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Prior Art

 

Eurolinux Petition FFII EuroLinux any browser MLHT

[DE Deutsch] [translatable text] [howto translate]

 

Letter Template

You could send this or a similar letter to various decisionmakers. It has become part of the Eurolinux Letter Generator.

 

Dear ...

The Patent System has in recent years expanded far beyond its legitimate borders, and is increasingly playing havoc with European IT enterprises, with OpenSource Software and with the basic underpinnings of the emerging Information Society.

Please use your leverage during upcoming consultations at the European level to demand that

  1. article 52 of the European Patent Convention be left untouched this year.
  2. the terms "technicity", "industrial application" and "computer program as such" be clarified in such a way, that any informational good, including software, is not patentable, while a physical extension of such an informational good (such as e.g. a hardware MP3 player) may be patentable, if it is new, inventive, technical and industrially applicable. (For detailed suggestions on how this could be put into Legalese and how possible legal counter-arguments can be overcome, see our legal analysis paper.)
  3. A broad public dialogue involving in-depth scientific studies of the impact of the patent system on the information economy and society, as recently initiated by the German Ministery of Economics and Technology, be commenced and intensified on all levels.
  4. A prior art database system be built and made available publicly under OpenSource terms, so as to put SMEs in an stronger position for patent litigation at home and abroad.
  5. http://www.osslaw.org/articles.html

As far as I can see, the patenting of informational goods is already suffocating innovative companies and draining revenues away from Europe. Please do everything in your might to avert further damages from your constituency.

Sincerely

[signature]

editable personal:
PS: If a lawcourt ever charges me to remove my own opensource software from the Net or pay license fees to a patent shark, I may have no other choice than civil disobedience, even at the risk of going to jail. Where the Law becomes unlawful, resistance is every citizien's duty.


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2000-07 SWPAT-AG des FFII