For the swedish case, it is even worse, as Sweden already ratified, and the only language of the regional court will be english only. Meaning that a swedish company accused in court will have to hire a translator. And patents will only be available in english of course, translations in swedish will be made "non-legally binding" bu the unipat.
German judges are the number one candidates to populate such european courts. There is now a series of decisions in Germany, notably the Siemens document generation patent, which has abolished the exclusion of software patents in DE:
"The relevant case law is the case law of the boards of appeal of the EPO"
Administrative tribunals run by patent examiners without a law degree do not produce case law.
"why should a software engineer be privileged over an electrical engineer"
Because software authors write code, and deserve freedom of expression.
The EPO invented the term "computer implemented invention" in the late nineties because they knew that the Berne Convention was already protecting "computer programs" as literary works.
Authors are spoiled from the right to benefit of the fruits of their work.
As far as I know, electrical engineers have to deal with physical forces and all that, not with a text editor.
The Government of New Zealand is proposing a set of amendments to the national patent law, none of them clearly mentions the exclusions of software from the field of patentability. The Government claims that Free Trade Agreements and other international treaties requires software patents in New Zealand.
"On July 30th, Microsoft filed two trademarks for:"
So please CmdrTaco, update your article.
Best,
Press Release: ISO captured by vendor Microsoft
on
ISO Approves OOXML
·
· Score: 1
Brussels, 2 April 2008 -- ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.
A vote by national members of ISO indicates a majority for the controversial Open XML format. OOXML received 75 Prozent approval votes of p-members of JTC1, among them many nations of questionable expertise in standardization. In September a first attempt to approve the 6000 page standard Open XML failed with more than 3500 submitted comments. As in September many of the new approval votes were won by political high level intervention and the vendors dominance in national technical committees.
From June 2007 to March 2008, technical committees around the world studied and analysed one of the largest IT standards proposal ever, Microsoft's OOXML. In order to get its format safely through ISO, Microsoft had to stuff committees, lobby ministers, mobilize business partners, and rewrite the ISO rules.
The rush for Open XML started with the adoption of OpenDocument format as the ISO standard for office documents (ISO 26300:2006). The open standard ODF is considered a danger for the market monopolist Microsoft with its flag ship product Microsoft Office. Governments worldwide are switching to the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) as their default format for office documents. ODF is a vendor neutral ISO open standard. The reaction of Microsoft to defend their monopoly position was to rush through their incompatible alternative format Open XML via ECMA international to become a second ISO standard. Although the Open XML format lacks maturity on formal grounds Microsoft has been able to hijack the entire ISO process. The technical review of the format was strongly obstructed by its originator and its political interference in the ISO process.
Presence of Microsoft Business Partners has been reported in the following countries: Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America. Furthermore, it has been reported in several countries, such as France and Malaysia, that Microsoft has lobbied the government and the responsible ministers to override the decisions of the technical committees, which spoke out against an approval of the format.
Jan Wildeboer, Solution Architect at RedHat, explains: "OOXML was created solely for use in Microsoft applications. It is not currently suitable as an international standard, because it cannot be completely implemented by anyone without access to inside information. Although it is more than 6,000 pages long, it contains various references to things that are defined only in Microsoft's software, not in the specification itself."
Rui Seabra, Vice-President of ANSOL and member of the technical committee in Portugal, says: "Congratulations are due to Microsoft. They've been able to push an incomplete and buggy document as an international standard, that only they can implement. It's now proven that ISO/IEC standard of quality can be subverted."
Laurent Richard, of the Belgian Association Electronique Libre, says: "The war about office file formats only begins. The real war will be the adoption of OOXML by governments, and their citizens, which will have to buy again a copy of Microsoft Office to find out what the decision makers are doing. We will ask the European Commission to scrutinize this format, and garantee that competitors can have 100% interoperability with the Microsoft Office, which is not possible with the current OOXML pseudo-standard."
Pieter Hintjens, of the European Software Market Association, says:"Nobody wants standards you can buy. Microsoft bought a standard at ECMA, now they bought ISO. Who wants this?"
Graham Taylor, Openforum Europe, regards the outco
The German police is using the criminal procedure to seize counterfeited goods, despite the fact that those patents could be challenged in court for validity.
If there are some MP3 manufacturers reading slashdot and interested to kick some of those patents for subject matter exclusion, you can contact me at zoobab@gmail.com.
Also, Philips might be the only company who is lobbying the European Union (Council and Parliament) for using criminal sanctions and freeze of bank accounts in civil proceedings for patent infringements.
The proponents of internet filtering still have the opportunity to collect 40 signatures of MEPs to table some amendments for plenary. Or get a political group to table them.
Microsoft will trump EU competition ruling with patentsBrussels, 17 September 2007 -- The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says that Microsoft was expecting the 17 September verdict of the EU's anti-trust case, and will exploit software patents to keep its monopoly grip on the global IT market.
FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, "The decision seems positive but it is five years out of date. During that time, Microsoft has lobbied for software patents in Europe and bought patents on many trivial concepts. It has claimed patent violations against Linux, put patent timebombs into its formats and interfaces, and turned fear of patents into a core part of its business strategy. It will now open its formats, because that lets it extend its software patent franchise even further."
Microsoft recently published its MCPP (Microsoft Communications Protocol Program) patent licence which requires competitors to pay royalties for each copy of software distributed. For example, a free software project making a print server would have to pay USD$8 to Microsoft for each copy downloaded.
"The largest monopolist in history has faced down the largest economy in history," says Benjamin Henrion of the FFII's Brussels Office. "Microsoft will appeal, and the fines if ever paid are just a month or two of profits. Meanwhile Microsoft now has the time to crush its only real competition, the free and open source economy. We regret that the EU Commission and ECJ are blind to the real threat of software patents, while Microsoft cleverly exploits Europe's own patent system against EU businesses. This is a defeat for Europe's anti-trust, a defeat for the global economy, and I'm sure they're popping the champagne in Redmond."
Background information
In the proceedings of the EU antitrust trial, Microsoft states that its communication protocols are covered by at least 3 European patents or patent applications (namely patents 'EP 0661652', 'EP 0438571' and 'EP 0669020'). In addition, another 20 patent applications are pending in the United States, as are 2 in Europe (in its reply, Microsoft states that one of its two applications has since been granted, namely patent 'EP 1004193'). Moreover, Microsoft is planning to apply for 'some 130 European patents relating to Windows server operating systems'.
Jeremy Allison, leader of SAMBA, the open source project file and print services for Linux/Unix servers and Windows-based clients, mentioned recently in LinuxWorld that the MCPP patent licences will make impossible for open source to use them:
"We read the license, it's impossible to release open source implementations of the product. You have to keep it secret. This defeats the whole idea of open source."
I would like to say that there is not only Linksys, but all Broadcom based routers (Trendnet TEW-411BRP, Belkin F5D7230, Motorola, Asustek wl300g et wl500g, Buffalo Airstation, Dell Truemobile2300).
See:
http://seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/BroadcomRou te rs
Slashdot Mirror
For the swedish case, it is even worse, as Sweden already ratified, and the only language of the regional court will be english only. Meaning that a swedish company accused in court will have to hire a translator. And patents will only be available in english of course, translations in swedish will be made "non-legally binding" bu the unipat.
Sorry, but other experts then me says the opposite:
http://epla.ffii.org/quotes
The courts you are talking about are mostly the ones from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The plan is to remove patentable subject matter from the hands of the ECJ, transferring that to a specialized patent court, similar to the CAFC.
"How exactly is German case law relevant here?"
German judges are the number one candidates to populate such european courts. There is now a series of decisions in Germany, notably the Siemens document generation patent, which has abolished the exclusion of software patents in DE:
http://translate.google.be/translate?u=http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Bundesgerichtshof-ebnet-Weg-fuer-Softwarepatente-1003190.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
"The relevant case law is the case law of the boards of appeal of the EPO"
Administrative tribunals run by patent examiners without a law degree do not produce case law.
"why should a software engineer be privileged over an electrical engineer"
Because software authors write code, and deserve freedom of expression.
The EPO invented the term "computer implemented invention" in the late nineties because they knew that the Berne Convention was already protecting "computer programs" as literary works.
Authors are spoiled from the right to benefit of the fruits of their work.
As far as I know, electrical engineers have to deal with physical forces and all that, not with a text editor.
"It's not linked to software patents"
Of course it is linked, do you really believe that they wont file any software patent in the field of "Information and Communication Technologies":
http://www.agglotv.com/?p=15499
"Le domaine d’intervention prioritaire du fonds sera dans un premier temps les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication"
Maybe they will stick themselves to resistors and hardware, but it is obvious that 95% of patents in "ICT" are now software.
"Someone please explain to me how the Unitary patent is a push towards software patents"
Thats very simple, take the German case law and make it the default for the whole of Europe.
"why software patents are a bad thing"
Because it is insane to ask authors to check zillion of claims before being able to write a piece of code.
Do you have a copy of the FAT jugement in Germany?
Remote Pair Programming Using SSH Screen Vim and Skype
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFClpADY7Tc
Some interesting videos of last year:
http://www.justin.tv/hackerspace/all
That's the advantage of the location: at least the Bobos from Neuilly won't come because they don't go to Vitry :-)
There are still plenty of 20 minutes slots for Lightning Talks to present your project:
http://www.hackerspace.net/lightning-talks
The Government of New Zealand is proposing a set of amendments to the national patent law, none of them clearly mentions the exclusions of software from the field of patentability. The Government claims that Free Trade Agreements and other international treaties requires software patents in New Zealand.
http://stopsoftwarepatents.org/forum/t-91796/government-in-new-zealand-pushes-for-software-patents
I would be you, I would contact immediately your Member of Parliament, and your Government to find out what is going on.
While searching the patent numbers, it appears that this story is not even about patents:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080820/microsoft-hints-private-browsing-feature-ie/
"On July 30th, Microsoft filed two trademarks for:"
So please CmdrTaco, update your article.
Best,
Brussels, 2 April 2008 -- ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.
A vote by national members of ISO indicates a majority for the controversial Open XML format. OOXML received 75 Prozent approval votes of p-members of JTC1, among them many nations of questionable expertise in standardization. In September a first attempt to approve the 6000 page standard Open XML failed with more than 3500 submitted comments. As in September many of the new approval votes were won by political high level intervention and the vendors dominance in national technical committees.
From June 2007 to March 2008, technical committees around the world studied and analysed one of the largest IT standards proposal ever, Microsoft's OOXML. In order to get its format safely through ISO, Microsoft had to stuff committees, lobby ministers, mobilize business partners, and rewrite the ISO rules.
The rush for Open XML started with the adoption of OpenDocument format as the ISO standard for office documents (ISO 26300:2006). The open standard ODF is considered a danger for the market monopolist Microsoft with its flag ship product Microsoft Office. Governments worldwide are switching to the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) as their default format for office documents. ODF is a vendor neutral ISO open standard. The reaction of Microsoft to defend their monopoly position was to rush through their incompatible alternative format Open XML via ECMA international to become a second ISO standard. Although the Open XML format lacks maturity on formal grounds Microsoft has been able to hijack the entire ISO process. The technical review of the format was strongly obstructed by its originator and its political interference in the ISO process.
Presence of Microsoft Business Partners has been reported in the following countries: Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America. Furthermore, it has been reported in several countries, such as France and Malaysia, that Microsoft has lobbied the government and the responsible ministers to override the decisions of the technical committees, which spoke out against an approval of the format.
Jan Wildeboer, Solution Architect at RedHat, explains: "OOXML was created solely for use in Microsoft applications. It is not currently suitable as an international standard, because it cannot be completely implemented by anyone without access to inside information. Although it is more than 6,000 pages long, it contains various references to things that are defined only in Microsoft's software, not in the specification itself."
Rui Seabra, Vice-President of ANSOL and member of the technical committee in Portugal, says: "Congratulations are due to Microsoft. They've been able to push an incomplete and buggy document as an international standard, that only they can implement. It's now proven that ISO/IEC standard of quality can be subverted."
Laurent Richard, of the Belgian Association Electronique Libre, says: "The war about office file formats only begins. The real war will be the adoption of OOXML by governments, and their citizens, which will have to buy again a copy of Microsoft Office to find out what the decision makers are doing. We will ask the European Commission to scrutinize this format, and garantee that competitors can have 100% interoperability with the Microsoft Office, which is not possible with the current OOXML pseudo-standard."
Pieter Hintjens, of the European Software Market Association, says:"Nobody wants standards you can buy. Microsoft bought a standard at ECMA, now they bought ISO. Who wants this?"
Graham Taylor, Openforum Europe, regards the outco
The patents claimed are the ones of Sisvel, a Philips proxytroll, who is suing every MP3 manufacturer for royalties.
They have a list of 3 or 4 software patents which belongs to the MPEG1-layer3 ISO standard, be it implemented in hardware of in software:
http://www.ipeg.com/_UPLOAD%20BLOG/Sisvel%20patents%20overview.pdf
The German police is using the criminal procedure to seize counterfeited goods, despite the fact that those patents could be challenged in court for validity.
If there are some MP3 manufacturers reading slashdot and interested to kick some of those patents for subject matter exclusion, you can contact me at zoobab@gmail.com.
Also, Philips might be the only company who is lobbying the European Union (Council and Parliament) for using criminal sanctions and freeze of bank accounts in civil proceedings for patent infringements.
The report will be voted in Plenary.
The proponents of internet filtering still have the opportunity to collect 40 signatures of MEPs to table some amendments for plenary. Or get a political group to table them.
Don't worry, the war is only starting.
http://www.w3.org/2007/08/video/positions/Nokia.pdf
FFII vs Amazon: add a computer, and the EPO will give you software patents
http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-23571/ffii-vs-amazon:add-a-computer-and-the-epo-will-give-you-software-patents
FFII Vs Amazon: EPO practice is no legal foundation
http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-26032/ffii-vs-amazon:epo-practice-is-no-legal-foundation
Please correct your links about FFII Europe:
http://ffii.org/
http://eupat.ffii.org/07/12/amazon07/
AFFII is for United States
http://www.affii.org/ is for the United States.
Microsoft will trump EU competition ruling with patents Brussels, 17 September 2007 -- The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says that Microsoft was expecting the 17 September verdict of the EU's anti-trust case, and will exploit software patents to keep its monopoly grip on the global IT market. FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, "The decision seems positive but it is five years out of date. During that time, Microsoft has lobbied for software patents in Europe and bought patents on many trivial concepts. It has claimed patent violations against Linux, put patent timebombs into its formats and interfaces, and turned fear of patents into a core part of its business strategy. It will now open its formats, because that lets it extend its software patent franchise even further." Microsoft recently published its MCPP (Microsoft Communications Protocol Program) patent licence which requires competitors to pay royalties for each copy of software distributed. For example, a free software project making a print server would have to pay USD$8 to Microsoft for each copy downloaded. "The largest monopolist in history has faced down the largest economy in history," says Benjamin Henrion of the FFII's Brussels Office. "Microsoft will appeal, and the fines if ever paid are just a month or two of profits. Meanwhile Microsoft now has the time to crush its only real competition, the free and open source economy. We regret that the EU Commission and ECJ are blind to the real threat of software patents, while Microsoft cleverly exploits Europe's own patent system against EU businesses. This is a defeat for Europe's anti-trust, a defeat for the global economy, and I'm sure they're popping the champagne in Redmond." Background information In the proceedings of the EU antitrust trial, Microsoft states that its communication protocols are covered by at least 3 European patents or patent applications (namely patents 'EP 0661652', 'EP 0438571' and 'EP 0669020'). In addition, another 20 patent applications are pending in the United States, as are 2 in Europe (in its reply, Microsoft states that one of its two applications has since been granted, namely patent 'EP 1004193'). Moreover, Microsoft is planning to apply for 'some 130 European patents relating to Windows server operating systems'. Jeremy Allison, leader of SAMBA, the open source project file and print services for Linux/Unix servers and Windows-based clients, mentioned recently in LinuxWorld that the MCPP patent licences will make impossible for open source to use them: "We read the license, it's impossible to release open source implementations of the product. You have to keep it secret. This defeats the whole idea of open source."
The comitee of Legal Affairs, which is responsible for this directive in the European Parliament, has discussed the topic this morning:
http://wiki.ffii.org/?Juri050421En
Please help to make a transcript on IRC (irc.debian.org #ffii) and on the wiki page.
The comitee of Legal Affairs, which is responsible for this directive in the European Parliament, has discussed the topic this morning:
Please help to make a transcript on IRC (irc.debian.org #ffii) and on the wiki page.
A way to fight network effect is to have platform independent applications.
The web is a first step.
XUL and other technologies like thsi is one step is the right direction.
Open and RF standards are also a key in this process.
Would be nice if this article can move to the main slashdot page, and does not stays only in the YRO section.
I would like to say that there is not only Linksys, but all Broadcom based routers (Trendnet TEW-411BRP, Belkin F5D7230, Motorola, Asustek wl300g et wl500g, Buffalo Airstation, Dell Truemobile2300).
u te rs
See:
http://seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/BroadcomRo
There is also the other APs based on Intersil:
http://isl3893.sf.net