Please help to stop software patents in Europe by signing the petition against software patents. Background information (and the petition) can be found on the website against European software patents.

The patent system is misused to restrain competition for the economical benefit of a few but fails to promote innovation. A software market environment is better off with no patents on software at all. Healthy competition forces market players to innovate.

The patent system should not be misused -which is happening- to control competition for the economical benefit of a few, but should promote innovation. In the case of software, more innovation and a healthy independent SME economy means no patents on software at all. European court decisions still accept in many cases the validity of the software patents granted by national patent offices and the European Patent Office (EPO) that is beyond democratic control. They not only continue to grant them, but also to lobby in favor of them. Despite the current deep crisis of the patent system, they are unable to reform and put at risk too many European businesses with their soft granting policy.

If you care about freedom & innovation please consider signing the petition:

Now here is a nice screendump of a fictional webshop with all elements that are covered by software patents once these are recognized by the European Court. No less than twenty (20) patents threaten any website that uses some of these trivial ‘patented’ techniques.

1. Webshop: Selling things over a network using a server, client and payment processor, or using a client and a server – EP803105, EP738446 and EP1016014
2. Order by cell phone: Selling over a mobile phone network – EP1090494
3. Shopping cart: Electronic shopping cart – EP807891
4. [CDs] [Films] [Books]: Tabbed palettes and restrict search – EP689133 and EP1131752
5. Picture link: Preview window – EP537100
6. Get key via sms: Sending key to decrypt bought data via mobile phone network – EP1374189
7. View film: Video streaming (“segmented video on-demand”) – EP633694
8. Copy protection: Encrypt file so it can only be played on authorised devices – EP1072143
9. Credit card: Pay with credit card on the Internet – EP779587
10. Adapt pages: Generate different web page depending on detected device – EP1320972
11. Request loan: Automated loan application – EP715740
12. Secure card payment: Secure online credit/debit card payment with PIN code – EP1218865
13. Send oers: Send oers in response to request – EP986016
14. Delivery: Ship items to the correct pick-up point of the used delivery service – EP1181655
15. Support system: Support system based on answers to questions – EP915422
16. Preview chapters: Use of TV as metaphor for selecting different video fragments – EP670652
17. Image: Reduce page loading time by automatically reducing image quality – EP992922
18. Related results: Show related results if customer likes the current ones – EP628919
19. Rebate code: Allow rebate codes to be entered by customers – EP929874
20. Web-to-Print: Generation of prepress formats or printouts from low resolution templates via the Internet – EP852359 and EP1169848

Source: http://webshop.ffii.org/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 20:42 and is filed under democratie, freedom, legal, political, software, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.