Οι πατέρες των τεχνολογιών Linux, PHP, MySQL στέλνουν το επόμενο μήνυμα
στην Ενωμένη Ευρώπη
για τις πατέντες λογισμικού.
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/app0411.html
"Appeal to the EU Council
by
Linus Torvalds, Michael Widenius and Rasmus Lerdorf
23 November 2004
Later this week, on November 25th and 26th, the EU Competitiveness
Council will convene and soon attempt to formally adopt a proposed
"Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions",
commonly referred to as the "software patent directive". On May 18th,
the Council reached political agreement on a draft legislation, however,
did not take a formal decision to adopt it.
We urge the governments of the EU member states, which are represented
in the EU Council, to oppose the debateless adoption of the said
proposal as a so-called "A item". In the interest of Europe, such a
deceptive, dangerous and democratically illegitimate proposal must not
become the Common Position of the member states.
We ask all webmasters to help prevent the legalization of software
patents in the EU by placing a link to the campaign website
<www.NoSoftwarePatents.com>http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/.
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The draft directive in question is deceptive because it leads laymen,
and even those legal professionals who are not familiar with the
intricacies of patent law, to falsely believe that it would exclude
software from patentability. However, it is actually a compilation of
the entirety of the excuses with which the patent system has, for many
years, been circumventing article 52 of the European Patent Convention
in order to grant patents on software ideas.
Those who say that the directive would not allow patents on software
attach a peculiar definition to the term "software" that is
hair-splitting. The proper way to distinguish between software patents
and patents on computer-controlled devices is to exclude the processing,
handling and presentation of information from the definition of the word
"technical" for the purposes of patent law, to disallow patents on
innovations in the field of data processing, and to establish the hard
and fast requirement that natural forces are used to control physical
effects beyond the digital sphere.
The legislation in question contains many provisions that appear to be
helpful if one understands "technical" in a common-sense way. However,
the patent system has previously expressed and demonstrated its own
definition of that term, which is one that encompasses almost anything
that a computer can possibly do. Moreover, article 5 (2) of the
legislative proposal tears down all barriers to the patentability of
software by expressly allowing so-called "program claims".
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Software patents are dangerous to the economy at large, and particularly
to the European economy. Lawmakers should heed the warnings of such
reputable organizations as Deutsche Bank Research, the Kiel Institute
for World Economics, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
At first sight, a patent appears to protect an inventor but the actual
implications may be the opposite, dependent upon the field. Copyright
serves software authors while patents potentially deprive them of their
own independent creations. Copyright is fair because it is equally
available to all. A software patent regime would establish the law of
the strong, and ultimately create more injustice than justice.
In particular, we believe that the economic opportunities of the new EU
member states are endangered by software patents. The many talented
software developers in those countries should be given a fair chance.
The average cost of a European patent is in the range from 30,000 to
50,000 Euros, and a company needs a very large number of such patents in
order to be able to enter into "cross-licensing" agreements with
multinationals that own tens of thousands of patents each.
The political decision on the patentability of software should be based
on merits, economic logic and ethical considerations, not on whatever
may have been the practice of the patent system in recent years. Let us
all look ahead, not back.
--- --- ---
If the EU Council adopted the legislative proposal of May 18th, it would
do so without democratic legitimacy. The idea of a debateless and
voteless adoption of an "A item" is only to speed up and simplify the
process if a qualified majority is in place. In this particular case,
there isn't.
As of November 1st, new voting weights apply in the EU under the Act of
Accession. The collective number of votes of all countries that
affirmatively supported the legislative proposal on May 18th amounts to
216, falling short of the required 232. It would set a more than
regrettable precedent for European democracy if the EU Council adopted a
Common Position on an insufficient basis.
Furthermore, the 216 votes include those of the Netherlands and of
Germany against the will of the national parliaments of those countries.
On July 1st, a broad majority of the Tweede Kamer passed a resolution
that the Dutch government withdraw its support for the legislative
proposal in question. On October 21st, all four groups in the German
Bundestag took a similar position and criticized the legislative
proposal of May 18th as a legislation that would allow software patents.
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For the sake of innovation and a competitive software market, we
sincerely hope that the European Union will seize this opportunity to
exclude software from patentability and gain a major competitive
advantage in the information age ".