Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 12:19:58 +0200
From: Petition EuroLinux <petition@eurolinux.org>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: EuroLinux Congratulates British Telecom for Demonstrating the Absurdity of Software Patents


                  EuroLinux Congratulates British Telecom
            for Demonstrating the Absurdity of Software Patents
   
                             EuroLinux Alliance
   
                          petition.eurolinux.org
   
   For immediate Release
   
   Metz, Munich and Paris, 21/6/2000  - The Eurolinux Alliance of
   European commercial software publishers and non-profit associations
   has published an open letter and congratulates British Telecom for
   providing the world with a brilliant proof of the absurdity of
   software patents. British Telecom, which owns a US patent on Web
   hyperlinks (US4873662, "Information handling system and terminal
   apparatus therefor") has apparently decided to sue all Internet
   Service Providers in the United States for infringement on their
   patent. To ensure that similar absurd disputes do not happen in Europe
   in the near future, and to save software innovation in Europe,
   EuroLinux urges all businesses and citizens in Europe to sign its
   Campaign for a Software Patent Free Europe which already collected
   6000 signatures in 5 days.
   
   BT's move gives a brilliant overview of the great dangers of Software
   Patents in the information society:

    1. Software patents create tremendous juridical uncertainty, thus
       blocking innovation

    2. Software patents create monopolies on Internet standards, thus
       blocking competition
       
   BT's move also shows the absurdity of the software patent system as it
   stands in the US. BT was granted its patent nearly 15 years ago for a
   software concept which may have seemed new and inventive at the time.
   But such a patent, by being so abstract and general, has actually
   given BT the right to strangle the development of the World Wide Web
   and a lot of related technologies, which owe nothing to the inventive
   effort of BT. Even BT themselves took more than 10 years to discover
   that the scope of their own patent included Hyperlinks on the Web.
   
   Europe is currently protected against this absurdity because the
   European Patent Law prohibits granting patents on pure programmes.
   However, thousands of Internet software patents, just as absurd as
   BT's one, are waiting at the European Patent Office for a change in
   the European Patent Law which will likely make them fully enforceable
   in Europe within 6 months. In particular, the European Commission,
   under pressure of the United States, is currently pushing European
   governments to change their patent Law and legalise software patents
   within six months.
   
   As a result, most European Web startup companies may then become,
   knowingly or not, infringers for patents on software techniques such
   as: publishing a database on the Web, one-click (Amazon), affiliate
   programmes (Amazon), HTML Style Sheets (Microsoft), P3P privacy
   (Intermind), WAP (GeoWorks), Web-page Downloading (Sony), Embedded
   Hypermedia, Error Handling (MCI), Web Advertising (Double Click,
   Inc.), Selling Airline Tickets (Priceline), Web User Tracking (Across
   Sites Infonautics), E-commerce Tracking, Shopping Cart, E-commerce
   Sales, etc.
   
   Says Jean-Paul Smets, speaking for the EuroLinux Alliance, "Current
   plans in Europe to legalise software patents are just the beginning of
   another round of patent inflation. Recent rulings at the European
   Patent Office show that it is already possible to get patents for
   services, human actions, intellectual methods, etc. The time has come
   to take control of the European Patent System out of the hands of
   patent experts and back into the hands of the general interest."
   
References

   An Open Letter to BT -
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/bt/thankyou.html

   The EuroLinux Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe -
   http://petition.eurolinux.org

   The EuroLinux File on Software Patents -
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference

   O-Reilley collection of Internet patents -
   http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/patent_list

   BT claims ownership of hyperlinks -
   http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/11450.html

   Gregory Aharonian - 
   http://www.bustpatents.com/
   
About EuroLinux - 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 Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
   Software. Companies members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or sell
   software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating
   systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.
   
   The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organised in 1999, together with the
   French Embassy in Japan, the first Europe-Japan conference on Linux
   and Free Software. The EuroLinux Alliance is at the initiative of the
   www.freepatents.org web site to promote and protect innovation and
   competition in the European IT industry.
   
   Press Contacts
   
   France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets-Solanes 
     jp@smets.com +33-662 05 76 14
   Germany & Europe: Harmut Pilch 
     phm@ffii.org +49-89 127 89 608
   Denmark and Northern Europe: 
     denmark@eurolinux.org
   Belgium: 
     belgium@eurolinux.org
   
   Permanent URL for this PR
   
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr2.html
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr2.pdf
   
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