International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Software Patents

ICC International Chamber of Commerce - The world business organisation

explains that ICC was founded in 1919 in order to monitor policy decisions and that it does this by forming commissions: "Commissions are the bedrock of ICC, composed of a total of more than 500 business experts who give freely of their time to formulate ICC policy and elaborate its rules. Commissions scrutinize proposed international and national government initiatives affecting their subject areas and prepare business positions for submission to international organizations and governments." The IP Commission alone counts "240 IP experts".

ICC IP Commission

The commission consisting of 240 IP experts which takes the decisions on patent policy matters at ICC, headed by Nokia IP lawyer Urho Ilmonen. It is founded on firm beliefs and strong alliances:

The Commission on Intellectual and Industrial Property brings together leading experts from all over the world to promote an environment favorable to for the protection of intellectual property on national, regional and international levels. It believes that the protection of intellectual property stimulates international trade, creates a favorable climate for foreign direct investment, and encourages innovation and technology transfer. The ICC works closely with intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations involved in intellectual property policy, such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Customs Organisation (WCO), the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the International Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (AIPPI) and the Licensing Executive Society (LES). Priorities

examine the intellectual property issues arising from electronic commerce
...

ICC Intellectual Property Roadmap

ICCs plans to push for more "intellectual property protection" throughout the world

ICC 2002/09 on CEC Swpat Directive Proposal

demands program claims, codification of current EPO practise and further efforts to delete Art 52(2) EPC.

ICC against Utility Model Directive

The ostentatious reason is that utility models are too easy to obtain and thereby create legal insecurity. The untold reason is that utility models would take a way a large chunk of revenue from patent lawyers. Patent lawyers make much of their living on the examination process. The opposition from patent lawyer committees such as that of ICC was enough to kill the European Commission's utility model directive proposal in 2000. In its reasoning, ICC wrote:

The ICC campaign has been directed in particular towards the protection of innovative technology by patents and similar rights. This is because ICC firmly believes that companies that do innovate technology should be able to obtain and enforce quickly, cheaply and without aggravation the intellectual property rights protecting such technology. Most importantly, the potency of the rights so provided should, at the same time, always be commensurate with the contribution made by the innovation. Further, a third party wishing to commercialize its own technology must also be able to determine quickly, cheaply and without aggravation whether it is free to work that technology as far as intellectual property rights belonging to competitors are concerned

Unfortunately ICC never seems to care about commensurateness in the case of software patents, whose examination brings fat revenues to the "IP professionals" on the ICC IP Committee.

Unice/Eicta/ICC etc 2003/05/22: "Joint Statement of the Industry" for Software Patents

In a "Joint Statement of the Industry", directed to the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), the presidents of various industry associations, including Graham Taylor from the "Open Forum Europe" as a representative of the Linux/Opensource world, asks the legislators to ensure

that computer programs are treated as patentable inventions and
programs are directly claimable, so that programmers can be sued for publishing a program.

Moreover, as means of "protecting opensource software", the signatories ask the European Parliament to ensure that

whenever an interface is patented, interoperable software may not be published or used without a license
business methods are patentable "only" to the extent that a computer or some other device is involved
the European Commission shall publish more papers (obituaries?) about the effects of patents on SMEs.

This statement was sent to many MEPs, together with accompanying letters from the patent arms of national industry associations. Traditionally industry associations have left patent politics completely to corporate patent lawyers, who typically form each association's "industrial property committee". This committee's papers are usually signed by the president of the association without further consultation of other committees. Gentle doublespeak with an ungentle insider meaning, as explained above, is also part of the game. What is unusual about the current letter is that an apparent "opensource community leader" was enlisted for the maneuver.

DIHK 2002/04/20, 10/04: Gegen Softwarepatente und EuK-Vorschlag

RA Doris Möller hat für den Deutschen Industrie- und Handelskammertag (DIHK) eine Stellungnahme zum EU-Richtlinienvorschlag über die Patentierbarkeit computer-implementierter Organisations- und Rechenregeln entworfen, die Bedenken äußert und eine klarere Begrenzung der Patentierbarkeit fordert. Damit hebt sich der DIHK positiv von Verbänden wie BDI, Bitkom und Internationale Handelskammer (ICC) ab, die trotz überwiegend gegenteiliger Meinungen ihrer Mitglieder ihren Patentjuristen erlaubten, sich im Namen "der Industrie" für möglichst weitgehende Patentierbarkeit stark zu machen.

ICC Deutschland

Among the members of the German section of ICC are organisation such as the German Chamber of Commerce as well as many companies who expressed themselves against software patents and against the CEC directive, as well as many whose interest in software patentability are more than questionable.


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