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EUROLINUX Alliance

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 copyright, open standards, open competition and open source software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.
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Annotated Links

->FFII: Software Patents in Europe
For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents on rules of organisation and calculation claimed in terms of general-purpose computing equipment, called "programs for computers" in the law of 1973 and "computer-implemented inventions" in EPO Newspeak since 2000. Europe's patent movement is pressing to legitimate this practise by writing a new law. Although the patent movement has lost major battles in November 2000 and September 2003, Europe's programmers and citizens are still facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic documentation, starting from the latest news and a short overview.
->How you can help us end the software patent nightmare
The patent movement has during several decades won the support of large corporations and governments for its expansionist cause. Rolling trains are hard to halt. Yet FFII, Eurolinux and others have devoted themselves to this work with considerable success. Still, we continue to have more tasks than free hands. Here we tell you how you can help us move forward more quickly.
->FFII UK: Lobbying the Council of Europe
How decisionmaking in the Council works and what this means for the amended software patent directive
->Página de campañas de ProInnova
Spanish Campaign against Software Patents and how to support it
->Bernard Lang: Annotated Links on the Software Patentability Debate
contains a long list of commented references to studies on swpat economics
->Die Gedanken sind ...
Leicht verständliche und unterhaltsame Einführung in die Problematik der Softwarepatente von Peter Gerwinski
->European Consultation on the Patentability of Computer-Implementable Rules of Organisation and Calculation (= Programs for Computers)
On 2000-10-19 the European Commission's Industrial Property Unit published a position paper which tries to describe a legal reasoning similar to that which the European Patent Office has during recent years been using to justify its practise of granting software patents against the letter and spirit of the written law, and called on companies and industry associations to comment on this reasoning. The consultation was evidently conceived as a mobilisation exercise for patent departments of major corporations and associations. The consultation paper itself stated the viewpoint of the European Patent Office and asked questions that could only be reasonably answered by patent lawyers. Moreover, it was accompanied by an "independent study", carried out under the order of the EC IndProp Unit by a well known patent movement think-tank, which basically stated the same viewpoint. Patent law experts of various associations and corporations responded, mostly by applauding the paper and explaining that patents are needed to stimulate innovation and to protect the interests of small and medium-size companies. However there were also quite a few associations, companies and more than 1000 individuals, mostly programmers, who expressed their opposition to the extension of patentability to the realm of software, business methods, intellectual methods and other immaterial products and processes. The EC IndProp Unit later failed to adequately publish the consultation results and moderate a discussion. Therefore we are doing this, and you can help us.
->European Software Patent Horror Gallery
A database of the monopolies on programming problems, which the European Patent Office has granted against the letter and spirit of the existing laws, and about which it is unsufficiently informing the public, delivering only chunks of graphical data hidden behind input masks. The FFII software patent workgroup is trying to single out the software patents, make them better accessible and show their effects on software development.
->Software Patents of the European Patent Office
During the last few years, the European Patent Office (EPO) has granted several 10000 patents on computer-implemented rules of organisation and calculation, i.e. programs for computers [ as such ]. We are systematically collecting these patents and republishing them in a more accessible form.
->Vrijschrift Swpat Art
Collection of images
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