[Fsfe-ie] Conference on s/w patents

[Malcolm Tyrrell]

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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