58 lines
1.8 KiB
HTML
58 lines
1.8 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2011-12-08">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>Nortel patent sale: FSFE defends Free Software, competition</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>Nortel patent sale: FSFE defends Free Software, competition</h1>
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<p>Competition authorities in the US and Europe are
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currently investigating the sale of 6000 patents from Nortel,
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a bankrupt telecommunications equipment manufacturer, to a
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consortium of Apple, Microsoft and four other companies.
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</p>
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<p>
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FSFE believes that the acquisition of these patents by those
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companies represents a very serious risk to competition in the
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mobile technology space, and to Free Software as a whole. Soon
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after the sale, we entered into dialogue with the competition
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authorities, and in September submitted a <a
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href="/activities/swpat/nortel.html">comprehensive
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summary of our concerns</a>.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Free Software is crucial to competition, and we are confident
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that the authorities will recognise the risk these patents, if
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they fall into the wrong hands, may pose to makers of software
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everywhere, whether their programs are free or not," says FSFE's
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President, Karsten Gerloff.
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</p>
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<p>
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There is little information publicly available on the current status of this case, as the US Department of Justice and the European
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Commission continue to closely scrutinise the transaction. FSFE
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will continue to follow the situation closely as it evolves, and
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will work to defend software freedom at every turn.
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</p>
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<p>
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You can read <a href="/activities/swpat/nortel.html">our submission here</a>.
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</p>
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</body>
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<tags>
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<tag key="front-page"/>
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<tag key="swpat">Software Patents</tag>
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<tag key="antitrust"/>
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<tag key="competition"/>
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</tags>
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</html>
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