From:	 petition@eurolinux.org
To:	 lwn@lwn.net
Subject: US Internet Patents to be Enforced in EU ?
Date:	 Tue,  5 Jun 2001 17:56:39 +0200 (CEST)


                 US Internet Patents to be Enforced in EU ?  
   
   Hague Convention Draft Provides Legal Grounds for Global Internet Censorship 

                 EuroLinux Alliance / petition.EuroLinux.org

   For immediate Release

   Paris. 2001-06-05. The draft Hague Convention is to be revised from
   June 6th. The Hague Convention defines a set of provisions for the
   execution of foreign judgements in the event of international
   disputes. Current drafts include industrial property and intellectual
   property within the potential scope of the proposed Convention. If the
   current draft were approved, the Hague Convention would eventually
   allow:

      1.to enforce US Internet patents in EU;

      2.to enforce non-EU laws in order to censor EU Internet web sites.

   An EU company publishing on a server located in the EU a web service
   which provides Internet airplane reservation services worldwide could
   be sued in the US by PriceLine for infringement on patent 5,794,207. A
   US judge could decide that this EU company should block access to its
   service to US citizens unless it gets a license from PriceLine. Under
   the current draft of the Hague Convention, such a  judgement would be
   enforceable in the EU.

   A researcher who publishes on a EU server an article on the weaknesses
   of encryption techniques used in the media industry (ex. CSS, SDMI,
   etc.) could be sued in the US for infringing the Digital Millenium
   Copyright Act. A US judge could decide that this EU researcher should
   block access to its research article to all US citizens. Under the
   current draft of the Hague Convention, such a  judgement would be
   enforceable in the EU.

   Because all known techniques to block access to a category of
   citizens, people, country or IP adresses can be easily circumvented
   through "email tunneling" (a technique which consists in encapsulating
   any Internet protocol into encrypted email messages), the only two
   ways of enforcing foreign judgements which entail blocking access to a
   server require either to close EU services or contents which infringe
   on foreign laws, thus creating the conditions for global censorship,
   or to prohibit encryption and deny privacy on the Internet.

   Members of the Hague Conference include all EU countries as well as
   Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia,
   Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of
   Macedonia, Georgia,  Hungary,  Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea,
   Latvia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Peru, Poland,  Romania,
   Slovakia, Slovenia, Suriname, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States
   of America, Uruguay and Venezuela.

   Some of these countries are well known for their agressive software
   patent practices or their restrictive laws on free speech. In
   particular, EuroLinux feels very concerned by the eventual
   enforceability of foreign Internet & software patents in Europe.
   EuroLinux urges members of the Hague Conference to put on hold current
   plans to extend the execution of foreign judgements in the fields of
   industial and intellectual property until their effects on software
   and the Internet have been carefully assessed.

References

   CPT's Page on the Hague Conference on Private International Law's -
   http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html

   Hague Conference on Private International Law -
   http://www.hcch.net/f/conventions/draft36f.html

   Intellectual Property Draft -
   http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/IPWorkgroup3.pdf

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

   PriceLine patent already in dispute -
   http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg949.htm

   DeCSS Author Arrested -
   http://www.slashdot.org/articles/00/01/25/0827258.shtml

   Copyright Thugs - The SDMI, the RIAA and industry lawyers better get
   something straight: preventing piracy doesn't mean you can punish
   researchers -
   http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,24208,00.html

   French hackers break SDMI, publish results -
   http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/hackscracks_article-2370.html

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 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 70.000 European
   citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 200 companies.

   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: Stéfane Fermigier sf@fermigier.com
   Germany & Europe: Harmut Pilch phm@ffii.org +49-89 127 89 608
   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/pr11.html
   http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr11.pdf

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