Fwd: Patents back on EU agenda

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Patents] Patents back on EU agenda
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 05:42:21 +0100
From: Florian Mueller <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>

PATENTS BACK ON EU AGENDA

Anti-software patent campaigner warns that the community patent
project might give software patents a stronger legal basis in
Europe

Brussels (16 January 2006) - The Financial Times reports that EU
internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy will today announce
"one final effort" to establish an EU-wide community patent:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6bfc7f6a-85e7-11da-bee0-0000779e2340.html 

McCreevy played a key role in the EU's recent push for software
patents, which ended on July 6, 2005, when the European
Parliament rejected a bitterly contested proposal by 648-32
votes. Anti-software patent campaigner Florian Mueller, who
founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com Web site, issued a first
warning in October that the EU's community patent project might
legalize software patents "by the back door". Mueller now views
the Commission's announcement of consultations with industry
lobbyists as "a definitive indication that our camp has to take
action again".

The current proposal for an EU community patent regulation, on
which the Council has been unable to reach agreement since 2000,
contains a clause that the European Patent Office should "apply
to the Community patent the case law which it has developed".
Anti-software patent campaigners have long criticized the EPO for
its case law. The EPO allows software to be patented under the
pretext of a "technical contribution", which usually boils down
to faster computation times, more economic storage of data,
optimized network traffic, or novel ways to use input/output
devices. Unless the aforementioned clause on case law were to be
replaced with a "waterproof" exclusion of software from the scope
of patentability, the judges at the European Court of Justice or
a new Community Patent Court would be "extremely likely to follow
the EPO's law-bending approach and declare US-style software
patents legal in the EU", Mueller fears.

He believes that it is "imperative for our movement to influence
the new debate on the community patent on a timely basis, or else
we would find it hard, if not impossible, to stop the avalanche".
In his opinion, it is "a steep challenge" to ensure that a
community patent law would simultaneously address the issue of
the EPO's patent granting practice, "because many politicians
believe that the community patent is an important measure from a
competitiveness point of view, and won't like the all-or-nothing
notion of having to solve two huge problems at one fell swoop".
But, he adds, "defining what is patentable would be needed to
really make Europe more competitive".

Presently, the European patents that the EPO grants are
effectively bundles of many national patents. The examination
process is centralized at the EPO, but most of the total cost of
a European patent is due to the need to provide multiple
translations of the patent document, which some consider a
competitive disadvantage versus the US patent system. A community
patent would bring down the number of language versions required
to a few or just one (English). Lower costs would likely result
in an increased number of patent applications, and there are
different opinions as to whether that would foster innovation or
have the opposite effect.

The community patent appears to be part of Microsoft's strategy
for giving software patents a stronger legal basis in Europe. In
an interview with the EU Reporter issue dated November 28, 2005,
Microsoft EMEA chairman Patrick de Smedt said his company is
"keen to have software patents on the European agenda", and the
community patent project is mentioned in the same article
(downloadable as PDF document from
http://www.eureporter.co.uk/newspaper.php).

NOTE: Florian Mueller founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign
in 2004 with the support of three corporate sponsors (1&1, Red
Hat, MySQL AB), and managed it until March of 2005. He then gave
his website to the Foundation for a Free Information
Infrastructure (FFII), the leading European pressure group that
opposes the patentability of computer programs.

Mueller has been nominated as one of the "top 50 most influential
figures in intellectual property" by Managing Intellectual
Property magazine, and as one of the 50 "Silicon Agenda Setters".
His NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign received the "CNET Networks UK
Technology Award" in the "Outstanding Contribution to Software
Development" category, and the EU-focused newspaper European
Voice lists him as the European "Campaigner of the Year 2005"
(www.EV50.com) after he received more votes in a public poll than
U2 frontman Bono and other candidates.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Florian Mueller
[email protected]
phone +49-8151-21088