[DMCA-Activists] FSFE: European Cities will Suffer From Software Patents

[Seth Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] European Cities will suffer from software
patents
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:13:30 +0100
From: "Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)"
<address@hidden>
Reply-To: address@hidden
To: address@hidden
CC: address@hidden

EUROCITIES is the network of some 100 major cities within the EU:
Norway, Switzerland, Central and Eastern Europe and the New
Independent States (NIS). Eurocities was established in 1986,
there are over 100 million citizens in its member cities.
Catherine Parmentier is Chief Executive Officer of EUROCITIES.


Dear Mrs Parmentier,

The European Council and European Commission are trying to
introduce a legal basis for software patents in Europe. This
would expose European cities to uncalculable and unforseeable
risks due to software patent litigation expenses. That is why we
hope you will join us in fighting these employment and innovation
killers.

In addition, city councils throughout Europe do have to overcome
the same difficulties: The number of those who depend on social
welfare is increasing, budgets ar decreasing and citizens expect
public services to provide a better quality than ever before.
These apparently contradictory goals shall be reached by a
conversion of the formerly labour-intensive administration tasks
into automated electronic procedures and structures -- not only
within a single administration, but also between different public
services, administration to citizens and administration to
business.

The well known buzzword for this is "eGovernment".

Standardised structures and procedures which are defined and
implemented as the default software to be used across local
structures and administration provide and ideal territory for
software patent litigation claims: Potential claims reach from
the grounds of basic functionality, such as networks, databases
and file systems, to the abstract methods and protocols providing
the specific functionality.

As software patents do not require proof of concept or
implementation, the patentee can easily afford to file abstract
methods and decide to give or deny licenses arbitrarily.

This will become a significant cost factor for three main
reasons: Both software developers and users can be asked for
almost any amount of money the software patent holder chooses.
Many developers and companies will not be able to pay such
demands and thus go out of business, turning tax-payers into
people in need of social welfare. Finally, the price of the
remaining software companies products will increase because of
the need to refinance their software patent expenses and also
because of reduced competition in the market.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has registered 1185 software
patents [1] dealing with "public service" and 19 explicitly
dealing with "city council" [2]. It is not necessary to mention
these keywords when applying for a software patent, so these are
only the tip of the iceberg and the list is expected to grow
rapidly should software patents become reality.

With the introduction of software patents, European cities would
have to be aware of dramatically increasing costs and an
increasingly difficult legal situation with high risks for the
administration.

We would like to recommend that you contact Mr Christian Ude, the
mayor of Munich, who has also become aware of the damaging
effects that software patents have for public services. Should
you have further questions or need additional assistance, please
do not hesitate to contact us.

With kind regards



Georg Greve
President 
Free Software Foundation Europe



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


[1]
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&RS=public+AND+service&Refine=Refine+Search&Refine=Refine+Search&Query=%22public+service%22
[2]
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&RS=%22public+service%22&Refine=Refine+Search&Refine=Refine+Search&Query=%22city+council%22

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Joachim Jakobs <address@hidden>
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