Le parlement européen adopte un brevet unitaire profondément défectueux et abandonne son pouvoir sur la politique d'innovation

Aujourd'hui, le parlement européen a adopté une proposition pour créer un brevet à effet unitaire pour l'Europe. Cette décision va laisser à l'Europe un système de brevets à la fois défectueux et sujet au dépassement de ses prérogatives. Il marque également la fin du contrôle démocratique de l'Europe sur la politique de l'innovation. « Nous sommes déçus que tant de députés européens furent prêts à abandonner les chercheurs et inventeurs européens dans le seul but de conclure une affaire, toute affaire » a dit Karsten Gerloff, Président de la Free Software Foundation Europe. « Il est naturel qu'après presque quatre dizaines d'années de discussions sur un seul système de brevets pour l'Europe, la plupart des personnes impliquées voulait simplement que cela se termine. Nous attendions cependant plus de nos représentants élus. ».

D'intenses critiques de tous bords

En adoptant la proposition, les députés européens ont choisi de négliger les intenses critiques venant de tous les côtés du débats. Des juristes des brevets, des experts en droit indépendants, des PME ainsi que des groupes émanant de la société civile comme la FSFE ont tous fait entendre leurs inquiétudes aux députés européens avant le vote. La FSFE reconnaît l'important travail effectué par certains députés, en particulier ceux du groupe Verts/ALE, informant leurs collègues sur les sérieux défauts de la proposition.

Avec cette décision, le parlement européen a assurément abandonné son pouvoir de façonnement de la politique d'innovation en Europe. Ce pouvoir va maintenant revenir à l'Office Européen des Brevets, qui a des antécédents lorsqu'il s'agit d'accorder des pouvoirs monopolistiques sur la plus large gamme de sujets. « Nous nous alarmons de voir à la fois le pouvoir législatif et exécutif dans les mains d'une seule agence » s'inquiète Karsten Gerloff. « La séparation des pouvoirs est un principe fondamental de la démocratie. Nous regrettons que dans le vote d'aujourd'hui, beaucoup de députés européens étaient préparés à l'abandonner en pour un compromis mal conçu ».

Brevets logiciels, fragmentation et confusion

Le texte adopté aujourd'hui va conduire à la fragmentation de la juridiction et de la jurisprudence à travers l'Union Européenne. En créant divergence et confusion, le texte va rendre le système de brevets plus dur à utiliser pour les petites et moyennes entreprises. L'Office Européen des Brevets va avoir beaucoup plus de marge de manœuvre pour continuer ses pratiques d'attribution de brevets sur des logiciels. Cela va blesser la compétition et l'innovation ainsi que créer des risques inutiles pour les entreprises et les développeurs de logiciels. Il est également probable que le texte adopté mène à des contentieux de brevets plus intenses en Europe, incluant les trolls de brevets.

La FSFE est également inquiète à propos du manque d'une exception pour la recherche et d'une disposition pour les licences obligatoires. Selon l'Institut Max Planck pour la « Propriété Intellectuelle », la cour européenne des brevets proposée est incompatible avec le droit de l'Union Européenne. Ces défauts fondamentaux impliquent qu'une incertitude considérable demeure concernant le fonctionnement du système de brevets dans le futur.

Prochaines étapes

Selon le site web du parlement européen, « l'accord international mettant sur pied la juridiction unifiée en matière de brevet entrera en vigueur le 1er janvier 2014 ou après sa ratification dans treize États contractants, à condition que le Royaume-Uni, la France et l'Allemagne en fassent partie. Les deux autres volets seront d'application à compter du 1er janvier 2014 ou à la date de l'entrée en vigueur de l'accord international, si celle-ci intervient après cette date. L'Espagne et l'Italie sont jusqu'à présent en dehors du nouveau régime, mais elles pourront participer, à tout moment, au processus de décision. ».

Plus d'information : Aperçu des problèmes du brevet unitaire Ressources sur le brevet unitaire

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First, do no harm: European Parliament must delay vote on unitary patent

The European Parliament is about to vote on a "unitary patent" for Europe in its plenary session on December 11. The proposal currently on the table is widely known to have serious legal and practical problems. In the light of these problems, Free Software Foundation Europe urges the Parliament's members to delay the vote until a better solution can be worked out.

Under the current proposal, the Parliament would agree to give up its power to shape Europe's innovation policy. This is a dangerous proposition. Knowledge and innovation are crucial to our future, and we cannot simply delegate their management to a technocratic body such as the European Patent Organisation. Europe's political institutions have to have the final say over innovation policy. This is a responsibility which MEPs cannot shirk.

"MEPs must not saddle Europe's innovators with a rotten compromise. Innovation is a key part of our common future, and it is too important to be gambled away in a hasty decision," says Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President.

The political process that has led up to the current proposal has suffered from a marked lack of transparency. The European Parliament still has not published the text of the inter-instutional agreement which it reached with the Council on November 19.

"We are deeply alarmed that such a crucial text may be ramrodded through Parliament before MEPs and the interested public have had a chance to properly consider the text," says Gerloff.

The most important practical problems with the current package:

Instead of providing uniformity and transparency for market participants, the current proposal will create divergence and confusion. It will be hard for anyone to obtain clarity on how a patent may be used, or where its powers end. Lack of limitations and exceptions puts Europeans'freedom to innovate at risk. There is no provision for compulsory licenses, posing a grave danger to public welfare. The lack of a research exception puts a millstone of risk around the neck of Europe's scientists. - Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of Europe's economy. If this wrong-headed compromise is accepted, they will bear the brunt of the resulting problems. This is not something that Europe can afford, much less in the midst of an economic crisis.

The most important legal problems with the current package:

The compromise would lead to a fragmentation of the internal market, as patents would not be uniformly enforceable across all EU member states. Additionally, there would be four overlapping levels of patents existing side by side. This will inevitably create substantial confusion and business risks for innovators and companies. A proliferation of courts that may handle patent litigation will inevitably lead to a fragmentation of jurisprudence. This will even further confuse anyone who comes into contact with the patent system, increase the costs of litigation, and make patent risks even harder to calculate for businesses. The envisioned Unified Patent Court is incompatible with European law. Europe's policy makers have failed to address the problems highlighted by the European Court of Justice in its Opinion 1/09 (March 2011). Even the Parliament's own Legal Services department has doubts about the package's legality.

A package which leaves such significant problems unaddressed is not fit to be adopted by responsible lawmakers. Policy makers are keen to put this hotly contested issue behind them. But this desire must not lead them to rush into an ill-considered compromise with numerous known problems, in the face of widespread opposition from the patent system's stakeholders.

FSFE joins large parts of the innovation community, and in particular the Max-Planck-Institute in urging the Parliament to reconsider the unitary patent package. Until a better solution can be achieved, MEPs should heed the age-old principle: First, do no harm.

More information: Max Planck Institute for "Intellectual Property" and Competition Law: The Unitary Patent Package: Twelve Reasons for Concern Overview of issues with the unitary patent package Resources on the unitary patent package

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FSFE Newsletter - December 2012UK: Small and major steps towards more Free Software

On 7th November, several political candidates standing in the Manchester Central By-election participated in the "Manchester Digital Debate", organised by our UK coordinator Sam Tuke and the Open Rights Group (ORG). The event is part of FSFE's "Ask Your Candidates" campaign, which aims to provide an opportunity to engage (local) politicians with digital concerns that they typically do not address.

Besides these important steps at the local level, last month the UK government has released a new Open Standards policy. In future all UK Government bodies must comply with the Open Standards Principles or apply for an exemption.FSFE welcomed this step, and particularly its strong Open Standards definition. It also includes another long-standing FSFE demand: to take into account the software exit costs. From now on, when UK government bodies buy a software solution, they have to consider in the price a calculation of what it will cost them to get out of this solution, in the future. This means that government bodies could not simply avoid buying Free Software solutions because they are locked into one particular vendor's proprietary file formats. FSFE president Karsten Gerloff analysed the new policy in detail.

Secure Boot: FSFE welcomes German Government's White Paper on "Secure Boot"

We want to make sure that you are in control of your computing. This control is, currently, restricted by "Secure Boot". On 19th November, as the first government, the German Ministry of the Interior published a white paper about "Trusted Computing" and "Secure Boot". The white paper states that "device owners must be in complete control of (able to manage and monitor) all the trusted computing security systems of their devices." This has been one of FSFE's key demands from the beginning of the debate. The document continues that "delegating this control to third parties requires conscious and informed consent by the device owner".

Another FSFE demand is also addressed by the government's white paper: Before purchasing a device, buyers must be informed concisely about the technical measures implemented in this device, as well as the specific usage restrictions and its consequences for the owner: "Trusted computing security systems must be deactivated (opt-in principle)" when devices are delivered. "Based on the necessary transparency with regard to technical features and content of trusted computing solutions, device owners must be able to make responsible decisions when it comes to product selection, start-up, configuration, operation and shut-down." And "Deactivation must also be possible later (opt- out function) and must not have any negative impact on the functioning of hard- and software that does not use trusted computing functions."

Though all of what the German Government stated, should be self-evident, unfortunately it is not. FSFE will continue talking to other governments about this issue, to improve their understanding of the political and economic consequences of this technology.

German Cities: Two good news and a bad one

First the bad news: The city of Freiburg has decided to switch back, from OpenOffice.org, to Microsoft Office. The study they based their decision on was published one week before the decision, which we and other Free Software organisations had criticised before. Unfortunate news, but as IBM's Rob Weir wrote in his article in the Free Software community we tend to look at the bad news, and forget about the good news.

So, some good news: on the one hand, the City of Leipzig has just migrated 4200 working stations to OpenOffice (DE), and on the other hand, Munich announced they are saving over 10 Million Euro with Free Software. If you want to be updated with good news from the public administrations in Europe, the European Commission's Join-up Portal is a good place to check out.

Something completely different LWN has a good summary of Karsten's talk "All watched over by machines of loving grace", which is about society, power, and control. Besides, Karsten recommended the German authorities to publish the code of mobile phone apps. Our Finnish team coordinator Otto Kekäläinen and the Danish hacker Ole Tange received the 2012 Nordic Free Software Award. With this recognition, the Swedish Association for Free Software and Free Culture (FFKP, Föreningen Fri Kultur och Programvara) honours people and projects who have made important contributions to software freedom. Congratulations Otto! "Fuck you, this is my culture!". This statement ended Amelia Andersdotter's (Swedish Pirate Party) speech at the Internet Governance Forum wearing a European Parliament Free Software User Group (EPFSUG) t-shirt. Matija Šuklje, Jürgen Kneissl, Peter Bubestinger and Martin Gollowitzer (all FSFE) were interviewed by Radio Orange about Free Software, software patents and other connected topics. In 2010 Radio Orange was awarded with the German Document Freedom Award, because they provide OGG Vorbis for all their radio shows. Also on software patents, Richard Stallman wrote an interesting article on the WIRED, suggesting to change the effect of patents: "We should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement." Former KDE president Aaron Seigo pleads to end the cults of personality in Free Software. Mark Lindhout published the default Fellowship blog theme Pome on his Github account, and invites everyone to contribute! Do you remember the time of the browser bundling? Or the Samba antitrust case? You might also enjoy XKCD's comic strip named "Microsoft". From the planet aggregation: Looking for a self-made Christmas present for your grandmother? What about a one button audiobook player? Michael Clemens described how he build such a device with a Raspberry Pi for his 90 year old Grandma. FSF begins to accept scanned copyright assignments from Germany. [Update: Removed one link] Erik Albers wrote about his experience with Ubuntu running on a Nexus 7 while he and Torsten Grote gave a Free Your Android workshop at SFSCON in Bolzano. Albert Dengg gave talks in Austria, and in our upcoming events you will find upcoming Free Your Android related events. Otto wrote about the WOW effect, and a wishlist for future mobile devices while Henri Bergius wrote an extensive blog post about Jolla's Sailfish OS". How to open computed tomography (CT) scan pictures (DICOM)? Our president, Karsten Gerloff, broke his foot just for you to find out. What can you learn out of the Skolelinux pilot in Rhineland Palatinate? Guido Arnold wrote a summary about Kurt Gramlich's in English, so more people can learn what happened after the first euphoria and the reasons why the pilot may be considered a failure. There were several reports from events: Erik Albers organised the Free Your Android workshop during FSCONS, where Fellow Bjarni Einarsson rescued an (almost) bricked phone. Ana wrote about her high expectations to FSCONS and how a perfect weekend looks like. Isabel Drost wrote 11 reports about the ApacheCon Europe, Mirko Böhm reported (in German) about the summit of Newthinking (day 1, and day 2), and about our workshop at an event from the Green party about Internet Policy. And finally, read Leena Simon's blog post to find out why South Park failed on copyright. Get active: New year, new donations

It is the end of the year, and like FSFE's financial officer Reinhard Müller your editor would like to start 2013 with a good money buffer. So this month, please help us to fill our war chest:

If you are not yet a Fellow, please join now and support us with your donation. Check out our support programs to find out if the webshops you already use for your Christmas shopping are listed there, and install our plugins. (If you need some suggestions for books, take a look at your editor's recommended books about Free Software. And please convince your employer to support us, and join our list of donors. (If you do not want to talk to your employer on your own, please contact us, and suggest whom we should talk to.)

Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work, Matthias Kirschner - FSFE

-- Free Software Foundation Europe FSFE News Upcoming FSFE Events Fellowship Blog Aggregation Free Software Discussions

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7 days left for the PDF readers fundraising campaign, last chance to donate!

7 days until the fundraising is over! Once again, thanks to everyone who has donated and is helping us to reach our goal. Yet, we need a last "push": we have reached 82% so we need 188€ more. If you still have not donated, please do it!. With only a small contribution (the average donation amount is 23€) you will help us to achieve our goal.

Do you want to get more involved while we are enhancing the PDF Readers campaign website?

Spread the word: you do not need more than 5 minutes to explain your family, your friends and all your contacts about this campaign and the Petition For The Removal Of Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Websites. Help to report bugs: you do not need a lot of time to help us to track and report bugs. And you do not need to be tracking bugs for days. Any new contribution is important, so if you are surfing in any public website and you find a bug, please report it! Do you know any free PDF reader which is not in our list? Tell us!

And if you can code and want to help us to enhance our website or you just have a great idea about how to improve this campaign, please contact us!

Last but not least, remember that we advise you to block JavaScript before you enter the donation website.

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PDFreaders recommended by government - and what else we achived

Two weeks have been gone since we launched the PDF Readers fundraising. First, we want to thank everyone who made a donation. Currently, we received 856 EUR (more than 75% of the goal). Thanks to your donation, and you informing your friends about this work, we will reach the 1100 EUR until the 4th of December.

What happened beside the fact that 554 administrations fixed the advertisement? Some politicians are already working to fix the advertisment for non-free software European wide and on the Member State level.

For example, at the European level, Members of the European Parliament submitted parliamentary questions to the Commission to find out where the Commission does this advertisement; why they do so; if they tested their websites with Free Software PDF readers; and how they plan to solve the problem for the Commission's own website and the websites of other public institutions in the Member States.

On the national level, the German Green Party made a statement and submitted 18 questions to the German Federal Government about advertisement of proprietary PDFreader software on German Federal Government's websites (in German)

In addition, the German Government is now recommends to use our text snippet "to open this PDF file, you need a PDF reader. You can download one of the following programs..." in their new migration guide (in German) and highlights that there should be no advertisement for non-free software readers by public authorities.

Besides that, since the fundraising started, the number of people supporting our 'Petition For The Removal Of Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Institution Websites' has now reached 2481 signatures.

Once again, thanks for supporting this campaign and for your funding.

Finally, we would like to suggest everyone to turn off Javascript before you go to the donation page. This way, you will avoid to run nonfree Javascript code. We apologise for this inconvenience, which is an issue related with this platform. Moreover, we have asked the platform managers to address this problem, and they agreed to work on this.

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