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RAND:
WIPO will discuss a report on patents and open standards next week
,----[ Quote ]
| (iv) Open Standards
|
| 121. Among technology standards, there is particular interest for “open
| standards”. While there is no universally accepted definition of that term,
| all open standards have the following common characteristics: (i) the
| specification is publicly available without cost or for a reasonable fee to
| any interested party; (ii) any IP rights necessary to implement the standard
| are available to all implementers on RAND terms, either with or without
| payment of a reasonable royalty or fee; and...
`----
http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-68607/wipo-will-discuss-a-report-on-patents-and-open-standards-next-week
Software patents from the back door:
Commission publishes transatlanctic roadmap to advance global patent
harmonisation
,----[ Quote ]
| TEC is a funny process. The EU Commission basically bows unilaterally in to
| aggressive US demands in order to demonstrate its ability to act without
| getting anything substantial in return from the Americans. The agenda is
| largely set by the TABD, i.e. large industry stakeholders based in the US. At
| the press conference Verheugen admitted the lack of competence. Apparently
| Council members were not fully made aware of the deliberations. Also the
| consumer group token formally attached to the TEC process, the TACD, were
| Nelly Kroes open standardsnot in possession of the road map document. Its
| counter part TABD, the transatlantic business dialogue, comprising mostly
| American multinationals and no SMEs, seems to define the agenda for the
| transatlantic trade talks and openly tells so.
`----
http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-68322/commission-publishes-transatlanctic-roadmap-to-advance-global-patent-harmonisation
America's monopolies seem to be corrupting every diplomat they come in touch
with.
Recent:
Term Extension “will damage Commission’s reputation”, top legal advisers tell
Barroso
,----[ Quote ]
| Today, the leading European centres for intellectual property research have
| released a joint letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso,
| enclosing an impact assessment detailing the far reaching and negative
| effects of the proposal to extend the term of copyright in sound recordings.
| [...] “This Copyright Extension Directive, proposed by Commissioner Mccreevy,
| is likely to damage seriously the reputation of the Commission..."
`----
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/06/18/term-extension-will-damage-commissions-reputation-top-legal-advisers-tell-barroso/
[ffii] McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty
,----[ Quote ]
| Brussels, 13 May 2008 -- European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a
| bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in
| Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a
| tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of
| the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on
| software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.
|
| "TEC talks are the current push for software patents. The US want to
| eliminate the higher standards of the European Patent Convention. The
| bilateral agenda is dictated by multinationals gathered in the
| Transatlantic Economic Business Dialogue (TABD). When you have a look
| who is in the Executive Board of the TABD, you find not a single
| European SME in there", says Benjamin Henrion, a Brussels based patent
| policy specialist.
|
| The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) which comprises EU and US high
| level representatives put a substantive harmonisation of patent law on
| its agenda. Substantive patent law covers what is patentable or not. The
| attempt to impose the low US standards on Europe via the Substantive
| Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) process utterly failed at the World
| Intellectual Property Organisation. Also progress in the WIPO B+
| subgroup (without development nations) could not be reached.
`----
http://lwn.net/Articles/282000/
Related:
EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax
,----[ Quote ]
| EU Commissioner Kroes' deal with Microsoft creates real dangers to Europe's
| growing open source economy, warns the FFII. Using patent licenses that
| exclude businesses, the software monopolist has turned the EU competition
| ruling into a victory, and now gets implicit support from the Commission to
| proceed aggressively against its competitors.
`----
http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/EU_tells_open_source_to_start_paying_MS_patent_tax
Let's Make a Deal - The MS-EU Settlement
,----[ Quote ]
| The patent part is terrible. Worse than terrible. They are not blocked from
| offering patent deals, only constrained as to how much to charge for a
| license, which is not and never was the issue. So they'll beef up those
| initiatives, I'm sure. However, the good part is that they were compelled to
| separate the patent license offer out and make it optional. Thanks, but no
| thanks.
|
| [...]
|
| I'm guessing Microsoft lawyers are high fiving each other, having snatched an
| important victory from utter and total defeat. The rest is excellent, of
| course, and in no way do I mean to detract from the hard work and persistence
| that the EU Commission has shown. However, I don't think they understand how
| seriously broken the US patent system is currently, and how easy it is to
| abuse it, or they don't feel it's their job to fix the US problems, or how
| central patents are to Microsoft's current strategy against FOSS.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071022114731199
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