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Eurolinux Petition FFII EuroLinux any browser MLHT

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

 

Protecting Digital Innovation against E-Patents

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.

 

The worldwide patent complex (proprietary informational complex) is not subject to any effective political control. It is continuously enlarging itself by exercising legislative power. Since the mid 90s it is granting patents on pure programming ideas even in Europe, where this contradicts the written law. It is hereby acting against the will of the information industry and causing harm to the economy and encroaching on the rights of citiziens and society. Within 2000 the Complex wants to legalise these encroachments as part of the European Commission's Community Patent project and thereby create a fait accompli which will be all but impossible to reverse for the next decades.

The Software Patent Working Group of the FFII is pursuing ambitious plans. We have reviewed relevant articles from specialised libraries, collected printable documents and more into a software patent archive and prepared them into a documentation CD. By means of public letters, operation of mailing lists as well as participation in conferences we have become an authoritative source for press inquiries. Moreover we have been writing some of our own reference documents. We are fighting at two levels: that of influencing legislation and that of actions within the patent system. In order to find the most current texts, you may find our news page a useful starting point.


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