[Fsfe-se] [FSFE PR][SV] Karlsruhe Memorandum on Softwarepatentability needs your signature!

FSF Europe Press press at sweden.fsfeurope.org
Fri Jul 1 17:55:13 CEST 2005


Karlsruhe Memorandum on Softwarepatentability needs your signature!

Georg Greve, president of Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) asks
"everyone to sign up to the Karlsruhe Memorandum on software
patentability [1]: preserve your freedom to be creative!" Started last
Saturday during GNU/Linuxtag in Karlsruhe, Germany the memorandum was
signed by more than 200 people and 26 companies - among them Katja
Husen, from the federal board of the German Green Party, Christa Dahme,
federal board member of the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB),
Dr. Wolfgang Kowalsky, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and
Annette Mühlberg, Head of eGovernment, ver.di - United Services
Union-Headquarters, Berlin.

FSFE's goal: urge MEPs to once more make the necessary amendments to
turn the European software patent directive "into a directive that
allows patents on computer-aided inventions, but clearly prevents
software patenting."

As the memorandum highlights, patents on software are among the worst
threats to knowledge-based economies, because they "make computers less
secure, less reliable and prevent competition on a basic level. Lack of
competition and uncalculable legal risks raise the cost of ICT and cost
jobs wherever the economy depends upon them."

According to the Free Software Foundation Europe "the most essential
discoveries in the field of ICT were successful because they were not
patented, for instance the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim
Berners-Lee. If software patents are enacted, the world will never know
which discovery could have been the next World Wide Web."

The European "centre of expertise for Free Software" cites a number of
international scientific studies supporting its arguments: the German
Monopolkommission, [2] which regularly reports about dangers to
competition to the Federal Government of Germany; the Massachussetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) [3]; the Boston University School of Law
[4]; Deutsche Bank Research [5]; Price Waterhouse Coopers [6]; and the
US Federal Trade Commission [7].


1 http://fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/memorandum.en.html
2 http://swpat.ffii.org/archiv/zitate/index.de.html#mopoko0207
3 http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf
4 http://www.researchoninnovation.org/swpat.pdf
5
http://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000175949.pdf
6
http://www.pwc.com/Extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/EC6DE73A846581CE80256EFD002E41FB
7 http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/10/innovationrpt.pdf




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