EuroLinux Congratulates British Telecom for Demonstrating the Absurdity of Software Patents
Jun 22nd, 16:27 UTC
Metz, Munich and Paris, 21/6/2000 - The Eurolinux Alliance of
European commercial software publishers and non-profit associations
has published an open letter and congratulates British Telecom for
providing the world with a brilliant proof of the absurdity of
software patents. British Telecom, which owns a US patent on Web
hyperlinks (US4873662, "Information handling system and terminal
apparatus therefor") has apparently decided to sue all Internet
Service Providers in the United States for infringement on their
patent. To ensure that similar absurd disputes do not happen in Europe
in the near future, and to save software innovation in Europe,
EuroLinux urges all businesses and citizens in Europe to sign its
Campaign for a Software Patent Free Europe which already collected
6000 signatures in 5 days.
BT's move gives a brilliant overview of the great dangers of Software
Patents in the information society:
- Software patents create tremendous juridical uncertainty, thus
blocking innovation
- Software patents create monopolies on Internet standards, thus
blocking competition
BT's move also shows the absurdity of the software patent system as it
stands in the US. BT was granted its patent nearly 15 years ago for a
software concept which may have seemed new and inventive at the time.
But such a patent, by being so abstract and general, has actually
given BT the right to strangle the development of the World Wide Web
and a lot of related technologies, which owe nothing to the inventive
effort of BT. Even BT themselves took more than 10 years to discover
that the scope of their own patent included Hyperlinks on the Web.
Europe is currently protected against this absurdity because the
European Patent Law prohibits granting patents on pure programmes.
However, thousands of Internet software patents, just as absurd as
BT's one, are waiting at the European Patent Office for a change in
the European Patent Law which will likely make them fully enforceable
in Europe within 6 months. In particular, the European Commission,
under pressure of the United States, is currently pushing European
governments to change their patent Law and legalise software patents
within six months.
As a result, most European Web startup companies may then become,
knowingly or not, infringers for patents on software techniques such
as: publishing a database on the Web, one-click (Amazon), affiliate
programmes (Amazon), HTML Style Sheets (Microsoft), P3P privacy
(Intermind), WAP (GeoWorks), Web-page Downloading (Sony), Embedded
Hypermedia, Error Handling (MCI), Web Advertising (Double Click,
Inc.), Selling Airline Tickets (Priceline), Web User Tracking (Across
Sites Infonautics), E-commerce Tracking, Shopping Cart, E-commerce
Sales, etc.
Says Jean-Paul Smets, speaking for the EuroLinux Alliance, "Current
plans in Europe to legalise software patents are just the beginning of
another round of patent inflation. Recent rulings at the European
Patent Office show that it is already possible to get patents for
services, human actions, intellectual methods, etc. The time has come
to take control of the European Patent System out of the hands of
patent experts and back into the hands of the general interest."
References
An Open Letter to BT -
http://petition.eurolinux.org/bt/thankyou.html
The EuroLinux Petition for a Software Patent Free Europe -
http://petition.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux File on Software Patents -
http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference
O-Reilley collection of Internet patents -
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/patent_list
BT claims ownership of hyperlinks -
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/11450.html
Gregory Aharonian -
http://www.bustpatents.com/
About EuroLinux - www.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
Software. Companies members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or sell
software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating
systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.
The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organised in 1999, together with the
French Embassy in Japan, the first Europe-Japan conference on Linux
and Free Software. The EuroLinux Alliance is at the initiative of the
www.freepatents.org web site to promote and protect innovation and
competition in the European IT industry.
Press Contacts
France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets-Solanes
jp@smets.com +33-662 05 76 14
Germany & Europe: Harmut Pilch
phm@ffii.org +49-89 127 89 608
Denmark and Northern Europe:
denmark@eurolinux.org
Belgium:
belgium@eurolinux.org
Permanent URL for this PR
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr2.html
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr2.pdf
Legalese
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Inc.
MacOS is registered trademark of Apple Inc.
All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective
companies.
(Submitted by John Wolley of Linux Today)
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