Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents in Europe and the UPC Already a Problem

Whose public service is this and why are European politicians allowing software patents?

A transit bus



Summary: More patent trolling in Europe (using software patents, as usual) and another disappointing move from the European Commission which serves to reinforce software patents deep inside public services, in effect overriding Europe's policy on patent scope due to lobbying from proprietary software giants from abroad

"Trolls at the gates," Francisco warned the other day. "Unitary patent is coming." Francisco happens to have warned about the EPO and UPC for quite some time now and he is not alone (we gave examples of that). The President of the FFII, Benjamin, has just said "this is what is waiting us if nobody moves their ass on the Unitary Patent."



"As we have noted here for a number of years, Germany is undoubtedly the worst in Europe when it comes to software patenting and this latest bit of news seems to reinforce this trend."This was said in response to Jan Wildeboer, who works for Red Hat in Germany (Europe's capital of software patenting) after years of activism against software patents (he is spending a lot less time fighting for this cause nowadays). "Patent troll forces Flickr to deactivate mobile upload in Germany," Wildeboer warned. As we have noted here for a number of years, Germany is undoubtedly the worst in Europe when it comes to software patenting and this latest bit of news seems to reinforce this trend. I can't help but wonder if upload tools in my own self-hosted albums are infringing too. Recently in the United States some very small and weak entities, such as family businesses, got sued/blackmailed by a patent troll over photo albums they had online. We wrote some articles about it earlier this year.

As Benjamin put it, "as long as those Patent Courts stays in Germany, I am fine. Problem is with the Unitary Patent." Well, some of these patent trolls have begun coming to the UK. They use software patents, too. To quote the page from Flickr, "patent litigation is a tremendous drain on the global economy, and Yahoo has been a vocal proponent for years in the United States to restore balance to patent litigation by encouraging innovation and discouraging abuse.

“Patent troll forces Flickr to deactivate mobile upload in Germany...”
      --Jan Wildeboer
"Unfortunately, as of today, our Flickr users in Germany are the victims of abuse in the patent litigation system. In recent months, Yahoo and several other major US tech companies were sued in Germany by TLI Comms, a company that does not practice the patent at issue, but rather asserts it against others for financial gain -- sometimes referred to as a “patent troll.” TLI Comms has accused Yahoo of infringing its European patent (EP 0814611 B1) by providing users the ability to upload photos and videos to our servers via the Flickr mobile web page or the Flickr mobile apps. TLI has asserted similar claims against a number of other major US tech companies. As of today, a German court has enjoined Yahoo from providing the upload feature of the Flickr mobile web page and mobile apps to our users in Germany."

How long before other European nations suffer the same 'castration' of features? It might only be a matter of time. Bear the UPC in mind.

"European Commission kills FLOSS with FRAND patents," Benjamin warned in a separate note after Glyn Moody, who had written articles on this subject earlier this year (we covered these), alerted followers to the fact that the "EU Commission confirms that it is abandoning open source to market forces - http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-1963_en.htm"

Benjamin thought "market forces" are better off called "dark forces" and another opposer of software patents said "the EU are creating these standards & they cannot be used in Free Software?"

Dr. Moody responded with "very; but they care more about big business that likes FRAND" (a topic often covered here for nearly a decade).

As Benjamin noted, "patents means free software becomes proprietary. That's what the GPL said in 1991 already."

“EU Commission confirms that it is abandoning open source to market forces...”
      --Glyn Moody
If there is no freedom to redistribute the program, then it's not Free software anymore. "The reference implementations can be whatever," Benjamin noted, but "patent holders can still tax any other implementation of the standard."

As I noted in response to the above (twice even) the EU/European Commission is a Microsoft shop that failed to move away from Microsoft and even failed to investigate Microsoft's OOXML abuses as it had promised to do so (giving a false sense of hope to antagonists). Whose EU Commission is this and why are we still implicitly endorsing software patents, in spite of the EPC and the 2005 directive?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event
Investigative Journalism Protects Society From Corruption, Crimes Against Women, Assaults on Civil Society
"what is the point of men doing military practice to defend a system that is so rotten?"
Swiss pimp usurping reputation of legendary Tissot boss Francois Thiébaud from France (BaselWorld, SWATCH Group SA)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Paris 'Love Nest' & Debian Outreachy: from Lycée Lakanal to ENS Cachan, Cr@ns, nepotism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk in 3 Hours, Then in the Technical University of Munich (Germany) Next Week
Richard Stallman at TUM on 21.10.2025 18:00, MW2001
Leaks and Whistleblowers: Our Plan for Today
Society simply cannot advance when too many people self-censor
 
Slop Poisons Everything
Imagine wanting to find what Torvalds has just said or what has just been released
Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
interest in Software Freedom must have grown
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
Links for the day
The EPO's War on Techrights Was a Massive Mistake
The EPO started the SLAPPs after we had published a few hundreds of articles; we've since then published close to 6,000 because the attacks on us emboldened insiders to help us
General-Purpose Computers to Become Growing Area of Coverage
Without them, we have little left for controlling our lives
"They missed a great opportunity to shut up." -Jacques Chirac
Brett Wilson LLP has been trying to cheat the legal system many times
Harassment evidence: Switzerland, overcrowded fitness and yoga centers, incompetence and racism in accident response
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Vincent Danjean & Debian NXIVM collateral, blackmail risks
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
In Sweden This Past Friday Richard Stallman Explained Why Copyleft is Important
And he didn't have to 'bash' BSDs, either
Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
It's good to see him attracting vast audiences
IBM Layoffs Due to a Lack of Money and Company Debt Rising by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in 6 Months
IBM didn't buy Red Hat for any ideological reasons; it was a fast "cash grab" for revenue
Forbes Already Stopped Being a News Sites. Now It's a Spam and Propaganda Platform for "Paying Partners" (Companies).
news from Forbes became very scarce
Is the Second-Largest Institution in Europe (EPO) Gradually Becoming More Like a Sweatshop?
Underpaid, unqualified, inexperienced and incompatible people are already recruited to replace veteran examiners
The Register MS Has No FOSS Coverage Anymore
The Editor in Chief is like a Microsoft plant
Links 13/10/2025: "Toasty Subwoofer" and WiFi Speakers "Are About To Go Dumb"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: iNaturalist and Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea
Links for the day
Microsoft Does Not Deny That Large Retailers Like Walmart, Costco and Target Are Giving Up on XBox (and Not Stocking It)
No doubt XBox is in trouble and rumours suggest that more mass layoffs are imminent
We'll Encourage Richard Stallman to Talk About Software Patents at the EPO Next Week When He Visits Munich (EPO Headquarters)
Go listen to Richard Stahlmann
Arnaud Parreaux lost case defending rogue employer
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Mathieu Elias Parreaux declared bankrupt in Switzerland
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Breakdown of the Rule of Law and Patent Law in the European Union (EU)
The EPO cannot recruit suitably qualified patent examiners this way, let alone retain them
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Good Films, Wizard of Earthsea, Upgrading the Steam Controller's Stick
Links for the day
It's Not Justice When One Side Denies the Other Side the Ability to Even Speak
At this stage, Brett Wilson LLP is in my humble opinion acting in contempt of the Court
Links 13/10/2025: Australian Catholic University Uses Slop to Libel Students, Canada Threatens to Kill Beluga Whales
Links for the day
How Not to Silence Tux Machines (It'll Only Backfire, Badly)
defending Microsoft while attacking this site
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT and Google News
It seems abundantly clear that Google News and Google in general participates in the slop epidemic
Vincent Danjean (not INTERPOL), Claire Bardel & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Christmas lynchings: Martin Krafft (madduck), Penny Leach (mjollnir) & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Birthdays and "Committee Unable to Contact Nobel Prize Winner"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 12, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 12, 2025
The Same People Who Attacked Richard Stallman (RMS) Are Attacking Daniel Pocock to Discourage People From Listening to His Information
Pocock is being demonised for the same reasons and by the same people who attack RMS
Your Typical Anti-Richard Stallman (RMS) Cancellist
"About the RMS cancellation"
Richard Stallman (RMS) Has Announced His Talk in Rome Less Than 20 Hours in Advance (and on a Sunday)
Why did he wait until the night before?
We Are Safe in a Modern "Tech" Society, Right?
People are safer if they control their own computing
GNU Tools Cauldron Event in Portugal: Videos Now Available via Invidious
Go have a look
The Way Things Are Going, They May Soon Stop Saying "Web Address" and Instead Say "Chrome Address"
The Web isn't built or based around open Web standards anymore. It's centered around user-agent.
Microsoft as a Golden Cage
"I was laid off by Microsoft and can't find a job. I'm weeks away from giving up my apartment and moving across the country to live with family."
Weekend Discussion About How IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Will Cause "Enshittification" for Users
"I worked at a software company that was acquired by IBM so I knew it was game over for RedHat the day they were acquired"
Brett Wilson LLP Getting Sued by Its Very Own Clients, a Legal Story That Has Made the Mainstream News (Law360)
Law360 or Law.com are about as mainstream as one can get in that "sector" (litigation 'industry')
Slopwatch: GNU/Linux Sites That Became Slopfarms and Spamfarms
The Web is a mess and "Linux" or "Ubuntu" sites became part of the problem
Richard Stallman's Talk 25 Hours Away, Aula Magna Palazzo del Rettorato (CU001), Sapienza Università di Roma (Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5)
The talk is 25 hours away and we see some QR code for it
Gemini Links 12/10/2025: Watches, the Depression of 2026, Gamboling with Odds
Links for the day
Links 12/10/2025: 'False' DMCA Claims and Slop Facing Perils Again (the Hype Wears Off)
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Just Lost Privacy Case in Austria and Its Latest Moves Make a Complete Ban Seem Imperative
Microsoft is not a software company, it's a spying agency that uses software to collect data
The Register MS: Microsoft is the Security Expert, Not the Prime Culprit, So Buy More Microsoft
This front page feature is devoid of any actual substance, it's just Microsoft copypasta
Stefano Zacchiroli (Zack) & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Lucas Nussbaum & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 12/10/2025: "Palm Computering", Further Exploration of Slide Rules, and Key Takeaways from The Well-Grounded Rubyist
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 11, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 11, 2025
Tomorrow: Founder of the Free Software Foundation and of GNU/Linux, Richard Stallman, Speaks in Roma (Rome), Italy at 4PM
GNU/Linux is more important than ever in this dystopian world
Microsoft and Apple Are Rare Topics in Geminispace
in Geminispace it's rather safe to assume everyone is into BSD, GNU/Linux, and sometimes retro