Patentability and Democracy in Europe
How can industrial property be subordinated to modern economic policy?
|
The European Patent Organisation (EPO) is continuing to grant thousands of monopolies on “computer-implemented” algorithms and business methods every year, against the letter and spirit of the written law, and is now, for the third time, pushing for European legislation that would impose this practise on reticent national courts. Patent interests in combination with inter-governmental lawmaking have formed a caricature of “innovation policy” and thereby are helping us to see clearly what is going wrong in Europe today and what the alternatives are. |
||
|
From 1999 to 2005, this site has played a major role in the debate about software patents in Europe. It has helped thousands of citizens to equip themselves with the knowledge needed to prevail in a difficult political struggle. In July 2005, after several failed attempts to legalise software patents in Europe, the patent establishment changed its strategy. Instead of explicitely seeking to sanction the patentabilitty of software, they are now seeking to create a central European patent court, which would establish and enforce patentability rules in their favor, without any possibility of correction by competing courts or democratically elected legislators. Even before 2005, the focus of the site has been shifting more and more from software patents to European patent lawmaking and patent governance. That is why the site was renamed from swpat.ffii.org to eupat.ffii.org. Sections of this site include:
This site can be edited by all members of the eupat workgroup. 1 Related Sites
|
||
