Problems of State Agencies with Software Patents
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The Swedish Agency for Public Procurement, British school authorities, German municipal administrations, labor and health authorities and even the EU Council have been hindered in their work by software patents or have expressed concerns that this might happen. We try to collect the cases.
News
2005-01-10 EU HIB: Patent blocking biometry decision of EU Council (Bundestag report, in German)
2004-12-18 DE Munich Major supports restart or B-item
2004-11-27 DE German health insurance card patent-impaired, insurers asked to pay at least 11.000.000 eur, EP 1033633 up for auction
2004-07..08 DE Munich authorities see Linux Migration Project endangered by Software Patents
2004-07-20 DE Labour authorities concerned about effects of software patents on SME-created jobs
2004-06-17 UK School authorities litigating with Bromcom over pupil-teacher communication patent
2002-00-00 SE Statskontoret appealing against a software patent
Outline
Governments are among the most active centers of pro-patent lobbying, because the governmental patent institutions control the legislative process based on their community's belief system, without much effective challenge from other agencies or the public.
A prominent case of conflict within governments is in pharmaceuticals: one branch encourages patents to stimulate innovation (which they probably often really do in the case of pharmaceuticals), while another branch tries to cut government spending by refusing to reimburse patient costs for patented medicines.
