FFII: Leading MPs of All German Parties call on MEPs to stop Software Patents
-> [ deutsch ] [ Bundestag 05-02-18 | Patent News ]
July 1st, 2005 -- Today before the start of the summer break the german Bundestag has expectedly expressed mistrust to chancellor Schröder. At the same time the experts for the software patent directive from the german parliamentary groups, namely Rainer Funke (FDP), Dr. Günter Krings (CDU), Jerzy Montag (Grüne/B90), Jörg Tauss (SPD), are addressing their colleagues in the European Parliament with a joint letter in which they express their mistrust against the council version of the software patents directive. This is further understandable as an objection to the activities of the german minister of justice Mrs. Zypries who had written a letter to the european parlamentarians that was contrary the resolution of the Bundestag and contrary the normal procedures.
Summary
The !MEPs inform about the main idea behind the Bundestag resolution:
- Protection of software through Copyright, not patent law
- A sharply-excluding definition of "technical" based upon the established German federal court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) rulings (i.e. with controllable forces of nature as part of the problem solution)
- Exclusion of trivial patents
- Exclusion of program claims (i.e. amendment of article 5.2)
- Full interoperability privilege
- Reliable legal protection of interests of small and medium sized enterprises
Letter of the german Bundestag Representatives to the German MdEPs
Second Reading of the Common Position of the Council on the Directive for the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions (2002/0047(COD))
Dear honourable representatives,
(...the german original text can be found on the german version of this page...)
with kind regards
- Rainer Funke (legal affairs spokesman for the Liberal group in Bundestag)
- Dr. Günter Krings (intellectual property law spokesman for the Christian-Democrat group in Bundestag)
- Jerzy Montag (legal affairs spokesman for the Green group in Bundestag)
- Jörg Tauss (science, education and media policy spokesman for the Social-Democrat group in Bundestag)
