Free Software Foundation Europe:
No software patents in Europe, requests EPO review instrument
After years of struggle, the European Parliament finally rejected the software patent directive with 648 of 680 votes: A strong signal against patents on software logic, a sign of lost faith in the European Union and a clear request for the European Patent Office (EPO) to change its policy: the EPO must stop issuing software patents today.
"This outcome does not affect patents on high-tech inventions in any way," explains Stefano Maffulli, Italian representative of FSFE: "High-tech innovation has always been patentable, and even if the directive had been passed with all proposed amendmends, it would have remained patentable. It is important to point this out because the proponents of software logic patents have tried to confuse people about high-tech inventions being subject of this directive."
FSFE's president, Georg Greve adds: "The parliament understood this when it amended the directive in the first reading to keep high-tech innovation inside and software outside the patent system."
"Unfortunately, the council of the European Union ignored this decision of the Parliament and removed those amendments. Many MEPs were appalled at this obvious corruption of democratic process that day and seem to have lost faith in seeing their amendments treated with more respect this time."
"Rejection of the directive became the very last option to send a clear and strong signal against software patents in Europe," Greve continues. "The Free Software Foundation Europe commends the European Parliament on this decision: in the interest of harmonisation we would have preferred a directive along the lines of the first reading, but we understand that rejection became the last realistic option to avoid doing irreparable harm to European economy."
Jonas Öberg, vice-president of FSFE: "This reaffirms the 1973 European Patent Convention (EPC), which excludes software from patentability. The European Patent Office (EPO) has largely ignored this central convention and granted approximately 30.000 software patents in the past years: this must stop today! The EPO should not be allowed to further ignore European policies!"
Georg Greve explains the proposal of FSFE: "Much trouble was caused by the inability of the European Union to hold the European Patent Office responsible for acting against agreed-upon policies: unlike other parts of a democratic executive, the EPO is not liable for the decision it takes. We propose to establish an EPO supervision instrument that holds the EPO management liable for its decisions and prevents further patent system degradation."
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to use, copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition- allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. The FSFE was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the United States.
Further information: http://www.fsfeurope.org