[From nobody Wed Aug 20 11:45:11 2003 Return-Path: <pioppo@ferrara.linux.it> Delivered-To: simone@localhost.pioppo.wired Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by pioppo.wired (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07AE82AC83 for <simone@localhost>; Tue, 19 Aug 2003 20:51:51 -0400 (EDT) Delivered-To: simone@atropo.wseurope.com Received: from atropo.wseurope.com [195.110.122.67] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-6.1.0) for simone@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:51:51 +0200 (CEST) Received: from 127.0.0.1 (atropo.wseurope.com [127.0.0.1]) by dummy.domain.name (Postfix) with SMTP id 2CC9DD798C for <simone@atropo.wseurope.com>; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:40:07 +0200 (CEST) Received: from flug.ferrara.linux.it (flug.4net.it [194.243.234.21]) by atropo.wseurope.com (Postfix) with SMTP id A941BD7983 for <simone.piunno@wseurope.com>; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:40:06 +0200 (CEST) Received: by flug.ferrara.linux.it (Postfix, from userid 2003) id 912C7380B2; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:40:06 +0200 (CEST) Delivered-To: pioppo@ferrara.linux.it Received: from ffii.org (genba.ffii.org [212.72.72.97]) by flug.ferrara.linux.it (Postfix) with SMTP id B151738086 for <pioppo@ferrara.linux.it>; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:40:03 +0200 (CEST) Received: (qmail 32419 invoked from network); 20 Aug 2003 00:13:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO genba) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 20 Aug 2003 00:13:06 -0000 Delivered-To: news@ffii.org Received: (qmail 32295 invoked by uid 64014); 20 Aug 2003 00:12:48 -0000 Received: from phm@a2e.de by genba by uid 64011 with qmail-scanner-1.16 20 Aug 2003 00:12:48 -0000 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.5 required=5.0 Received: from unknown (HELO bartu.bos.a2e.de) (62.154.243.66) by genba.ffii.org with SMTP; 20 Aug 2003 00:12:46 -0000 Received: from querty.oas.a2e.de (querty.oas.a2e.de [10.0.0.125]) CAA31854 for <news@ffii.org>; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:05:31 +0200 Received: by querty.oas.a2e.de (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 0BDC997289; Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:29:24 +0200 (CEST) To: news@ffii.org From: PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de> User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/21.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-Id: <20030819232924.0BDC997289@querty.oas.a2e.de> Subject: [ffii] Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Plans Sender: news-admin@ffii.org Errors-To: news-admin@ffii.org X-BeenThere: news@ffii.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.local1 Precedence: bulk List-Help: <mailto:news-request@ffii.org?subject=help> List-Post: <mailto:news@ffii.org> List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news>, <mailto:news-request@ffii.org?subject=subscribe> List-Id: FFII News <news.ffii.org> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news>, <mailto:news-request@ffii.org?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://lists.ffii.org/archive/mails/news/> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:29:24 +0200 (CEST) X-Bogosity-FL: No, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.000119, version=0.11.1.6 FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Plans Brussels 2003/08/19 For immediate Release The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision on September 1st, giving rise to another wave of protests. Various groups in Belgium and elsewhere are mobilising for a rally in Brussels on August 27th and are calling on web administrators to temporarily block their web sites. Details The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision on September 1st, giving rise to another wave of protests. The Eurolinux Alliance is calling for participation in a rally in Brussels on August 27th, comprising a street performance at 12.00 on Luxemburg Square and conference at 14.00 in the European Parliament, and for accompanying online demonstrations. "The directive proposal as prepared by Arlene McCarthy MEP would impose US-style unlimited patentability of algorithms and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping" says Benjamin Henrion, who is heading a local organisational team with the backing of a coalition of organisations representing 2000 software companies and 160,000 individuals, mostly software professionals. In an appeal, the organisers call on European citizens to stand up for the public interest to defend freedom of creation against logic patents, to defend copyright-based software property against patent-based software piracy, to defend software innovation against patent inflation, to defend software users against reduced choices and monopoly pricing. They call on the European Patent Office: Stop littering Europe's information highway! and on the European Parliament: Punish the polluters, don't legalise the pollution! The program in Brussels is approximately as follows, more details will be supplied soon: 12.00-14.00 | Place du Luxembourg | Performance, balloons, patent chain, speeches, ... 14.00-16.00 | EuroParl[13][1] | Conference "In May a [14]two-day software patent conference in and near the European Parliament attracted 200 participants. Leaders of the scientific commuities and software business world condemned the directive proposal in every respect. Yet in June the EP Legal Affairs Commission endorsed this proposal with further amendments that make it even worse", explains Henrion. "More and more people are now seeing this very clearly. We expect even more participatants this time." Yet the vast majority of our supporters will certainly not be on Luxemburg Square on August 27th. "Those who can not come to Brussels should demonstrate online, using their web servers or other internet services", says Hartmut Pilch, president of FFII. "We have [15]proposed a series of ways in which this can be done. There is certainly a way for everyone. Better make access to your webpage a bit more difficult now for one or two days than lose your freedom of publication for the next ten years. Note that if the McCarthy report is approved without drastic amendments, programmers and Internet Service Providers will be regularly sued for patent infringement, if they publish programs on the Internet. If the Parliament votes for the McCarthy proposal now, there will be no more chances for democratic control later." Annotated Links -> [16]AEL Big Demo 27 aug Wiki Hints on how to participate in the demo, needed equipment on site, who provides what, etc -> [17]FFII BXL 2003/08 Wiki Holger's editable auxiliary pages for the 2003/08/27 demo and related events. Includes hints on hotel/hostel rooms, t-shirts, banners etc -> [18]2003/08 Letter to Software Creators and Users The European Parliament will, in its plenary session on September 1st, decide on a directive proposal which ensures that algorithms and business methods like Amazon One Click Shopping become patentable inventions in Europe. This proposal has the backing of about half of the parliament. Please help us make sure that it will be rejected. Here are some things to do. -> [19]2003/08/25-9 BXL: Software Patent Directive Amendments Members of the European Parliament are coming back to work on monday August 25th. It is the last week before the vote on the Software Patent Directive Proposal. We are organising a conference and street rally wednesday the 27th. Some of our friends will moreover be staying in the parliament for several days. Time to work decide on submission of amendments to the software patent directive proposal is running out. FFII has proposed one set of amendments that stick as closely as possible to the original proposal while debugging and somewhat simplifying it. An alternative small set of amendments would "cut the crap" and rewrite the directive from scratch. We present and explain the possible approaches. -> [20]Online Demonstration Against Software Patents We can show our concern by physical presence as well as by more or less gently blocking access to webpages in a concerted manner at certain times. -> [21]European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Software Patent Directive The European Parliament has postponed the vote on the software patent directive back to the original date of 1st of September, thereby rejecting initially successful efforts of its rapporteur Arlene McCarthy (UK Labour MEP of Manchester) and her supporters to rush to vote on June 30th, a mere twelve days after publication of the highly controversial report and ten days after the unexpected change of schedule. -> [22]JURI votes for Fake Limits on Patentability The European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) voted on tuesday morning about a list of proposed amendments to the planned software patent directive. It was the third and last in a series of committee votes, whose results will be presented to the plenary in early september. The other two commissions (CULT, ITRE) had opted to more or less clearly exclude software patents. The JURI rapporteur Arlene McCarthy MEP (UK socialist) also claimed to be aiming for a "restrictive harmonisation of the status quo" and "exclusion of software as such, algorithms and business methods from patentability". Yet McCarthy presented a voting list to fellow MEPs which, upon closer look, turns ideas like "Amazon One-Click Shopping" into patentable inventions. McCarthy and her followers rejected all amendment proposals that try to define central terms such as "technical" or "invention", while supporting some proposals which reinforce the patentability of software, e.g. by making publication of software a direct patent infringment, by stating that "computer-implemented inventions by their very nature belong to a field of technology", or by inserting new economic rationales ("self-evident" need for Europeans to rely on "patent protection" in view of "the present trend for traditional manufacturing industry to shift their operations to low-cost economies outside the European Union") into the recitals. Most of McCarthy's proposals found a conservative-socialist 2/3 majority (20 of 30 MEPs), whereas most of the proposals from the other committees (CULT = Culture, ITRE = Industry) were rejected. Study reports commissioned by the Parliament and other EU institutions were disregarded or misquoted, as some of their authors point out (see below). A few socialists and conservatives voted together with Greens and Left in favor of real limits on patentability (such as the CULT opinion, based on traditional definitions, that "data processing is not a field of technology" and that technical invention is about "use of controllable forces of nature"), but they were overruled by the two largest blocks. Most MEPs simply followed the voting lists of their "patent experts", such as Arlene McCarthy (UK) for the Socialists (PSE) and shadow rapporteur Dr. Joachim Wuermeling (DE) for the Conservatives (EPP). Both McCarthy and Wuermeling have closely followed the advice of the directive proponents from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission's Industrial Property Unit (CEC-Indprop, represented by former UK Patent Office employee Anthony Howard) and declined all offers of dialog with software professionals and academia ever since they were nominated rapporteurs in May 2002. -> [23]Why Amazon One Click Shopping is Patentable under the Proposed EU Directive According to the European Commission (CEC)'s Directive Proposal COM(2002)92 for "Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions" and the revised version approved by the European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI), algorithms and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping are without doubt patentable subject matter. This is because 1. Any "computer-implemented" innovation is in principle considered to be a patentable "invention". 2. The additional requirement of "technical contribution in the inventive step" does not mean what most people think it means. 3. The directive proposal explicitly aims to codify the practise of the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO has already granted thousands of patents on algorithms and business methods similar to Amazon One Click Shopping. 4. CEC and JURI have built in further loopholes so that, even if some provisions are amended by the European Parliament, unlimited patentability remains assured. -> [24]FFII: Software Patents in Europe For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents on computer-implemented rules of organisation and calculation (programs for computers). Now Europe's patent movement is pressing to consolidate this practise by writing a new law. Europe's programmers and citizens are facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic documentation, starting from a short overview and the latest news. Contact mail: media at ffii org phone: Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927 [25]Benjamin Henrion +32-10-454761 More Contacts to be supplied upon request About the Eurolinux Alliance -- 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 copyright, open standards, open competition and open source software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows. About the FFII -- www.ffii.org The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 250 members, 300 companies and 15,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions in the area of exclusivity rights (intellectual property) in the field of software. Permanent URL of this Press Release http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/demo0819/index.en.html _________________________________________________________________ Notes [1] Room number to be announced tomorrow. External visitors, including journalists, need to register in advance. Please contact bxl030827 at ffii org for this purpose. References 14. http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/05/index.en.html 15. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html 16. http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/BigDemo27aug 17. http://offen.ffii.org/bxl/ 18. http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/parl038/index.en.html 19. http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/08/index.en.html 20. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html 21. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/index.en.html 22. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0617/index.en.html 23. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/tech/index.en.html 24. http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html 25. http://bh.udev.org/ _______________________________________________ News mailing list (un)subscribe via http://petition.ffii.org/ News@ffii.org http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news ]