Essen/Hamburg
May 14th, 2004
FSFE welcomes German government on its way towards a clear position in the discussion around software patents
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) "welcomes the commitment of the Federal Government of Germany to freedom from software patents as being of extreme importance for innovation in Europe", Georg Greve, president of FSFE, comments in a press release. "Clearly the opinion of the Federal Government regarding the information society is shifting towards a position which is clear and close to the position of its citizens. The FSFE will support the German government on this journey to its utmost."
The ongoing learning process is particularly notable to the FSFE, because for a long time during the preparatory deliberations of the working group of the Council of Ministers, the Federal Republic belonged to the hawks.
These hawks wanted, for example, so-called "requirements of program" to be accepted. If these were to be introduced, a patent would be infringed by the mere existence of a program, not just by its commercialisation.
"This would threaten all people who develop software -- whether the software is intended for use in study, leisure or business -- exactly what the patent industry wants", explains Greve, and points out that, "it is contradictory to use Free Software in so many public institutions on the one hand and to threaten them with software patents on the other hand."
The patent supporters want to monopolize interfaces and file formats. The consequence of this would be that import and export features and even simple printing features might be offered by the holder of the monopoly only.
With this shift in direction, the suggestions the FSFE has been making for years are starting to pay off. A number of administration officials understand software patents to be a serious thread to the information society; now the Ministry of Justice seems to subscribe to this view as well.
Last Wednesday Elmar Hucko, head of a government department in the Ministry of Justice, announced at an event in Berlin that the Federal Government would vote against the controversial software patent directive of the Council of Ministers of the European Union. At the same time, according to the online magazine "heise.de", Hucko criticised the current practice in the European Patent Office (EPO) of granting patents in the field of "computer-implemented inventions". "Not all of these these patents should have been granted," he emphasised.
"After this we are confident that even the Ministry of Justice will accept sooner or later that software can be patentable under no circumstances -- not even when it is supposed to control machines," says the FSFE in a press release.
In Greve's opinion, the Federal Government should, given its change in stance, now argue against the other members of the EC, "in order to avoid a wrong decision". It should then convince its colleagues to exclude software patents for the future.
Then it might be possible to offer a draft directive to the European Parliament by the end of the year, "benefiting freedom and ensuring continued innovation and growth" which restrains the patent industry from bludgeoning software companies.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable non-governmental organization 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 FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the European sister organization of the Free Software Foundation in the United States.
Contact
Europe: Georg C. F. Greve greve@fsfeurope.org phone: +49-40-23809080 fax: +49-40-23809081
Further contact information available at