[ANSOL-geral][Fwd: [ffii] Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent
Plans]
João Miguel Neves
joao arroba silvaneves.org
Wed Aug 20 15:24:02 2003
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A =FAltima hip=F3tese que temos de evitar patentes de software na Europa.
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Jo=E3o Miguel Neves <joao arroba silvaneves.org>
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Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:29:24 +0200 (CEST)
From: PILCH Hartmut <phm arroba a2e.de>
To: news arroba ffii.org
Subject: [ffii] Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Plans
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FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Plans
Brussels 2003/08/19
For immediate Release
The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted
to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision
on September 1st, giving rise to another wave of protests. Various
groups in Belgium and elsewhere are mobilising for a rally in Brussels
on August 27th and are calling on web administrators to temporarily
block their web sites.
Details
The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted
to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision
on September 1st, giving rise to another wave of protests. The
Eurolinux Alliance is calling for participation in a rally in Brussels
on August 27th, comprising a street performance at 12.00 on Luxemburg
Square and conference at 14.00 in the European Parliament, and for
accompanying online demonstrations.
"The directive proposal as prepared by Arlene McCarthy MEP would
impose US-style unlimited patentability of algorithms and business
methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping" says Benjamin Henrion, who
is heading a local organisational team with the backing of a coalition
of organisations representing 2000 software companies and 160,000
individuals, mostly software professionals.
In an appeal, the organisers call on European citizens to stand up for
the public interest to defend freedom of creation against logic
patents, to defend copyright-based software property against
patent-based software piracy, to defend software innovation against
patent inflation, to defend software users against reduced choices and
monopoly pricing.
They call on the European Patent Office: Stop littering Europe's
information highway! and on the European Parliament: Punish the
polluters, don't legalise the pollution!
The program in Brussels is approximately as follows, more details will
be supplied soon:
12.00-14.00 | Place du Luxembourg | Performance, balloons, patent chain,
speeches, ...
14.00-16.00 | EuroParl[13][1] | Conference
"In May a [14]two-day software patent conference in and near the
European Parliament attracted 200 participants. Leaders of the
scientific commuities and software business world condemned the
directive proposal in every respect. Yet in June the EP Legal Affairs
Commission endorsed this proposal with further amendments that make it
even worse", explains Henrion. "More and more people are now seeing
this very clearly. We expect even more participatants this time."
Yet the vast majority of our supporters will certainly not be on
Luxemburg Square on August 27th. "Those who can not come to Brussels
should demonstrate online, using their web servers or other internet
services", says Hartmut Pilch, president of FFII. "We have
[15]proposed a series of ways in which this can be done. There is
certainly a way for everyone. Better make access to your webpage a bit
more difficult now for one or two days than lose your freedom of
publication for the next ten years. Note that if the McCarthy report
is approved without drastic amendments, programmers and Internet
Service Providers will be regularly sued for patent infringement, if
they publish programs on the Internet. If the Parliament votes for the
McCarthy proposal now, there will be no more chances for democratic
control later."
Annotated Links
-> [16]AEL Big Demo 27 aug Wiki
Hints on how to participate in the demo, needed equipment on
site, who provides what, etc
-> [17]FFII BXL 2003/08 Wiki
Holger's editable auxiliary pages for the 2003/08/27 demo and
related events. Includes hints on hotel/hostel rooms, t-shirts,
banners etc
-> [18]2003/08 Letter to Software Creators and Users
The European Parliament will, in its plenary session on
September 1st, decide on a directive proposal which ensures
that algorithms and business methods like Amazon One Click
Shopping become patentable inventions in Europe. This proposal
has the backing of about half of the parliament. Please help us
make sure that it will be rejected. Here are some things to do.
-> [19]2003/08/25-9 BXL: Software Patent Directive Amendments
Members of the European Parliament are coming back to work on
monday August 25th. It is the last week before the vote on the
Software Patent Directive Proposal. We are organising a
conference and street rally wednesday the 27th. Some of our
friends will moreover be staying in the parliament for several
days. Time to work decide on submission of amendments to the
software patent directive proposal is running out. FFII has
proposed one set of amendments that stick as closely as
possible to the original proposal while debugging and somewhat
simplifying it. An alternative small set of amendments would
"cut the crap" and rewrite the directive from scratch. We
present and explain the possible approaches.
-> [20]Online Demonstration Against Software Patents
We can show our concern by physical presence as well as by more
or less gently blocking access to webpages in a concerted
manner at certain times.
-> [21]European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Software
Patent Directive
The European Parliament has postponed the vote on the software
patent directive back to the original date of 1st of September,
thereby rejecting initially successful efforts of its
rapporteur Arlene McCarthy (UK Labour MEP of Manchester) and
her supporters to rush to vote on June 30th, a mere twelve days
after publication of the highly controversial report and ten
days after the unexpected change of schedule.
-> [22]JURI votes for Fake Limits on Patentability
The European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the
Internal Market (JURI) voted on tuesday morning about a list of
proposed amendments to the planned software patent directive.
It was the third and last in a series of committee votes, whose
results will be presented to the plenary in early september.
The other two commissions (CULT, ITRE) had opted to more or
less clearly exclude software patents. The JURI rapporteur
Arlene McCarthy MEP (UK socialist) also claimed to be aiming
for a "restrictive harmonisation of the status quo" and
"exclusion of software as such, algorithms and business methods
from patentability". Yet McCarthy presented a voting list to
fellow MEPs which, upon closer look, turns ideas like "Amazon
One-Click Shopping" into patentable inventions. McCarthy and
her followers rejected all amendment proposals that try to
define central terms such as "technical" or "invention", while
supporting some proposals which reinforce the patentability of
software, e.g. by making publication of software a direct
patent infringment, by stating that "computer-implemented
inventions by their very nature belong to a field of
technology", or by inserting new economic rationales
("self-evident" need for Europeans to rely on "patent
protection" in view of "the present trend for traditional
manufacturing industry to shift their operations to low-cost
economies outside the European Union") into the recitals. Most
of McCarthy's proposals found a conservative-socialist 2/3
majority (20 of 30 MEPs), whereas most of the proposals from
the other committees (CULT =3D Culture, ITRE =3D Industry) were
rejected. Study reports commissioned by the Parliament and
other EU institutions were disregarded or misquoted, as some of
their authors point out (see below). A few socialists and
conservatives voted together with Greens and Left in favor of
real limits on patentability (such as the CULT opinion, based
on traditional definitions, that "data processing is not a
field of technology" and that technical invention is about "use
of controllable forces of nature"), but they were overruled by
the two largest blocks. Most MEPs simply followed the voting
lists of their "patent experts", such as Arlene McCarthy (UK)
for the Socialists (PSE) and shadow rapporteur Dr. Joachim
Wuermeling (DE) for the Conservatives (EPP). Both McCarthy and
Wuermeling have closely followed the advice of the directive
proponents from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the
European Commission's Industrial Property Unit (CEC-Indprop,
represented by former UK Patent Office employee Anthony Howard)
and declined all offers of dialog with software professionals
and academia ever since they were nominated rapporteurs in May
2002.
-> [23]Why Amazon One Click Shopping is Patentable under the Proposed
EU Directive
According to the European Commission (CEC)'s Directive Proposal
COM(2002)92 for "Patentability of Computer-Implemented
Inventions" and the revised version approved by the European
Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal
Market (JURI), algorithms and business methods such as Amazon
One Click Shopping are without doubt patentable subject matter.
This is because
1. Any "computer-implemented" innovation is in principle
considered to be a patentable "invention".
2. The additional requirement of "technical contribution in the
inventive step" does not mean what most people think it
means.
3. The directive proposal explicitly aims to codify the practise
of the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO has already
granted thousands of patents on algorithms and business
methods similar to Amazon One Click Shopping.
4. CEC and JURI have built in further loopholes so that, even if
some provisions are amended by the European Parliament,
unlimited patentability remains assured.
-> [24]FFII: Software Patents in Europe
For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has,
contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted
more than 30000 patents on computer-implemented rules of
organisation and calculation (programs for computers). Now
Europe's patent movement is pressing to consolidate this
practise by writing a new law. Europe's programmers and
citizens are facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic
documentation, starting from a short overview and the latest
news.
Contact
mail:
media at ffii org
phone:
Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927
[25]Benjamin Henrion +32-10-454761
More Contacts to be supplied upon request
About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source
software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux
develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses
for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.
About the FFII -- www.ffii.org
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a
non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the
spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of
public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open
standards. More than 250 members, 300 companies and 15,000 supporters
have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy
questions in the area of exclusivity rights (intellectual property) in
the field of software.
Permanent URL of this Press Release
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/demo0819/index.en.html
_________________________________________________________________
Notes
[1] Room number to be announced tomorrow. External visitors,
including journalists, need to register in advance. Please contact
bxl030827 at ffii org for this purpose.
References
14. http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/05/index.en.html
15. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html
16. http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/BigDemo27aug
17. http://offen.ffii.org/bxl/
18. http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/parl038/index.en.html
19. http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/08/index.en.html
20. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html
21. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/index.en.html
22. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0617/index.en.html
23. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/tech/index.en.html
24. http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html
25. http://bh.udev.org/
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