NGOwatch über den FFII

Hartmut Pilch kommentiert:

Diese Gruppe gehoert selber beobachtet. Was die schreiben wird an Plattheit und Desinformation nur noch von CampaignForCreativity uebertroffen.

"NGOWATCH.ORG is a collaborative project of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies."

NGOwatch FFII dossier: European Parliament Questions Patent Rights in Software, Responding to Open Source Groups

http://www.ngowatch.org/europatents.pdf

In September 2003, the European Parliament voted to approve a set of amendments to a proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, which, if adopted, could substantially limit the ability of innovative software companies to protect their intellectual property interests in Europe. The amendments were pushed by advocacy groups of the “open source” community, who are largely opposed to intellectual property rights in software. One such open source lobbying group pushing for the adoption of the amended directive is the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, whose website is at http://swpat.ffii.org/. This group sees the European Commission and Council as advancing “unlimited patentability,” and wishes to combat “patent extremism.” It refers to a “patent movement,” which it is seeking to roll back. The European Parliament’s directive stems originally from a proposal of the European Commission, which called for a new computer-implemented invention directive in February 2002. This proposal was initially motivated by a desire to address the European Patent Office’s issuance of “business method” patents, which are perceived by opponents as extending patent protection too broadly, into subject matter that should be left in the public domain. A well-known example of a business method patent in the U.S. is Amazon.com’s patent for the “one-click” method of on-line ordering. The European Commission proposal’s formal aims were to harmonize computer-implemented invention law in the European Union, since member states were taking different legal approaches to the enforceability of business method patents. Based on the European Commission’s proposal, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament issued its first Report in June 2003. In particular, the June 2003 report would have allowed patent claims to “program products”; and also would have allowed patent claims to programs on their own, whether as a signal or on a carrier. However, under pressure from the open source software lobby, the plenary vote in the European Parliament on September 24, 2003, produced a considerably different proposed directive. The text of the proposed directive threatens to severely weaken patent protection in >> software, the computer industry generally, telecommunications, consumer electronics, transport, vehicles, domestic appliances, medical instruments, and a wide variety of other fields. In response to the European Parliament’s vote to amend the proposed directive, Commissioner Frits Bolkestein has threatened to withdraw the directive entirely, and instead seek patent harmonization through a renegotiation of the European Patent Convention amongst the member states. Nevertheless, the proposed directive is still very much in play For example, Article 3a excludes from patentability all data-processing innovations, stating: “Member States shall ensure that data processing is not considered to be a field of technology within the meaning of patent law, and that innovations in the field of data processing are not considered to be inventions within the meaning of patent law.” Similarly, Article 4b excludes all computer technology involved with information processing: “Member States shall ensure that computer-implemented solutions to technical problems are not considered to be patentable inventions merely because they improve efficiency in the use of resources within the data processing system.” Article 5.1b excludes the use or operation of any data processing device from patent infringement: “Member States shall ensure that the production, handling, processing, distribution and publication of information, in whatever form, can never constitute direct or indirect infringement of a patent, even when a technical apparatus is used for that purpose.” Finally, Article 6a states that the use of a computer-implemented invention for a “significant purpose” is not infringement, particularly in the field of interoperability of computers: “Member States shall ensure that, wherever the use of a patented technique is needed for a significant purpose such as ensuring conversion of the conventions used in two different computer systems or networks so as to allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use is not considered to be a patent infringement.”

NGOwatch.org histing according to Netcraft

OS, Web Server and Hosting History for ngowatch.org http://ngowatch.org was running Apache on Linux when last queried at 4-Jun-2004 18:38:19 GMT - refresh now FAQ

OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner Linux Apache/1.3.29 (Unix) ApacheJServ/1.1.2 PHP/4.3.4 mod_throttle/2.11 FrontPage/5.0.2.2634 Rewrit/1.1a 4-Jun-2004 65.108.214.150 Alabanza Linux Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) PHP/4.2.3 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 Rewrit/1.1a 19-Jun-2003 65.108.214.150 Alabanza