12.01.09
ACTA is on Europe’s Agenda (Next Monday) as Patent Devils Lurk
Summary: Attempts to exorcise software patents are met with resistance through secret trade agreements like ACTA
According to a new European document which was leaked, ACTA contains bad news for opposers of intellectual monopolies (patents).
The president of the FFII has taken a look at the document and he also found out that the “ACTA Internet chapter [is] on the agenda on next Monday 7 December…”
Several days ago we mentioned a court victory for Virgin, which was actually bad news to proponents of intellectual monopolies, but Rovi has just issued a statement saying it will appeal, so just as we warned some days ago, this preliminary verdict was bound not to be final.
Rovi on Monday issued a statement–attributed to its SVP of worldwide patent licensing, Samir Armaly–making clear that it plans to appeal the court’s decision: “While we are pleased that the court found all of the patents to be infringed by Virgin, we strongly disagree with the court’s ruling on the validity issues, and intend to appeal the decision,” the statement read. “We also intend to continue to pursue Virgin and other unlicensed companies for their infringement of our intellectual property, to join the numerous companies who have already taken licenses to our patents issued throughout the world.”
Europe in general is under attack by intellectual monopolies. As we mentioned the other day, the very same people who benefit from software patents are lobbying for them and advocating them (for their wallets). This obvious conflict of interests did not prevent Slashdot from putting it in the front page, which led to angry responses, including this one from a FFII person. █
“Software patents have been nothing but trouble for innovation. We the software engineers know this, yet we actually have full-blown posters in our break-room showcasing the individual engineers who came up with something we were able to push through the USPTO. Individually, we pretty much all consider the software-patent showcase poster to be a colossal joke.” —Kelledin, PLI: State Street Overruled… PERIOD
