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Eurolinux Petition FFII EuroLinux any browser MLHT

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

 

Earlier Activities

After having bent the law so as to be able to grant patents on information and life, the European Patent Office and the EU commission want to change the law itself so as to legalise their practise. They have never seriously investigated how this may affect the development of information technology.

 

Greenpeace has published a Study, in which it accuses the EPO of breaching the law, and they have induced the German Ministry of Justice to criticize the EPO for this.

Moreover, with the support of a few companies, we have formed a workgroup that has already, in the framework of the EuroLinux Alliance, had a meeting with the legislators in Brussels.

The Association for the Promotion of a Free Informational Infrastructure has, at the end of May, published and sent a letter to the EU competition commissioner Karel van Miert and pointed out the dangers of patents for the freedom of competition in the already now monopoly-ridden area of software. Currently a new letter action is under preparation.

Moreover we organised a Conference "Informational Monoculture and the Alternatives" in Cologne, where Jean-Paul Smets, who had already done thourough documenation and lobbying work in France, gave a lecture.

Before the Conference of the European Patent Organisations of 1999-06-24 in Paris we sent a letter to the two delegates of the German Ministery of Justice, which was answered.


http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/farit/indexen.html
2000-07 SWPAT-AG des FFII