Companies get involved against software patents and the current proposal for a unitary patent
April offers to companies to publicly declare their opposition to software patents, by signing a resolution asking to the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament to amend the regulation on the unitary patent.
This resolution, along with the list of signatories, will be sent to Members of the European Parliament on Tuesday, September 13rd, 2012, a few days before the meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs. The text has been submitted to some supporters of previous campaigns, and more than 400 firms have already signed it. Join them and forward the information, in order to remind our elective representatives that a clear framework, which would foster innovation with legal certainty, has to include a clear ban on software patents!
To sign the resolution, please contact us: resolution-enterprises@unitary-patent.eu
The text of the resolution:
Our company is worried about the current plans to set up a unitary patent with a flanking unified patent court.
The European Patent Office (EPO)'s practices to grant software patents, under the deceiving term of “computer-implemented inventions”, pose a threat to our professional activities.
We are concerned that the regulation on the unitary patent, as agreed in December 2011 by the negotiators of the Council, the Commission, and the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament, leaves any and every issue on the limits of patentability to the EPO's case law, without any democratic control or review by an independent court.
The regulation on the unitary patent is an opportunity for the EU legislators to harmonise substantive patent law in the EU institutional and jurisdictional framework, and to put an end to the EPO's self-motivated practices extending the realm of patentability to software. Failing to do so, this unitary patent will do more harm than good to the EU ICT firms.
For these reasons, we urge MEPs to adopt amendments which clearly state that the EPO's decisions are subject to a review from the Court of Justice of the European Union, and which reaffirm the rejection of software patentability, as expressed by the votes of the European Parliament on September 24th, 2003 and July 6th, 2005.
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Companies can also contact MEPs directly to share their concerns regarding the unitary patent :
- Via email: the list of the MEPs members of the JURI Committee is available on the contact platform.
- More importantly, you can also call MEPs : a calling tool is available on the contact platform, allowing you to call them for free.
This news was first published on April website .
