European software patents via treaty?
| From: | FFII Press Centre <media-AT-ffii.org> | |
| To: | news-AT-ffii.org | |
| Subject: | [ffii] McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty | |
| Date: | Tue, 13 May 2008 17:44:55 +0200 | |
| Message-ID: | <4829B777.7050707@ffii.org> |
PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / Innovation ] ======================================================================== McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty ======================================================================== Brussels, 13 May 2008 -- European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic. "TEC talks are the current push for software patents. The US want to eliminate the higher standards of the European Patent Convention. The bilateral agenda is dictated by multinationals gathered in the Transatlantic Economic Business Dialogue (TABD). When you have a look who is in the Executive Board of the TABD, you find not a single European SME in there", says Benjamin Henrion, a Brussels based patent policy specialist. The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) which comprises EU and US high level representatives put a substantive harmonisation of patent law on its agenda. Substantive patent law covers what is patentable or not. The attempt to impose the low US standards on Europe via the Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) process utterly failed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation. Also progress in the WIPO B+ subgroup (without development nations) could not be reached. Now the TEC is used as a new forum to push forward with lowering patentability standards through the back door. The TEC is a closed process, and sits outside the WIPO multilateral treaty talks. Since WIPO participants Brazil, India and China (the BRIC block) began to fight EU-US proposals for ever-more aggressive patents, the EU and US have begun their own bilateral talks. The main difference is that the TEC is a trade process. The use of free trade talks to change patent laws has precedence. In the GATT negotiations the United States diverted a Free Trade process to blackmail trade partners to accept the TRIPs treaty that limited flexibilities of their national patent law. In 2005, the EU Parliament did not want to make software patents enforcable in Europe after massive opposition from citizens, small European software businesses, parliamentarians of all sides, and civil society. The United States and US stakeholders intervened without success in internal matters of the EU in favour of software patents. In the same year the Indian parliament resisted the US pressure to change its patent laws. The US diplomacy insisted in India on alleged TRIPs obligations to permit software patenting. Commissioner McCreevy's home constituency, Ireland, is the main base in Europe for large US software firms who repatriate most of their EU profits as licenses and "patent royalties" without paying taxes in Europe. In his former government office McCreevy build the Irish tax-free harbour. FFII President Alberto Barrionuevo adds: "The European Union does not have a Community Patent, neither a substantive patent law in its acquis, except the biotech directive. As long as there is no substantive patent law in the EU, it is quite silly to discuss about a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. Its like a blind showing the way for a deaf. If the USA really wanted to fix their patent practice they should first switch to first-to-file and join the European Patent Convention." Rumors also circulate that a confidential and dedicated Working Group inside the European Council of Ministers has been created to discuss this proposed patent treaty. The agenda and terms are put forward by the United States whose patent law does not meet European standards. ======================================================================== Background Information ======================================================================== Agenda Meeting objectives for 13 May [1] "Patent Law Harmonization : Agree on roadmap." WhiteHouse: Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration Between the United States of America and the European Union: "Cooperate on improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of the patent system at the global level to promote innovation, employment, and competitiveness, and seek progress in the harmonisation of the different patent regimes;" TABD: Transatlantic Business Recommendations for Action by Transatlantic Economic Council: Patent Law Harmonization: The TEC work program needs to specify the step-by-step plan proposed for progress on convergence of US and EU patent regulation. We understand that the US put forward a roadmap proposal at the end of January, but it is not clear what, if any, are the agreed milestones for the roadmap going forward. ======================================================================== Links ======================================================================== * [1] TEC Agenda Meeting objectives for 13 May http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/inter_re... * WhiteHouse: Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration Between the United States of America and the European Union http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070430-... * European Commission: Transatlantic Economic Council http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/inter_re... * TABD: Transatlantic Business Recommendations for Action by Transatlantic Economic Council http://static.tabd.com/manilaGems/TABDSubmissionMay1308TE... * Commission: Transatlantic Economic Council: objectives for Spring 2008 meeting http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/inter_re... (Issues to be Noted by the TEC: * Patent Law Harmonization: Agree on roadmap) * IP-watch: Group B+ Draft Patent Harmonisation Treaty Emerges http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=448 * IP-watch: Draft treaty text available (with a sensitive part marked as "reserved") http://www.ip-watch.org/files/Group%20B+%20Chair's%20Draft%20Nov.doc * Permanent link to this press release http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/McCreevy_wants_to_le... ======================================================================== Contact ======================================================================== Benjamin Henrion FFII Brussels +32-2-414 84 03 +32-484-566109 bhenrion@ffii.org (French/English) ======================================================================== About the FFII ======================================================================== The FFII is a not-for-profit association active in over fifty countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, and open standards. More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing. _______________________________________________ FFII Press Releases. (un)subscribe via https://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news, or contact media@ffii.org for more information.
Posted May 13, 2008 19:18 UTC (Tue)
by allesfresser (guest, #216)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted May 13, 2008 19:42 UTC (Tue)
by ohrn (subscriber, #5509)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted May 13, 2008 20:09 UTC (Tue)
by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)
[Link]
Want to make money fast? That's how. You just have to be a little dishonest. Nobody cares enough to prosecute you, so it's risk-free. Bruce
Posted May 15, 2008 16:21 UTC (Thu)
by hchristeller (guest, #4246)
[Link]
Posted May 13, 2008 23:55 UTC (Tue)
by zoobab (guest, #9945)
[Link]
Posted May 14, 2008 10:22 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (3 responses)
In a meeting this morning about the community patent, a Commission speaker said they're getting close to agreement.
The offer of automated translations seems to have reassured many countries. They'd be using a new translation engine developed by the EPO which uses a specific translation dictionary for whatever domain the patent is in. etc. etc. The tech details aren't really important.
Spain is the last country openly opposing the current proposal. France would agree but has stated that they're not going to openly conflict with Spain. However, Spain has a new Minister for Science and Enterprise, and she might change Spain's position.
I raised the issue that cheaper, faster, bigger patents is the exact opposite of what most software developers and software companies are asking for. The Commission speaker replied that the current proposal would make granting faster, which would shorten the period of uncertainty, and would make challenging patents easier since it could be done in any country.
She talked about this reducing the problem of "disguised software patents".
I'll try to put a more detailed report in my blog later today.
Just FYI.
Posted May 15, 2008 10:35 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted May 15, 2008 19:06 UTC (Thu)
by dark (guest, #8483)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted May 16, 2008 9:12 UTC (Fri)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
Posted May 14, 2008 12:15 UTC (Wed)
by rwmj (subscriber, #5474)
[Link] (1 responses)
It's time to make Policy Laundering (look it up on Google ...) illegal. It is solely
designed to bypass
troublesome concepts like democracy, accountability and debate, and it should be possible to bring
the people who do it to justice. (And that includes all the lobbyists as well as the policitians).
Rich.
Posted May 14, 2008 12:48 UTC (Wed)
by mattmelton (guest, #34842)
[Link]
European software patents via treaty?
FFII is recommending that the US switch to first-to-file? What kind of madness is that?
Wouldn't that remove the whole avenue of disabling specious patents through prior art?
European software patents via treaty?
No, first-to-file doesn't have anything to do with prior art, prior art makes the patent is
invalid no matter what. What it does do is remove the ambiguity when two applications for the
same invention arrive close in time, the first person who filed gets the patent (as long as
it's a valid invention).
As it works in the US now whoever of the applicants that can somehow prove that he thought of
it first gets the patent, leading to costly battles. Also it creates a nice opportunity for
less honest individuals, by duplicating existing applications and then doctoring some proof
they can game the system and steal ideas...
It's easy to eavesdrop a standards group email list, and file patents as things go by, under the U.S. system. There has been no criminal prosecution for lying on a patent application since 1974, although it has the same penalty as other forms of perjury. There is no plan to introduce an enforcement office back into USPTO, so no prosecution is in sight in the future.European software patents via treaty?
The Constitutional purpose for patents is to reward publication of information about useful inventions, not to reward the act of invention itself. The market rewards invention; patents reward making knowledge of inventions available to the public.
Special interests have been sowing confusion about patents for years, emphasizing the government role in rewarding inventors. But inventors don't need to be rewarded by government, the public isn't served by rewarding inventors, and inventors (and investors) should be dismayed by the idea of government choosing which inventors deserve reward. The public is served by publishing inventions. First to file rewards publishing.
European software patents via treaty?
European software patents via treaty?
The title has been a bit transformed.
Basically you could have also software patents *in the law* with those kind of agreements with
the EU.
So I would be american I would file directly a question to the Government to find out what
they were discussing in this TEC meeting with the Europeans.
You never know that it would be bad for software programmers.
As for the community patent
Done: Working breakfast on Community Patent
As for the community patent
As for the community patent
Thank you, that was interesting. Did you officially represent anyone in
that meeting?
In your question you said "When I talk to SMEs in the field of software,
they say they want fewer or no software patents."
Did anyone challenge you on that, or is it accepted data now?
As for the community patent
I was representing FSFE, and was at an SME breakfast because FSFE is a member of the CEA-PME
SME Federation.
No one questioned my assertion that SMEs were against software patents. Indeed, the chair
confirmed it (which surprised me since he was a pro-swpat MEP).
...but maybe he would say he's against software patents but that he supports
computer-implemented inventions. To have a meaningful discussion about this, you really have
to be able to agree on terminology at the beginning :-/
The best way to do that is to bring a few specific patents and then avoid existing terms
completely by just talking about "this type of patent". Q&A sessions don't really give you
the opportunity for that.
Still, if we stay quiet, we give the Commission a justification to say that they discussed X
issue and nobody complained about software patents. So even when we can't make a difference,
it's useful to raise an objection.
Policy laundering
Policy laundering
The purpose of the Commission is to do exactly that. The European Parliament only has the
power of veto during negotiations, with a stalemate being decided by the Council. Any system
that has a fail-through-approval is bloody stupid.
The only week, and oft tainted (if not warped), work the Commission does is investigate
breaches of the Treaty - but even then it's by somewhat favourable descretion only.
I've forever seen the Commission as a commerical interests body - the kind of body you go to,
to pass EU-wide laws that benefit particular institutional intersts and not the European
public. My position hasn't changed the slightest since I've began to study the fundamentals of
EC law, and the working role of the Commission.
It is unaccountable to the people (it's members are not elected! the UK's representative of
late was a disgraced former MP who was friends with the Blair cabinet), and is so enshired any
European Activism would seen the entire Commission resign - shocking.
It's time to dissolve it.