136 lines
5.4 KiB
HTML
136 lines
5.4 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
|
||
|
||
<html>
|
||
<head>
|
||
<title>Open Letter to the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG) because of software patents - July 6th, 2004</title>
|
||
</head>
|
||
<body>
|
||
|
||
<center><h1>Software Patents in Europe</h1>
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/swpat.html">Introduction</a> | <a
|
||
href="/projects/swpat/background.html">Background</a> | <a
|
||
href="/projects/swpat/status.html">Status</a> | <a
|
||
href="/projects/swpat/documents.html">Further Reading</a> ]
|
||
</center>
|
||
<center> Open Letter
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20040510.html">2004-05-10</a>]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20040531.html">2004-05-31</a>]
|
||
[2004-07-06]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20040802.html">2004-08-02</a>]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20040906.html">2004-09-06</a>]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20041004.html">2004-10-04</a>]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20041101.html">2004-11-01</a>]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20041206.html">2004-12-06</a>]
|
||
[<a href="/projects/swpat/letter-20050103.html">2005-01-03</a>]
|
||
</center>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<h2>Open Letter to the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG)</h2>
|
||
<h3>July 6th, 2004</h3>
|
||
|
||
<p>Dear Professor Bullinger,</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
"Research should be able to earn its money also on the market!" - say
|
||
politicians so we, the Free Software Foundation Europe, understand when
|
||
researchers use creative ways to get a better income. But even
|
||
researchers should take care not to bite the hand that feeds them. This
|
||
danger is real, especially with the actual software patent discussion:
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is well known for its patent of the MP3
|
||
audio-compression standard. Another compression procedure, named Ogg
|
||
Vorbis, is considered to be of higher technological value by experts. If
|
||
software patents should indeed be introduced in Europe, the Ogg Vorbis
|
||
developers could be confronted with license claims at will by the
|
||
Fraunhofer IIS<a name="ref1" href="#fn1"><sup>1</sup></a>, although they took
|
||
care not to infringe the MP3 patent. The FhG might be able to get rid of an
|
||
unpleasant competitor or would at least better its income substantially. We
|
||
will avoid a discussion of the ethical questions related to such a behaviour.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
However, it certainly is not very useful from the economical point of view if
|
||
a good idea blocks an even better one: this is also shown by Dr. Daniel
|
||
Probst of the chair of Economy and Economical Theory at the University
|
||
of Mannheim. Dr. Probst stated in a hearing of the German parliament
|
||
regarding software patents in June 2001<a name="ref2"
|
||
href="#fn2"><sup>2</sup></a>:
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
"The part of SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) would sink and a
|
||
concentrational process would begin. Based on network effects, a few
|
||
large enterprises would gain a dominant place on the market. As far as
|
||
allowed by competition regulations, they would agree on cross-licensing
|
||
their patent portfolios and would hinder market entry of new companies
|
||
with blocking patents. The research intensity in the branch would
|
||
stagnate or fall." There would also be a significant decrease of Free
|
||
Software solutions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Personally I regret every single point of the above. There are many more
|
||
deficiencies, some of them have been shown to the new German president,
|
||
Professor K<>hler, in an open letter in June<a name="ref3"
|
||
href="#fn3"><sup>3</sup></a>. A particular important point for you as head of
|
||
the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft should certainly be the quote "The part of SME
|
||
would sink...", especially regarding the fact that, according to the German
|
||
government<a name="ref4" href="#fn4"><sup>4</sup></a>, the FhG is taking 60
|
||
percent of its research orders from SMEs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Another point to take into consideration would be that big companies
|
||
might move the research to the eastern parts of the European Union,
|
||
because they can find in Poland and other newly entered EU countries
|
||
perfectly competent software developers at a fraction of actual costs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
For Europe's greatest research society in the field of "information and
|
||
communication technology", this could mean not only the disappearance of
|
||
their project partners but, even worse, the dying of the companies which
|
||
FhG wanted to live of. "Sawdust is falling since quite a certain time,
|
||
the splintering of the branch is imminent."
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Kind regards</p>
|
||
<div align="left">
|
||
<a href="/about/greve/">Georg Greve</a><br />
|
||
Free Software Foundation Europe<br />
|
||
<a href="http://www.fsfeurope.org">www.fsfeurope.org</a>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<dl>
|
||
<dt>
|
||
<a name="fn1" href="#ref1"><sup>1</sup></a>
|
||
<a href="http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/">http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/</a>
|
||
</dt>
|
||
<dt>
|
||
<a name="fn2" href="#ref2"><sup>2</sup></a>
|
||
<a href="http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2001/bundestag/probst/index.de.html">http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2001/bundestag/probst/index.de.html</a>
|
||
</dt>
|
||
<dt>
|
||
<a name="fn3" href="#ref3"><sup>3</sup></a>
|
||
<a href="http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release-de/2004q2/000030.html">http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release-de/2004q2/000030.html</a>
|
||
</dt>
|
||
<dt>
|
||
<a name="fn4" href="#ref4"><sup>4</sup></a>
|
||
<a href="http://www.bmbf.de/pub/inno-masterplan.pdf">http://www.bmbf.de/pub/inno-masterplan.pdf</a>
|
||
</dt>
|
||
</dl>
|
||
|
||
</body>
|
||
<timestamp>$Date$ $Author$</timestamp>
|
||
</html>
|
||
<!--
|
||
Local Variables: ***
|
||
mode: xml ***
|
||
End: ***
|
||
-->
|