Bonum Certa Men Certa

So-Called 'Trade' Treaties Like TPP and TTIP Threaten to Legalise Software Patents in Europe and Even Effectively Ban Software Freedom/Copyleft

Trading the world for money and power

World trade



Summary: Revelations about the world's largest secret collusions teach us about what rich and powerful people have in store for software patents, Free/libre software, and digital sharing economies

TECHRIGHTS does not and has not written much about so-called 'trade' agreements such as TPP and TTIP (there are several more, usually affecting other countries/continents). It's not because the subject is not important but because we must focus on a narrower spectrum of topics, including the European UPC. News about 'trade' agreements usually just ends up in our daily links, under "Leftovers", so it's not being ignored.

We're living in an age when if those in power commit crimes against millions of people (not just wars of conquest abroad but also domestic wars on the local population with its diminishing rights), they just simply rewrite the law to legalise these crimes after the act (e.g. CISA and Investigatory Powers Bill) and if there is something that bothers them (e.g. law-abiding citizens who are activists) or threatens their monopolies (anonymity-wielding protesters, software freedom etc.), they will simply try to demonise or altogether ban those things. It means we must always stay very vigilant and fight back, at the very least by informing peers.

It is becoming increasingly hard to overlook or ignore the impact of these aforementioned 'trade' agreements because the EPO's President meddles in them, as we showed less than a couple of days ago.

Benjamin Henrion, a longtime activist against software patents (especially in Europe), has noticed some rather disturbing things in the relevant TPP chapters, which Jamie Love has looked at and explained.

"This looks like it was composed by lobbyists of Free software foes, e.g. Microsoft.""TPP chapter on software presumes software is patentable in the first place," Henrion noted, pointing to this curious article titled "TPP has provision banning requirements to transfer or or access to source code of software". In section 4 it says: "his Article shall not be construed to affect requirements that relate to patent applications or granted patents, including any orders made by a judicial authority in relation to patent disputes, subject to safeguards against unauthorised disclosure under the law or practice of a Party."

This looks like it was composed by lobbyists of Free software foes, e.g. Microsoft.

"The TPP chaoter on software is basically trumping licences like the GPL with contract law," Henrion later added. "Am I right?"

"Software patents boundaries will be challenged through ISDS courts and TPP," Henrion added and Glyn Moody, who has become quite an expert in this area having covered it for years, responded with "same will be true under #TTIP: will be effectively impossible to remove *any* area from patentability - eg #swpats [software patents]."

The article in question is this one, which says: "Instead of combatting the ability to bring cases such as Eli Lilly’s, the TPP’s investment chapter invites them. Any time a national court – including in the U.S. – invalidates a wrongfully granted patent or other intellectual property right, the affected company could appeal that revocation to foreign arbitrators. The new language would also make clear that private companies are empowered by the treaty to challenge limitations and exceptions like the U.S. fair use doctrine, or individual applications of it. Adoption of this set of rules in the largest regional trade agreement of its kind would upset the international intellectual property legal system and should be subject to the most rigorous and open debate in every country where it is being considered."

There is also this about TRIPS: "The investment chapter provisions on prohibited performance requirements includes a number of exemptions for intellectual property rights, compulsory licenses to patents under Article 31 of the TRIPS or for copyright, or remedies to anti-competitive practice, that protect U.S. state practice in those areas."

It is imperative that people everywhere become familiar with these to-be-signed treaties before they are signed (if ever). It's like ACTA from the back door and even if corporate media doesn't write so much about it, this doesn't make it any less important or urgent a matter. It's often that case that the corporate media covers up (if it covers at all) and misleads the public about these treaties. At the end of the day we know who wants to see these treaties passed and at whose expense these can become a reality. It's class warfare.

"There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won."

--Warren Buffett



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 19/09/2025: Lobbyist of American GAFAM Becomes Data Protection Commissioner in Europe
Links for the day
The Right to Punch People (Apparently)
At Brett Wilson, Brett's job title is "Head of Crime" and Wilson normalises calls for violence
Brett Wilson LLP Seem to Have Had Only One Litigation Client in 2025, He Was Previously Charged, Just Like the Serial Strangler From Microsoft (Whom They Now Represent)
Karma is superstition, regulators are not
Project 2030 to Cover How "Project 2025"-Styled Anti-Media Zealots From America Targeted Techrights and Tux Machines
The common denominator is also their attacks on women
Brett Wilson LLP Failed to Meet Deadlines Set by Judge 7 Months Earlier, Tried to Ruin Our Holiday, Then Had the Audacity to Ask Us for Over 3,000 Pounds for Its Own Lateness
As a matter of principle we will never respond to assassin while we are on holiday
Americans Attacking British Sites Only Months After They Leave America
We find it kind of funny if not ironic that this site, originally an American site, got legal harassment only from Americans and only months after it had moved to the UK
Despite Losing Over a Quarter Million Dollars a Year Software in the Public Interest (SPI) Gives Helping Hand to Libreboot
SPI's financial state depends a lot on its public image or its reputation
 
Offloading to the Sister Site
In the interest of not overwhelming readers
Links 19/09/2025: Coffee Club and "SpellBinding is Now Absurdly Fast"
Links for the day
Links 19/09/2025: Media Freedom Ceases to Exist in US, "Consider Dropping Twitter/X"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/09/2025: Thinking and Insect Bites
Links for the day
Microsoft E.E.E.: Git Will Now (or Very Soon) Fully Depend on Rust, Which is Controlled by Microsoft
Microsoft now makes Git dependent on Rust, or making Git dependent on GitHub, which is proprietary
Slop or Fake Articles Have Turned Linux Journal From a Pioneering/Trailblazing "Linux" Magazine Into a Nuisance
some sites with former reputation - good reputation - turn into cesspools
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 18, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 18, 2025
On Claims That After Bluewashing Red Hat Will Increasingly Become an Indian Company
Discussed this week (long and detailed)
Slopwatch: Google Helps Plagiarism and Sends Traffic to Ripoff Artists
That Google as a company helps spamfarms is noteworthy
If You Want to Know the Future, Listen to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Andy Farnell
We're sure the FSF will have plenty of its own output
Links 18/09/2025: A Taliban Ban on Internet Access and Troubled US Job Market
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/09/2025: Computer Literacy and Accessing Alhena's Database
Links for the day
Links 18/09/2025: US War on Media (Truth Banned, Cancel Culture by the Hard Right), NYT Chief Executive Warns Cheeto is Deploying ‘Anti-press Playbook'
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, Fake Text, Fake Images, Negative Slant on "Linux"
Google News has lost its value; the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen off a cliff
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Relax-and-Recover on Proxmox and New Smolweb File Transfer Service
Links for the day
Fact: EFF Got Corrupted by Corporate Money. Microsoft Lunduke (Political Noise): The Issue With EFF is, It Kills Babies.
Microsoft Lunduke - as usual - finds a way to make it about abortions
Pacing Publication Up a Bit
The news cycles have gotten rather light and slow
Links 17/09/2025: Power Outages, Digital Controls, and Attacks on the Mainstream Media (by Insecure and Corrupt Dictators)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Flashing LineageOS and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Long COVID Study, "Exposing Pegasus", and Chatbots Exposing Sensitive Data
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Secret Settlement for Internet Archive and Google’s LLM Slop Summaries Attracting Lawsuits
Links for the day
The True Cost of 'Generative Models'
Funded and promoted by the companies that profit from the waste
'Big Slop' Attacks Contemporary Information/Knowledge and Creative Works, 'Big Copyright' (Cartel) Attacks the Old
Someone at IA will hopefully "blow the whistle" on what they actually agreed
Why We Find It Difficult to Trust Rust
A comparison between C/C++ and Rust
Slop Nihilism is Funded by Big Oil
Eventually human civilisation will destroy itself
Watching the OSI: Our Series Will Carry on Irrespective of the Chief's 'Resignation'
the OSI isn't even the real guardian of the term "Open Source"
Professor Eben Moglen Recovering From Open Heart Surgery
From his public pages (this is not secret)
Just What LibreOffice Needs? Another Language? (Rust)
what's all this concern about memory safety?
Many Microsoft Managers Are Leaving
"Hey hi" chaff or chaff about "hey hi" cannot eternally distract from the difficulties inside the company
There Are Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs, But Google News is Infested With Slopfarms
It contributes a lot to misinformation and it encourages plagiarism
Tomorrow, Microsoft's Tim Anderson's 'The Register MS' Offshoot Will Have Been Inactive for 2 Months (There's Also a Slop Problem)
We've already caught The Register MS using LLM slop for articles
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Leaves Microsoft After Nearly 30 Years
And not retiring
Even Windows Users Are Having Problems With "Secure Boot"
When it comes to security - Microsoft strives for the very opposite
Another Competition Crime of Microsoft, Long Facilitated and Advocated by a Bad Actor, Who is Funded by a Third Party to Commit Extortion Against People Who Have Correctly and Repeatedly Warned About It for Over 13 Year
We must always go back to the core issues
3 More Reasons to Replace Mozilla Firefox With LibreWolf
Thankfully there are de-enshittified versions of Firefox
USA Not a Place for Free Speech
In America, as in the US, the attacks seem more enhanced or advanced these days
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Links 17/09/2025: Google Layoffs in "Hey Hi" (AI), Perplexity Hit With More "Hey Hi" (Plagiarism) Lawsuits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Reclaiming Things in a Digital Age and Moon Phases in CGI
Links for the day