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- <title>FSFE - Software Patents in Europe - Open Letter - May 10th, 2004</title>
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-
- <center><h1>Software Patents in Europe</h1>
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/swpat.html">Introduction</a> | <a
- href="/campaigns/swpat/background.html">Background</a> | <a
- href="/campaigns/swpat/status.html">Status</a> | <a
- href="/campaigns/swpat/documents.html">Further Reading</a>]
- </center>
-
- <br />
-
- <center> Open Letter [2004-05-10]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20040531.html">2004-05-31</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20040706.html">2004-07-06</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20040802.html">2004-08-02</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20040906.html">2004-09-06</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20041004.html">2004-10-04</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20041101.html">2004-11-01</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20041206.html">2004-12-06</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20050103.html">2005-01-03</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20050207.html">2005-02-07</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20050307.html">2005-03-07</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20050405.html">2005-04-05</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20050502.html">2005-05-02</a>]
- [<a href="/campaigns/swpat/letter-20050606.html">2005-06-06</a>]
- </center>
-
- <h2>Open letter to all citizens of Europe</h2>
- <h3>May 10th, 2004</h3>
-
- <p>Dear Fellow Citizens,</p>
-
- <p>Have you ever heard of internet protocol (IP) telephony? This is
- beautiful technology! While sitting at your PC, you click a
- number and the computer dials for you -- automatically! To chat to
- the person on the side you can use a headset plugged into your
- computer. To arrange a meeting with friends you can have a
- telephone conference with as many people as you want. Also, if you
- and your partners own a webcam you can also see each other. With
- a flatrate connection no costs are incurred.</p>
-
-
- <p>The business opportunities are considerable: IBM expects cost
- reductions of 30% for professional users. The market research
- company Gartner expects the market volume to quadruple till 2007
- (as compared to 2002). Definitely a very interesting field!</p>
-
-
- <p>However - there is a road block called 'software patents': While
- Copyright law prevents competitors from selling applications
- (e.g. "Microsoft Word") under a different product name, software
- patents protect ideas and make them a creative wasteland for many
- years. Apple, for example holds a patent on a virtual wastepaper
- basket.</p>
-
- <p>Given the appropriate legal framework, Apple can prohibit
- implementation of the idea of a 'paper basket' in any other
- software application, regardless of the technical solution or
- programming methodology and language used. Alternatively they
- might choose to extort licensing fees from the programmer writing
- the paper basket software for using the idea of a wastebasket.</p>
-
- <p>Back to internet telephony. IP telephony is like an incredibly
- complex house of cards of ideas: how to synchronise audio and
- video? How to compress data such that users with low bandwidth
- analog modems are not excluded? All of these ideas are necessary
- for internet telephony to become reality.</p>
-
- <p>The result of software patents: no IP telephony at all! Professor
- Henning Schulzrinne from Columbia University (New York) currently
- suggests that programmers wait another 17 years, after which the
- patents will have expired!</p>
-
- <p>In the US there is a legal basis to enforce claims from software
- patents. Outside the scope of the law, the European Patent Office
- has been granting software patents for a number of years, which
- could not be enforced for lack of legal basis.</p>
-
- <p>Against good reason employed at the crafting of the European
- system and against the will of the European Parliament, which
- reaffirmed the undesirability of software patents in September
- 2003, the European Union's Council of Ministers now seeks to
- force legislation similar to the US! Now - less than seven months
- later - the European Union's Council of Ministers and the
- Commission prepare to vote for the exact opposite of the
- parliamentarian will. What an affront to our elected
- parliamentary representatives!</p>
-
- <p>This abuse of the basis of democracy will have severe economic
- consequences: despite current law the European Patent Office has
- already granted 30,000 software patents. How much creative and
- hence economic potential is blocked for decade(s) by this? How
- many jobs do software patents cost or prevent?</p>
-
- <p>Who has an interest in monopolising ideas and dealing with them?
- In November 2003, the CEOs of Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia and
- Siemens wrote to the EU commission and have spoken in favour of
- software patents. Did they know what they were doing? Obviously
- not - especially the telephony equipment suppliers would do
- excellent business in IP telephony.</p>
-
- <p>Obviously, patent lawyers are interested in new and complex
- regulation: after the European Parliament's decision the chamber
- of patent lawyers issued a 12-page position paper, signed by the
- president of the "computer software committee". From the point of
- view of the more than 700 patent lawyers in Munich (to these
- you need to add the legal personnel in companies and chambers)
- this effort is justified when there is a threat of losing an area
- of activity with the potential for growth. However, can the European
- economy afford to sacrifice its competitiveness in favour of these
- partial interests?? As long as the public discussion is
- dominated by patent lawyers in patent offices, lawyers in law
- firms, chambers, associations and ministries one gets the
- impression that these particular interests are the interests of
- the entire society.</p>
-
- <p>The nuisance of the patent system in the software field has been
- scientifically explored by MIT, the Massachusetts Institue of
- Technology. In a 2003 study its researchers found out that the more
- software patents a company holds, the less it invests in research and
- development.</p>
-
- <p>What happens in government, society and economy as a whole if
- these developments are not stopped? We bar people from being
- creative. We put societal development into the hands of
- bureaucrats bullying us for their own benefit at every turn. To
- use the words of the Czech President Vaclav Klaus "The EU is not
- about freedom and openness, but about bureaucratisation,
- regulation and harmonisation". If we leave this discussion to
- others, we may prove him right.</p>
-
- <p>Dear Fellow Citizens you know us - <a
- href="/">fsfe.org</a> and <a
- href="http://www.ffii.org">www.ffii.org</a> - as organisations
- fostering freedom in the digital age (<a
- href="/documents/freesoftware.html">Free Software</a>) and public
- information goods.</p>
-
- <p>We will continue doing that work.</p>
-
- <p>Software patents will enslave all software, including Free
- Software. So in consequence this might be much more: the
- enslavement of society as a whole by the patent establishment.
- Therefore we ask you for support in our struggle for freedom in
- Europe! You can do this by:
- </p>
- <ul>
- <li>1. Protesting to politicians and administrations of your country</li>
- <li>2. Pointing entrepreneurs - not their patent department -- to
- the dangers of software patents and asking your government to
- fight for innovation and against software patents.</li>
- <li>3. Contacting the papers in your region/in your professional
- environment. Journalists have influence - but they first have to
- recognise that you take this problem very seriously!</li>
- <li>4. Supporting us with your donation: information on how to donate
- is available at <a
- href="/help/donate.html">http://fsfe.org/help/donate.html</a>
- and <a
- href="http://www.ffii.org/assoc/financ/account/">http://www.ffii.org/assoc/financ/account/</a>. Donations are tax-deductible in many European countries. If you let
- us know about where to send it, receipts for your tax authorities will
- be provided quickly. Also, in the case of FSFE, please indicate
- whether you want to be <a href="/help/thankgnus.en.html">publicly
- listed as our supporter</a>.</li>
- <li>5. Participating in the demonstrations we are doing in Mid May in
- many European capitals and cities, <a href="http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpDemo0405En">http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpDemo0405En</a>.
- </li>
- <li>6. Moreover you can sign FFII's "Call for Action II" via
- <a href="http://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/aktiv?f=euparl&l=de">http://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/aktiv?f=euparl&l=de</a>
- </li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>With kind regards,</p>
- <table width="100%">
- <tr>
- <td>
- <div align="left">
- <a href="/about/greve/">Georg Greve</a><br />
- Free Software Foundation Europe<br />
- <a href="/">fsfe.org</a>
- </div>
- </td>
- <td> 
- </td>
- <td>
- <div align="right">
- Hartmut Pilch<br />
- Foundation for a Free Informational Infrastructure<br />
- <a href="http://www.ffii.org">www.ffii.org</a>
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