From: petition@eurolinux.org To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: European Software Patents: More Trivial than in the US Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 15:17:40 +0100 (CET) European Software Patents: More Trivial than in the US EuroLinux Publishes European Software Patent Horror Gallery EuroLinux Alliance (petition.eurolinux.org) For immediate Release Munich, 2000-11-20 - The Association for the Promotion of a Free Informational Infrastructure (FFII), member of the EuroLinux Alliance of software publishers and non profit associations, has published a database of software patents granted by the EPO, together with some impressive examples, statistics and articles. This database shows that software patents granted by the European Patent Office are even more trivial than software patents granted in the United States. This "European Software Patent Horror Gallery" will be introduced on November 21 11-12:30 in Munich, Germany, with special guest Richard Stallman, founder of the League for Programming Freedom. Currently, pure software patents granted by the European Patent Office are considered as illegal or abusive by national courts in Europe. However, this situation may change by the end of the week if the exception on computer programs is removed from the European Patent Convention. It would then be no longer legal to conduct automated medical diagnoses in Europe. The same applies to numerous economic or social activities such as conducting of examinations in schools, bringing traders together at the stock exchange, generating purchasing lists from cooking recipes, setting prices dynamically, learning languages by comparing one's pronunciation with that of a teacher. All these activities would infringe on European patents, as soon as they are implemented through software. Other EPO patents encumber network standards such as MIME and CGI and squatter the operating system level by occupying thousands of basic methods of memory arithmetics, making programming in these fields a hazardous endeavour. FFII's patent data specialist, Arnim Rupp, recommends that anybody discussing about software patents should first take a look at that database: « by browsing through the EPO's patents you will quickly find out that this has nothing to do with protecting software, let alone protecting innovative solutions. What this is really about is occupying complete problems. Fortunately for us, these hilariously trivial and gruesomely broad EPO patent claims are so far not necessarily enforceable before European courts. The American mega corporations, to whom most of these illegally granted patents belong, are still waiting for a change in the European Patent Convention. If the Diplomatic Conference sets the wrong signal in Munich next week, Germany will hopefully abide by the words of the Ministry of Justice and refuse to ratify the new European Patent Convention. The situation is serious enough to justify this. The European patent system will work one way or another. The issue at stake now is how to keep 30000 mines from detonating and how to give back basic legal security to European IT enterprises and citizens. » For Daniel Rödding, CEO of a software enterprise in Paderborn, the situation is very serious: « by browsing the FFII's patent data base you can quickly grasp what software patents mean for most European IT companies today. On such a minefield small software companies hardly have any chance anymore. For my company I have already drawn the consequences: Starting from mid of next year we will conduct large parts of our software development in a country which does not yet have such a highly developed patent law system and in which a change of the legal situation cannot be expected for the near future. In certain fields the development of software is becoming too dangerous in Germany. Given the long-term legal risks, continuing with this activity in Germany would be irresponsible from a small entrepreneur's point of view. » Same applies to the rest of Europe. So far already 200 software companies and 55000 signatories of the Eurolinux Petition have expressed themselves in a similar way. Economists worldwide have confirmed that the introduction of patents in the software economy tends to harm innovation. Meanwhile at the "Diplomatic Conference" patent representatives of 20 European countries will be negotiating about a "Base Proposal for the Revision of the European Patent Convention" drafted by EPO president Dr. Ingo Kober. Therein the EPO proposes among others to stipulate universal patentability (Art 52) and to confer special legislative rights on the administrative council of the EPO (Art 33). The rules or procedure have been determined by the EPO in such a way that national patent delegations can overrule individual items only by a 2/3 majority. Otherwise the will of the EPO will become legally binding in all European countries whose parliaments do not opt out of the European Patent Convention (EPC). The "European Software Patent Horror Gallery" will be introduced on November 21 11-12:30 by near the EPO in Forum der Technik, Helios conference room. FFII members will respond to questions from journalists regarding this database and the EuroLinux petition to protect software innovation in Europe. Special guest Richard Stallman, founder of League for Programming Freedom, will introduce the situation related to software patents in the United States. References European Software Patents: Database and Examples - http://petition.eurolinux.org/examples/ Eurolinux Petition for a software patent Free Europe - http://petition.eurolinux.org/index.en.html Dr. Swen Kiesewetter-Köbinger: Über die Patentprüfung von Programmen für Datenverarbeitungsanlagen -- Probleme und Ungereimtheiten der Softwarepatentierung aus der Sicht eines Prüfers am Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt - http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/prina/patpruef.pdf Comparative report about the examination practice for software patents at the US, European and Japanese patent offices - http://www.jpo-miti.go.jp/saikine/repo242.htm German Ministry of Justice demands that the computer program exception not be removed at the coming conference and threatens to opt out of the EPC otherwise - http://www.spiegel.de/druckversion/0,1588,100120,00.html Protecting Informational Innovation against the Abuse of the Patent System - http://swpat.ffii.org/ A simplistic but true introduction to the problem (German only) - http://www.save-our-software.de/ GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org Software Patents - League for Programming Freedom - http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/ Diplomatic Conference to revise the European Patent Convention - http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/dipl_conf/documents.htm The EuroLinux Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe - http://petition.eurolinux.org EuroLinux Sponsors - http://petition.eurolinux.org/sponsors Statements for Software Patent Free Europe - http://petition.eurolinux.org/statements The EuroLinux Public Consultation - http://petition.eurolinux.org/consultation Softwarepatente - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 27. Oktober 2000 http://www.spiegel.de/druckversion/0,1588,100120,00.html The EuroLinux File on Software Patents - http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference 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 vigorous 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 launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has received so far massive support from more than 50.000 European citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 200 companies. The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organized 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. About FFII - www.ffii.org FFII is a non-profit association which promotes the development of open interfaces, open source software and freely available public information. FFII coordinates a workgroup on software patents which is sponsored by successful German software publishers. FFII is member of the EuroLinux Alliance. Press Contacts Germany & Europe: Hartmut Pilch <phm@ffii.org> +49-89 127 89 608 And also: France: Stéfane Fermigier <sf@fermigier.com> +33-6 63 04 12 77 Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard <aoe@sslug.dk> Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org> Permanent URL for this PR http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr7.html Legalese Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective companies.