[Linux-bruxelles] Press: Community Patent consultation procedure seriously flawed, says FFII

[Benjamin Henrion]

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       Community Patent consultation procedure seriously flawed

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PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / economy / ICT ]

8 March 2006 (Brussels, Belgium) The EU's "Consultation on the future of the
Community Patent in Europe" has serious flaws, says the FFII, an international
information rights group based in Munich. "The first problem with the
consultation questionnaire is that it is unavailable in most of the languages
of the EU," says FFII president Pieter Hintjens. "And when you try to answer
the questionnaire, you realise that most of the vital background information
is completely incomprehensible to the average businessperson."

The president of the FFII has sent an open letter
(http://consultation.ffii.org/Open_Letter) to President Barroso and the
responsible Commissioners (McCreevy and Wallström), to express his concerns
with the procedure and to make four simple requests to improve it.

The FFII has received complaints about the exclusionary nature of the
consultation from many SMEs across Europe. "We expect to receive official EU
documents in Polish", says Ignacy Miedzinski, CEO of BPSC sa, a Polish IT
firm. "Working with French, German, or English texts is expensive and slow and
a real barrier to our participation in such consultations."

Laura Creighton, Founder of Sekans, a Swedish Venture Capital Firm, agrees:
"For such an important issue, which has been debated for years, we would
expect to see much better information provided to the SMEs who should be
involved."

In Portugal too, firms find themselves unable to take part in the Commission's
process. Joachim Carvalho, the CTO of X64 Lda., a Portuguese IT firm, says:
"It really looks like we are not supposed to take part in this process. As far
as I can see, only a specialist in EU patent law could really answer the
questionnaire."

The FFII warns that both the Commission's alternative proposals, the Community
Patent and the EPLA in combination with the London Agreement, could lead to
the EU-wide introduction of software patents. Additionally, the current
Community Patent proposal would result in transferring judicial authority over
patent law from the EU and its member states to the European Patent Office.

Pieter Hintjens concludes: "The Commission is proposing mechanisms for
cheaper, easier patents, promoting the misconception that 'more patent equates
to more innovation'. Encouraging the patent inflation and accepting the
extension of the patent system in fields where patents are counter-productive
would be a disaster for the EU."

The FFII has prepared a detailed analysis of the Commission's questionnaire on
http://consultation.ffii.org/. A PDF version is available on
http://consultation.ffii.org/Downloads.


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About FFII

The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public
benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 850
members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act
as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights
(intellectual property) in data processing.

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Contacts

  Benjamin Henrion <bhenrion at ffii.org>
  Brussels representative
  Langs: FR/EN
  +32-484-566109
  +32-2-4148403

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