[Discussioni] Economic-Majority supports Rocard JURI amendments

[Francesco Potorti`]

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Subject: Economic-Majority supports Rocard JURI amendments
Date:    Mon, June 20, 2005 2:25 pm


PRESS RELEASE FFII -- [ Europe / economy / ICT ]

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Economic-Majority supports Rocard JURI amendments
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June 2005 - The Economic Majority speaks out against software patents,
loud and clear. Even before the official launch of the campaign, more
than 800 companies representing over 17,000 employees and a turnover of
more than 1.5 billion Euro have pledged their support. Donating already
over 91,000 euro to the fight against software patents, they put their
money where their mouth is. The FFII invites all concerned companies to
undersign the declaration at http://www.economic-majority.com

Hundreds of European companies, along with a handful of US enterprises,
are joining forces to prove the European Commission's assertion that
there is an "economic majority in favour of software patents" is
wrong. The Commission concluded this from a survey it held in 2000,
where over 90% of respondents were against extending patentability. Most
of those were discarded due to supposedly not being economically
representative.

The campaign website also already contains 47 testimonies of various
companies, in which they describe how software patents would directly
affect their business. "Software patents are expropriation, the
taking-by-force of copyrighted works using dubious legalistic tools",
says Pieter Hintjens, CEO of the Belgian company iMatix, whose sms@
product allows for instant deployment of web-administrated sms services.

Indeed, one of the first concerns mentioned on the campaign website is
that "we need to be sure that we own what we write". Software patents
are often said to be complementary to copyright, by covering the
"underlying ideas" as opposed to the actual implementation. In practice,
they severely weaken other forms of intellectual property such as
copyright, time to market, trade secrets and trademarks. They are not
just complementary, but take away other rights as well.

Winfried Schäfer, CEO of the German Pentaprise GmbH, confirms:
"Developing customized software always is overshadowed by the risk that
one spends ample time into design and implementation of software
mechanisms and then later it turns out that the chosen approach runs
into patent risks." The Economic Majority therefore calls for strictly
limiting the patent system to applied natural science.

Andrej Mertelj, CEO of Datalab, a Slovenian Enterprise Resource Planning
solutions company, notes effects on venture funding: "The hardest hit
came from the financiers. Since the environment of software developers
was drastically changed with the possible codification of software
patents, the future looks uncertain. Our company planned to start a
second round of financing with invited venture capital. Due to
uncertainties and potential large threats from the major players we
expect to pay a higher discount on our offering, effectively raising
less cash."

Today, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee will
vote on the amendments tabled to Mr Rocard's report on the software
patents directive. The concerns of the Economic Majority are addressed
by many of the amendments tabled to this JURI report by Mr Rocard (PSE)
himself, Mrs Kauppi (EPP), Mrs Kudrycka (EPP), Mr Zwiefka (EPP), Mrs
Frassoni (VERD/EFA), Mrs Lichtenberger (VERD/EFA) and Mr Bertinotti
(GUE/NGL). The FFII urges JURI members to follow Mr Rocard's or the
FFII's voting list, available from http://www.ffii.org/amend


=====================================================================More
information
====================================================================The
economic majority against software patents
   http://www.economic-majority.com

Testimonies
   http://www.economic-majority.com/testimony

FFII voting list for amendments tabled to Rocard's JURI report
   http://www.ffii.org/amend

Permananent link to this press release
   http://wiki.ffii.org/Empr050620En


=====================================================================Contact
details
====================================================================Erik
Josefsson erjos a ffii.org
FFII Brussels Representative
+32-484-082063

Steffen Maas
ffii a kmu-software.de
FFII Brussels Organisation
+32-484-561020


======================================================================== 
=About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org
======================================================================== 
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a
non-profit association registered in several European countries, which is
dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. The FFII
supports the development of public information goods based on
copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 500 members, 1,400
companies and 80,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their
voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual
property) in data processing. The FFII maintains
offices in Munich and Brussels and national supporter groups in most
European countries.