Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Court of Justice and Baroness Wilcox Could Learn From Spain, Italy

Baroness Wilcox
Credit: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)



Summary: Where Spain and Italy are correct (EU Patent opposition) it remains for the United Kingdom and Brussels' politicians to catch up

THERE IS increased pressure to legalise software patents in Europe (through the back door) and standing in the way of such a travesty we have had Spain and Italy. Spain is absolutely right and it needs to withstand financial blackmail. Some European countries have their corrupt politicians try retaliation/retribution against Spain and Italy, for merely doing what is right for the whole of Europe, not just for those nations alone. Their foes would continue to use words like "unify" and "harmonise" to deceive the masses. This daemonises those who belong to the opposition. It sounds like they are against union rather than against insidious litigation from the outside.



Techrights is grateful to the FFII for keeping track of news like this bit and this other bit, which help confirm that Spain and Italy stick to their guns.

Italy and Spain on Monday said they would appeal to the European Court of Justice against the single European Union patent approved by the other 25 EU members.

Rome and Madrid say the patent introduces "unacceptable discrimination" because it is only written in French, English and German. The announcement came at an EU competitiveness council in Brussels, where Italy's representative, Vincenzo Grassi, called the patent "one of the most divisive pages in European Union history". Spain's secretary of state for EU affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido, said the patent was "a discriminatory measure that goes against the principles of the European Union".


This brings us to the UK, which personally affects me a lot more. Baroness Wilcox has agreed to participate in a pilot program with Peer To Patent, but she does not appear to have joined the opposition above -- an opposition to something which is unconstitutional and be even be described as a hack.

Our criticism of the 'peer to patent' approach (now in the UK [1, 2]) is not intended to stir up or cause infighting. In fact, we support Peer To Patent, but we advocate other solutions. In some sense, Peer To Patent can be a distraction and "Microsoft wants to invalidate software patents, but only when they are used against the company," writes a reader of ours in mail that we have just received. He refers to this type of reports where Microsoft is said to be joining a "patent review group to avoid costly litigation". The whole idea of crowd-sourcing patents only helps legitimise the system. On this specific issue even Microsoft Florian agrees.

The matter of fact is, Europe is already harmed by Microsoft and the Commission lets it be. Rather than address the patent extortion and stop letting Microsoft tax protocols, the Commission is now allowing Microsoft to get away with some of its abuses. Maybe all the lobbying has softened the regulators. In any case, for the uninitiated Groklaw has put together this summary on "European Commission vs. Microsoft". It opens as follows:

Last week the Competition Directorate of the European Commission and Microsoft again did battle in the European courts. This time it was a hearing in the European Court of Justice to argue the propriety of the fine levied on Microsoft by the Commission stemming from the 2004 determination that Microsoft was violating EU competition laws. Microsoft was appealing the $1.3 billion fine on the grounds that it was excessive and had not been arrived at through proper due process.


We wrote about this case in recent posts about the hearing. What is really necessary now is (1) penalty for Microsoft if not embargo; (2) removal of every Microsoft APIs tax (software patents); (3) elimination of software patents in the patent office, as a matter of strong principle; (4) scraping of the EU patent, which is just a pig with lipstick on. In the UK, how about scraping anything which resembles a monopoly on software? Baroness Wilcox says that she wants to promote innovation; eliminating software patents altogether would be an important first step. Let is be said again: for GNU/Linux to 'win' software patents must die.

Comments

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