[Legal] [Patents] FSFE: No Software Patents in Europe, requests EPO Review Instrument (fwd)

[Fedor Zuev]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 07:11:50 -0400
From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnson на RealMeasures.dyndns.org>
Organization: Real Measures
To: C-FIT_Community на RealMeasures.dyndns.org,
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Subject: [Patents] FSFE: No Software Patents in Europe,
     requests EPO Review Instrument


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] Free Software Foundation Europe: No
software patentsin Europe, requests EPO review instrument
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 12:41:32 퍭
From: "Free Software Foundation Europe" <press на fsfeurope.org>
To: press-release на fsfeurope.org


Free Software Foundation Europe:

  No software patents in Europe, requests EPO review instrument



After years of struggle, the European Parliament finally rejected
the software patent directive with 648 of 680 votes: A strong
signal against patents on software logic, a sign of lost faith in
the European Union and a clear request for the European Patent
Office (EPO) to change its policy: the EPO must stop issuing
software patents today.

"This outcome does not affect patents on high-tech inventions in
any way," explains Stefano Maffulli, Italian representative of
FSFE: "High-tech innovation has always been patentable, and even
if the directive had been passed with all proposed amendmends, it
would have remained patentable. It is important to point this out
because the proponents of software logic patents have tried to
confuse people about high-tech inventions being subject of this
directive."

FSFE's president, Georg Greve adds: "The parliament understood
this when it amended the directive in the first reading to keep
high-tech innovation inside and software outside the patent
system."

"Unfortunately, the council of the European Union ignored this
decision of the Parliament and removed those amendments. Many
MEPs were appalled at this obvious corruption of democratic
process that day and seem to have lost faith in seeing their
amendments treated with more respect this time."

"Rejection of the directive became the very last option to send a
clear and strong signal against software patents in Europe,"
Greve continues. "The Free Software Foundation Europe commends
the European Parliament on this decision: in the interest of
harmonisation we would have preferred a directive along the lines
of the first reading, but we understand that rejection became the
last realistic option to avoid doing irreparable harm to European
economy."

Jonas Öberg, vice-president of FSFE: "This reaffirms the 1973
European Patent Convention (EPC), which excludes software from
patentability. The European Patent Office (EPO) has largely
ignored this central convention and granted approximately 30.000
software patents in the past years: this must stop today! The EPO
should not be allowed to further ignore European policies!"

Georg Greve explains the proposal of FSFE: "Much trouble was
caused by the inability of the European Union to hold the
European Patent Office responsible for acting against agreed-upon
policies: unlike other parts of a democratic executive, the EPO
is not liable for the decision it takes. We propose to establish
an EPO supervision instrument that holds the EPO management
liable for its decisions and prevents further patent system
degradation."

About the Free Software Foundation Europe:

   The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a
   charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated to all
   aspects of Free Software in Europe. Access to software
   determines who may participate in a digital society.
   Therefore the Freedoms to use, copy, modify and
   redistribute software - as described in the Free Software
   definition- allow equal participation in the information
   age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free
   Software politically and legally, and giving people
   Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
   central issues of the FSFE.  The FSFE was founded in 2001
   as the European sister organisation of the Free Software
   Foundation in the United States.

   Further information: http://www.fsfeurope.org

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