06.19.11

Gemini version available ♊︎

FFII Warns About Latest Patent Threats in Europe

Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Sarko
Photo by the European People’s Party

Summary: Europe is subjected to abuse and is becoming more abusive with patents. Benjamin Henrion from the FFII highlights some of the latest developments.

EUROPE is under attack. This attack comes both from the inside and the outside. It’s a class war, not a geographic/demographic war. The battle for Europe is fought using lobbyists and corruptible politicians who act as proxies for the major benefactors, mostly the world’s top businesspeople (not technical people). According to this from Benjamin Henrion, France got greedy and it may let patent holders (or hoarders) more easily extort all the rest. “Think of it as Intellectual Ventures, but run by the French government,” writes Benjamin about it in relation to this. A lot of this was seeded by Benjamin’s research the other day. Good job there from the FFII. To quote one of the reports it helped generate:

It may seem like we’ve been particularly tough on the French government lately, but it keeps doing ridiculous things. The latest, as written up by Guillaume Champeau, is that it has built its own giant patent trolling operation, funded with €100 million (Google translation from the original French).

“Europe wants to follow France in creating a european patent troll,” notes Benjamin in relation to another article in French (being Belgian he can research further than most can).

In relation to what goes on in the UK-IPO (Peer to Patent Pilot), Benjamin boldly states:

Groklaw/Webbink wants us to read patent claims on Peer2Patent? No thank you, software is not patentable in the UK

And also:

You have to be mentally sick to participate in the Peer 2 Patent exercise

“UK Parliament wants to know if they can withdraw from the Council conclusions on unitary patent,” he adds, noting that there is “UK Parliament request for scrutiny about unitary patent” (pointing to this page and this one too). EPO propaganda for its own benefit (profit) is also shown amid a push for some euphemistic thing called “Innovation Union”. “We need to do much better at turning our research into new and better services and products if we are to remain competitive on the global marketplace and improve the quality of life in Europe,” the page says. At least it does not say patents or imply a causal correlation between patents and innovation. But wait, then Microsoft steps in.

Jan Muehlfeit (a former communist [1, 2]) from Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]) is leaning on European politicians and lying about what Microsoft does in order to promote the agenda of his patent aggressor (he pushes and works for it as part of this “union”) while the Commission is collecting feedback as part of the whole “Digital Agenda” push. We need to watch out for patent maximalists in Europe, such as this Windows-based site which quotes Alexandr Vondra (Deputy Prime Minister for EU Affairs, 2007-2010) as saying that: “Too much IPR does not kill innovation; rather the opposite” (where it the evidence?). Separately, Benjamin berates Neelie Kroes, probably for this type of legacy. Those who believe that the Commission is still on Free software’s side have not been paying attention in recent years.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day



  2. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day



  3. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023



  4. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day



  5. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day



  6. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day



  7. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day



  8. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day



  9. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day



  10. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023



  11. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that



  12. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day



  13. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)



  14. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day



  15. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day



  16. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)



  17. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug



  18. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years



  19. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023



  20. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day



  21. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day



  22. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day



  23. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day



  24. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day



  25. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023



  26. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)



  27. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day



  28. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day



  29. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day



  30. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts