04.28.09
Charles McCreevy is Still Advancing Software Patents in Europe
Summary: Charles McCreevy’s “harmonisation” agenda gets a new name and it is still on
OMEONE at Digital Majority has just found this page from the European Union Web site. The page is a month old, but it contains the following revealing statement from Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, who is a known nuisance to freedom because of his promotion of self-serving multinationals and software patents [1, 2, 3, 4].
Announcing this breakthrough, the Internal Market Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy said:
“European businesses find the current patent litigation system complex, slow and costly.”
He predicted that the new unified system, with a dedicated unified patent court, would make patent litigation more predictable, faster and less expensive.
The EPO is already on the verge of selling out (to software patents and Microsoft), so protesters like Richard Stallman label the EPO "malicious" and "corrupt". In addition, as Bosson points out in his response to the EPO (he seems to be affiliated with FFII Sweden):
EPO needs a very clear mandate to grant patents on computer program. The TRIPS “fields of technology” does not exclude limits on what is a patentable invention. It is very questionable if patents make a good incentive for software that contain many thousands of new ideas and easily combines into millions of new ideas on how to organize and calculate information over the Internet.
Here is my personal response. █
