Europe's World: Regulating Brussels’ legion of lobbyists
,----[ Quote ]
| The Commission believes that this sort of financial disclosure will indicate
| the level of influence that a lobby group can be expected to have.
`----
http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-37904/stubb-mep:europe-s-world:regulating-brussels-legion-of-lobbyists
Laws for sales. Don't they see a problem with this? How about OOXML votes for
sale? The system is *totally* corrupted. And here's what you get with
new 'laws':
Gemstar EPG patent strategy, sue first then talk
,----[ Quote ]
| Last week Gemstar sued Virgin Media for patent infringement before a UK
| court. Gemstar holds IP rights to a number of “interactive television”, or,
| more precisely, EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) patents, in the US also
| known as “interactive programme guides” or IPGs.
`----
http://ipgeek.blogspot.com/2008/01/gemstar-epg-patent-strategy-sue-first.html
Related:
MEPs debate tightening up lobbying rules
,----[ Quote ]
| MEPs on Thursday launched the thorny debate on tightening rules covering the
| thousands of EU lobbyists in Brussels, with an initial discussion showing
| deputies in favour of defining the term "lobbyist" as broadly as possible but
| shying away from the 600-page rulebook that defines and confines lobbyists in
| the US.
|
| [...]
|
| For his part, Mr Stubb says he is not out to demonise lobbyists, whose
| activities have come to light recently during the ferocious lobbying on
| legislation that took place during the development of the chemicals, services
| and software patent laws.
`----
http://euobserver.com/9/25526
Tech Group Expands State Lobby Efforts
,----[ Quote ]
| High-Technology Trade Association Boosts State Lobbying Program With Funding,
| Personnel
|
| [...]
|
| The group represents about 2,500 companies, including Microsoft Corp., Google
| Inc. and Dell Inc., in the software, telecommunications, computers,
| semiconductor and other sectors. It announced the plans Thursday.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080125/technology_lobbying.html?.v=2
Big businesses boast of patent benefits, for small businesses
,----[ Quote ]
| A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims
| that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking
| almost any participation by the small business community.
|
| Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for
| competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by
| large corporations and the patent industry.
|
| [...]
|
| The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and
| Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report.
| But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the
| report in any way
|
| [...]
|
| Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community,
| said that he found the report useless: participants were told that
| all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only
| those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
`----
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/99155/big-businesses-boast-of-patent-benefits-for-small-businesses.html
A Patent Lie
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his
| senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, "If people had understood how
| patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented,
| and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete
| standstill today." Mr. Gates worried that "some large company will
| patent some obvious thing" and use the patent to "take as much of
| our profits as they want."
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html
Years of deadlock on EU patent bring some new thinking
,----[ Quote ]
| When Bill Gates visits Brussels on Thursday to speak with
| government officials, software developers and customers, he
| plans to wade into one of Europe's longest-running, most
| fruitless debates: the pursuit of a unified patent system.
| Gates, chairman of Microsoft, wants a simple system that will
| allow the world's largest software maker and other companies
| to protect their intellectual property in the European Union -
| and profit from licensing their patents.
`----
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/08/business/patents.php
,----[ Quote ]
| "A source that deals with the company said unofficially that Gates
| proposed Microsoft's Digital Rights Management technology as a national
| standard to fight piracy at the governmental level."
`----
http://www.kommersant.com/p719683/r_528/
|
|
