Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 11:07:19 +0200
From: EuroLinux <petition@eurolinux.org>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: EuroLinux Warns: Software Patents Still on European Commission Agenda


            EuroLinux Warns: Software Patents Still on EC Agenda
   
                             EuroLinux Alliance
   
                          petition.eurolinux.org
   
   For immediate Release
   
   Munich and Paris, 7/7/2000  - The Eurolinux Alliance of European
   commercial software publishers and non-profit associations warns :
   Software Patents are still on the European Commission Agenda. The
   General Directorate for Internal Market at the European Commission has
   not changed its ideologic position in favour of software patents.
   
   The Eurolinux Alliance has called for more than a year for a
   scientific review of the general economic and social impact of
   software patents. The General Directorate for Internal Market at the
   European Commission, under the direction of John Mogg, seems to have
   chosen to answer to this fair request through a disinformation
   campaign. Information bits currently leaked to the press suggest that
   the European Commission has adopted a directive on community patents
   and that it has abandoned its plans on Software Patents. However, much
   of this information should be considered with extreme care.
   
   In order to clarify the debate, EuroLinux requests the General
   Directorate for Internal Market to provide a public answer to the
   following 3 questions :

    1. Has the directive been approved in a finalised written form ? Is
       it possible to access to a written version of the proposed
       directive ? Where ? Why not already ?

    2. Will the General Directorate for Internal Market promote a "no
       software patents" approach ? If it is the case, can this be
       published officially by the General Directorate for Internal
       Market ?

    3. In case the General Directorate for Internal Market does not
       promote a "no software patents" approach, will the European
       Commission treat community patents and software patents in a
       single directive or separately ?
       
   Answering clearly to those simple questions would be very desirable in
   order to guarantee that the General Directorate for Internal Market,
   under the direction of John Mogg, treats the "software patent" issue
   with the general interest in mind. In particular, it is not desirable
   for anyone that the General Directorate for Internal Market generates
   yet another juridical disaster, as it has done with the biopatents
   directive which is currently rejected by an increasing number of
   European states, although it had been previously approved by the
   European Commission.
   
References

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

   The EuroLinux File on Software Patents -
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference
   
   EC Press Release on Community Patent -
   http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/00/714|0|RAPID&lg=EN
   
   Financial Times Deutschland (German) -
   http://www.ftd.de/tm/te/FTD962824480673.html?nv=hptn
   
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/pr3.html
   
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