Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Court of Justice Advocates General Says Pan-EU Patent Court Would Violate the Principles of EU Founding Treaties

European flags



Summary: An expansion on the words of those who deny access of software patents into Europe; an update on barriers to Microsoft's RAND pushers (also software patents in the EU)

The subject of software patents in Europe is still a hot one because a centralised patent court may in fact enable significant changes to existing laws. Last month we wrote about the Advocates General rejecting an infamous patent court and this fine British site which offers legal analyses has more to say about that:



The European Court of Justice should reject the opinion of its advisors and put pragmatic economics ahead of legal technicalities and approve a pan-EU patent court, the UK patent attorneys' trade body has said.

Advocates General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said in an opinion that the current proposal for a pan-European patent court violate the principles of some of the EU's founding treaties.

But the Chartered Institute for Patent Attorneys (CIPA) has said that when making its final ruling the ECJ should make its decision in the light of the benefits such a court would bring to business.


This helps ensure that under the current scheme there will be too many barriers and laws may remain unchanged, at least for now. In particular, note-worthy is the interpretation that the current proposal would "violate the principles of some of the EU's founding treaties."

“Using lobbyists like Mr. Zuck, Microsoft has been pushing for the central court for several years.”That is exactly what some people/groups have been saying, at times also the FFII. For the Advocates General to suggest this is considerably important as it can be used as ammunition to shoot down future attempts of this kind.

Using lobbyists like Mr. Zuck, Microsoft has been pushing for the central court for several years. So far it has not been successful. Microsoft's Zuck is also one of the RAND proponents which we mentioned last week (these include Microsoft Florian). Glyn Moody, a Brit, helps explain why RAND is both unreasonable and discriminatory. It works against software freedom.

There are two main options: Royalty Free (RF) and Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND). The former does what it says on the tin: it means that there is nothing to pay, and people are granted a licence so that they can simply use the technology that somebody claims they patented without further ado. FRAND is more subtle.

At first blush, Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory sounds great. After all, how could anyone argue with something that promises to be fair and reasonable? The trouble with a FRAND licence is that it can indeed by eminently reasonable and eminently non-discriminatory, but if it is non-zero - even if it is extremely small - it is useless for free software licences.

The problem is that even a tiny licence fee, if levied on a per-copy basis, is impossible for free software because of the way it is distributed. There is simply no way to know how many copies may be shared, and hence no way to collect all those eminently reasonable and non-discriminatory licence fees.

This means that any standard that adopts FRAND licensing automatically excludes free software; the corollary is that for a standard to be truly open - that is, open for all to use, not just those able to count and pay for copies - it must adopt royalty-free licensing (as the World Wide Web Consortium does).


There is nothing too new in the analysis above, but it's an up-to-date overview for those who are not familiar with RAND and do not understand that the acronym is deceiving (like PATRIOT) in the sense that it means the very opposite of what it stands for.

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries