Free Patents
Protecting Innovation & Competition in the IT Industry
Europe Citizens - Act Now !
Protect Business and Liberty from Software Patents
Although big names such as Oracle, Adobe, etc. had claimed that patents
on software are more harmful than useful, the US law system has allowed
for a decade the filing of patents for elementary software processes. The
30.000 software patents filed every year are now used to attack and eliminate
independant software publishers or free software authors.
After intensive American lobbying efforts, Japan also introduced software
patents. Europe seems to be the next on the list.
On June 24 and 25 1999 in Paris, France, the European member states
of the Munchen convention met and discussed the software patent issue.
They have decided to wait for one more
year before taking any final decision regarding article 52.2, which says
that computer programmes as such are not patentable. And French State Secretary
Christian Pierret has stressed the necessity to study the economic impact
of software patents on the software industry.
A European Union directive is now being prepared to harmonize and clarify
the rules related to software patents, which is of course necessary. The
proposed directive is planned to be released during Q3 or Q4 1999 and will
be discussed for about one year. The European Commission (DGXV) seems to
be pushing for more software patents rather than for more control on trivial
software patents with no industrial application such as 96305851.6.
And no economic study has been made yet to clarify the impact of software
patents on the software industry. If not designed carefully, such a directive
would create a lot of juridical uncertainty, playing havoc with the whole
european independent software industry, obstructing competition and, in
the mid term, slowing down innovation and investment in the software industry.
We encourage you to write to the people
listed here and express your concerns.
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This Web site is dedicated to the protection of innovation, competition
and open source software against the use and abuse of software patents.
Europe is currently prohibiting patents on computer programmes as such
and requires for a patent to be granted that it has an industrial application.
This gives its members an economic advantage, protects open source
software all over the world and stimulates innovation made by small companies.
However, powerful pressures are trying to make Europe change
its wise position on software patents. freepatents.org thinks the new EU
position on software patents is a threat to competition, small companies,
innovation and open source software.
2/7/1999 Jamal Labed (Staff ET Line): "Software Patents may slow down
innovation"
In an interview
to Le Monde Informatique, Jamal Labed (CEO of Staff ET Line) explained
that software patents may slow down innovation and are dangerous for small
software publishers. Jamal Labed is the president of BSA France (Business
Software Alliance).
25/6/1999 Christian Pierret: "The economic impact on the software industry
should be evaluated, especially regarding Free Software"
"The economic impact" (of a revision of article 52.2 of the München
Convention) "on the software industry should be evaluated, especially
regarding Free Software" said French State Secretary Christian Pierret
at the press conference after the Paris Conference on 24/6/1999 and 25/6/1999.
more
18/6/1999 Software Patents lead to Juridical Inconsistencies
Because decompiling a software is mostly illegal, how can one discover
legaly if a competitor is infringing on a Software Patent ? Such a situation
may lead people to keep their source code secret, therefore slowing down
the diffusion of programming know-how. more
17/6/1999 10 European Industry Leaders raise concerns about Software
Patents
10 European Industry Leaders have raised concerns about the ongoing legal
process to update the European Patent Law in order to extend the range
of application of software patents. According to pioneers of the software
industry, the use of patents to protect software may actually lead to less
innovation, less competition and eventually job cuts in the European Software
Industry instead of generating new businesses and stimulating innovation
as it is often believed. In order to promote innovation, competition and
new businesses in the IT industry, Europe should be very careful with the
application of software patents. more
16/6/1999 Ralf Schoebel (Intradat): "Software patents could be damaging
for the economy of small european software companies"
Intradat is the first company to create a professional eCommerce solution
for Linux 2 years ago. According to Ralf Schoebel "software patents could
be damaging for the economy of small european software companies". And
"there are so many new programming techniques emerging every day in the
software industry and it is really impossible to keep up to date." more
16/6/1999 Tatu Ylönen (SSH): "Innovation in information technology
would be best served without software patents"
Tatu Ylönen, Founder and CEO of SSH Communications Security Ltd, and
author of the popular SSH (Secure Shell) software says that "Software patents
are harmful to the industry. They prevent innovation, and make it very
hard for small companies to enter the market. Any large software package
is likely to infringe dozens of software patents held by companies such
as IBM or Lucent." more
15/6/1999 Ismael Ghalimi (ExOffice) supports "no patent on open source"
approach
"ExOffice is either strongly aggainst any form of patent for software technology
or would eventually support a new kind of patent-like protection that would
not apply to Open Source software" said Ismael Ghalimi.
15/6/1999 Jean-Paul Smets : "Patents on programmes as such may lead
to the end of free commerce"
In an analysis sent on the freepatents
mailing list, Jean-Paul Smets explains why it is not necessary to update
the Munchen convention in order to grant patents on programming techniques.
The actual consequence of granting patents as such would be to grant monopolies
on business practices or social practices which require a software to be
implemented. This may lead to the end of freedom for electronic commerce
as well as for the information society more
14/6/1999 Dutch Inventor of Internet push technology considers patents
on software potentially very damaging to SMEs
Frank Hoen, CEO of NetPresenter
and first inventor of Internet push technology, thinks that "patents on
software are potentially very damaging to SMEs". According to him, "Europe
is already lagging behind in software development. If developers now also
need to worry about sofware patents, Europe will fallback even further."
more...
11/6/1999 Jean Ferré (ARISEM) : "Software Patents mean the death
of spontaneous innovation"
ARISEM is a european company making very innovative indexing and searching
software with advanced proprietary technologies based on semantic networks.
Their software is used in multinational companies for economic intelligence.
They think that software, just like ideas, should not be patentable and
that a patent free software industry is necessary for innovation. more...
11/6/1999 Software associations gather in Köln and discuss the
patent issue
The FFII is organizing a congress
in Köln on 13/6/1999. A session will be dedicated to the patent issue
in Europe (slides and
short
slides).
29/5/1999 Red Herring : "Industry leaders are putting startup through
legal hell - and dampening innovation"
In its may edition, a Red Herring article
called "I'm gonna sue your ass" explains how legal overhead such as software
patents puts innovation at risk.
24/5/1999 Haavard Nord (Troll Tech) : "We are strongly against software
patents because they prevent competition"
Haavard Nord, CEO of Troll Tech, makers
of the Qt Framework, a popular user interface framework for Unix and Windows
used by the KDE project, states
that "software patents have proven to be more harmful than useful to the
industry". more...
17/5/1999 Berners-Lee Calls For Curbs On Internet Patents
Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web, stated during the he Eighth International
World Wide Web Conference in Toronto that "the bar for innovation seems
too low. You are able to take an existing social practice and write software
to do it and get a patent."
Berners-Lee added that "The challenge is to prevent us from becoming
completely paralyzed by fear, uncertainty and doubt," more...
17/5/1999 A letter to the EU Competition Commissioner
The FFII, a german multilingual non
profit organization, has sent a letter
to Karel Van Miert to warn him that legalizing software patents will trigger
anticompetitive practices in the software industry.
16/5/1999 AFUL : "Legalizing software patents in Europe will lead many
independant software editors to close their business"
AFUL is taking position strongly against
software patents in this press
release. Although AFUL is a Linux and free software association, the
press releases notes that software patents may trigger many job cuts Europe
in the independant software industry.
16/3/1999 Richard Stallman -- Saving Europe from Software Patent
Following its speach at the he Eighth International World Wide Web Conference
in Toronto, Richard Stallman writes in an article published by Linux Today,
"Imagine that each time you made a software design decision, and especially
whenever you used an algorithm that you read in a journal or implemented
a feature that users ask for, you took a risk of being sued." more...
13/5/1999 First draft proposals from the freepatents workgroup
The freepatents.org workgroup has published its first
draft proposals in order to protect competition and innovation in the
IT industry. Participants include members of AFUL,
Europe-Inside
and other contributors who required to remain anonymous. This draft is
currently in French only.
6/5/1999 FFII : "After intensive American lobbying efforts, Japan introduced
software patents. And the EU is now planning to do the same."
The FFII, a german multilingual non
profit organization, is joining the
campaign to protect innovation and competition in software industry. According
to the FFII, due to past bad experiences with the American software patents
system, one could have expected the USA to revise their system. But exactly
the opposite occurred. After intensive American lobbying efforts, Japan
introduced software patents two years ago. And the EU ais now planning
to do the same for summer 1999.
They publish a calling
from Richard M. Stallman stating that "patents could be disastrous for
free software and bad for anyone who wants to develop software in Europe".
3/5/1999 W3C Investigates Patent Claim on P3P Technology
Intermind recently received a U.S.
patent, and has indicated that the patent may be infringed upon by
W3C metadata standards, particularly P3P. The patent covers storage and
transfer of "consumer" and "provider" information between two computers
using a metadata control structure. Intermind has further stated that its
"patents cover numerous additional features" of other communications technologies.more...
26/4/1999 Bruce Alberts : "IP stops progress in science"
In an interview published by "La Lettre
de l'Académie des Sciences et du Cadas", Bruce Alberts, President
of the US National Academy of Sciences explains that strict IP enforcement
in the research area stops science and slows down innovation. The same
arguments apply to open source software. more...
26/4/1999 Patent FAQ
Are patents useful or not for the software industry ? A very detailed
FAQ tries to answer most common questions on this topic. (in French,
translation under way).
21/4/1999 Patent Searching
We collected some very interesting information from the IPR-Helpdesk
about the principles of patent indexing and searching as well as many interesting
URLs. more...
13/4/1999 License-based patent protection
It is possible to use license-based IP (such as copyright) to get some
kind of international patent-related protection that goes beyond national
laws. The Apple open
source license is the first example of software license which gives
a limitated protection to authors against a patent infringement lawsuit.
more...
20/3/1999 First (virtual) Internet Law : "Patents on Internet standards
should be free or banned"
The French Senate organized last weekend
a virtual debate and voted a virtual
law on Internet. The final
version of Article 4 of this law states that "Internet standards should
belong to the public domain" and that "patents on Internet standards should
be free". more...
18/3/1999 Senator Laffitte : "Governments should not use patented standards
to exchange information with citizens"
French Senator Laffitte, stated that
"governments should not use patented standards to exchange information
with citizens" since that would contradict the principle of free access
to the public information defined by the French Law. Moreover, governments
should only use software provided with some kind of source code access
in order to protect public data. more...
13/3/1999 French Book on Free Software highlights software patents
issue
"Logiciels Libres : liberté,
égalité, business" (Edispher,
Paris) is the first French book on Free Software. Chapters 5 and 9 are
published here as Open
Content. Theses chapters highlight the software patents issues for
Europe and the free software community.
7/3/1999 Linus Torvalds : "patents as they stand now are a real problem"
During a panel at LinuxWorld,
Linus Torvalds said: "I agree that
the patents as they stand now are a real problem. Something should be done
to make changes to the laws, either making software patents a non-issue
by not granting them or making them unenforceable."
23/2/1999 Michael Widenius (MySQL): "Software patents are more harmful
that useful"
Michael Widenius, Moderator of MySQL,
the award
winning and leading Web database by TCX (Sweden), thinks
that software patents makes problems for the whole software industry
and only the companies that already have a lot of money can afford to go
on!
11/2/1999 - Internal memo of EU, EU parliament in favour of software
patents
In an internal memo, the EU says software
EUrope should adopt the same practices as the US in the field of software
patents. This memo points out that software patents should not only include
technical aspects of software but also business practices.
5/2/1999 - Microsoft tries to patent a W3C standard
Slashdot tells
us that Microsoft is trying to put patents on a very useful W3C standard.
All developers writing Internet applications would then have to ask for
Microsoft permission before using this standard. This is a typical example
of the danger of patents on software standards and interfaces.
1/2/1999 - Le Monde Article
Yves Eudes wrote an article in Le Monde about freepatents.org in which
it is explained that Europe should not copy unefficient US law when such
in the case of software patents.
15/1/1999 - "Patent
to Kill" - Libération Article
B. Lang and JP. Smets explain
in "Libération" why software patents are bad for open source software
as well as for small software makers.
12/1/1999 - freepatents.org
Opening of the Free Patents Web.
9/1/1999 - ISOC France Meeting in Autrans (France)
During the ISOC Meeting
in Autrans (France), participants approved a formal
resolution stating that the European Law should not accept patents
on software unless it is proved that patents do efficiently protect innovation,
competition and free software.
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