AFTER his previous talk at CCC (we gave a headsup at the time), Benjamin Henrion now prepares to deliver a talk not too far from European Parliament. Previously he spoke about it near the EPO in Berlin/Munich. What will he speak about? The UPC, or "Software Patents v3.0" as he calls it. From the abstract:
The Unitary Patent is the third major attempt to legalize software patents in Europe. The European Patent Court will become the Eastern District of Texas when it comes to software patent disputes in Europe. As happened in America, the concentration of power will force up legal costs, punish small European innovators, and benefit large patent holders.
The second attempt to codify EPO software patents failed in 2005, after many years of debate, the directive was rejected under the request of large multinational corporations, that prefered the creation of a central patent court over the debate on software patents.
The Unitary Patent Court is a deeply flawed project, as it is based on dubious economic studies, a rogue patent office (the EPO), a court stuffed with biased patent specialists, and is out of parliamentary control. It will participate to global patent warming, rubberstamp software patents, multiply the number of patent trolls, and increase the entry cost for defendants, which is already out of reach for many of us.