better position to obtain
software patents than the majority of programmers are. Each program
consists of thousands of ideas -- each of them potentially subject to
patent claims. Even though the European Patent Convention explicitly
excludes software from being patented, so far 30,000 software patents
have in fact already been granted in recent years.
The discussion [1] about a formal introduction of software patents has
been ongoing for several years and we would like to make you aware of
the effect of software patents on telemedicine, an area of great hope
for many.
Today, we are seeing the first steps in the telemedicine area. Instead
of being delivered by traditional post, X-Ray scans are transferred
electronically, reducing the availability timescale from days to
seconds. Physicians will soon be able to monitor individual patients
remotely, something that will in particular offer possibilities of
increased medical coverage for people in remote areas all over the
world. Given the demographic development in northern countries and the
increasing medical needs of potentially wealthy elderly people; that
particular idea was patented years ago. [2]
The database of the European Patent Office currently contains 69
patents directly referring to "telemedicine". That seemingly low
number should not let you rest easy. Not only is the number of
software patents likely to skyrocket after the formal introduction of
software patents.
Each application in the field of telemedicine will also depend on
basic software principles to function. These basic principals include
security, networking and data storage. Security in particular is key,
because the number of methods to make computer systems secure are
limited. There is no compulsory licensing of software patents, so
market tactics are likely to see many applications disappear in
courtroom battles before they have become available to patients. In
addition, besides having to refinance the legal costs, each
telemedicine and remote surgery application is likely to suffer from
known security holes and stability problems.
Software patents are putting the wealth of the software patent lobby
over the health of citizens in Europe and around the world.
That is why we believe software patents will adversely affect your
cause and are asking you to take a firm stand against software
patents. If you have further questions, need additional information or
would like to help us prevent software patents in Europe, please do
not hesitate to get in touch.
With kind regards,
Georg Greve
President
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable
non-governmental organization dedicated to all aspects of Free
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate
in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to use, copy, modify and
redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition
allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness
for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE, which was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organization of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
Further information: http://www.fsfeurope.org
[1] http://fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/swpat.en.html
[2]
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=…
--
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
GNU Business Network (http://mailman.gnubiz.org)
Brave GNU World (http://brave-gnu-world.org)