FFII explains dangers of software patents for the European Digital Ecosystems project
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18 April 2005 -- Erik Josefsson, FFII's Brussels representative, today spoke at the "Digital Ecosystems: Re-tuning the user requirements after 3 years" workshop. Confronting copyright ecosystems with patent monocultures, Mr. Josefsson explained the importance of "fast, cheap, narrow and safe" exclusion right systems for !SMEs.
Report
The Digital Ecosystem initiative by the Directorate General for Information Society of the European Commission is a project to encourage ICT adoption by businesses, in particular !SMEs. It's goal is to enhance ICT usage by businesses in Europe, especially by SME's, and finding out which future ICT development are required in order to enhance their business processes.
At today's workshop, FFII replaced CEA-PME to speak in the SME panel. In his presentation titled "!SMEs and Software Patents", Mr. Josefsson stressed that it is important for !SMEs to know that they own what they produce themselves.
One important fact the presentation demonstrated, was that applying software patents to the envisioned Digital Business Ecosystem results in potentially encumbering one third of the infrastructure.
Most of the attendants were very supportive of FFII's views, and one of the presenters even included the NoSoftwarePatents.com logo in his presentation, saying "We have to redesign the whole DBE-platform if the software patents come to Europe".