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Apply for participation in trainings for usage of social media for democracy

Trainings for new technologies for lobbying, advocacy and raising public awareness about causes

http://metamorphosis.org.mk/activities/povik-za-prijavuvanje-na-uchestvo-vo-obuki-za-koristenje-na-socijalni-mediumi-za-demokratija.html

New premises of the Metamorphosis Foundation

The Metamorphosis Foundation has a new address: ul. “Apostol Guslarot” 40, Skopje, near the elementary school “Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi”.

Location of the Metamorphosis Foundation

Article 29: Reduce the storing period of Google Street View's images

Alex Turk, the head of EU Article 29 Working Party (WP) sent a letter on 11 February 2010 asking Google company to warn people about the arrival of its Street View vehicles and to reduce the retention...

ЕДРИ | 15.3.2010

Internet restrictions curtail human rights, says US

Many governments have used the internet to curtail freedom of expression at home, the US state department says in its latest annual human rights report.

Свет | 12.3.2010

World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Reporters Without Borders will celebrate World Day Against Cyber Censorship on 12 March. This event is intended to rally everyone in support of a single Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to...

Свет | 10.3.2010

China to punish hackers, says no Google complaint

China has pledged to punish hackers who attacked Google if there is evidence to prove it, but said it has yet to receive any complaint from the world's top search engine.

Свет | 8.3.2010

France's Parliament pursues its goal to censor the Internet

On 16 February, the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, passed the first draft of the so-called Loppsi 2 bill allowing the authorities to control the Internet under the pretex...

ЕДРИ | 5.3.2010

Germany's President signs an Internet bill against his own government

Despite the fact that the German Government had decided not to apply the internet censorship law (Zugangserschwerungsgesetz) proposed by the former Government in April 2009, the new bill was signed on...

ЕДРИ | 3.3.2010

More in: EDRI, World, Macedonia


Petition to stop software patents in Europe

Our petition aims to unify the voices of concerned Europeans, associations and companies, and calls on our politicians in Europe to stop patents on software with legislative clarifications.

The patent system is misused to restrain competition for the economical benefit of a few but fails to promote innovation. A software market environment is better off with no patents on software at all. Healthy competition forces market players to innovate.

European court decisions still accept in many cases the validity of the software patents granted by national patent offices and the European Patent Office (EPO) that is beyond democratic control. They not only continue to grant them, but also to lobby in favor of them. Despite the current deep crisis of the patent system, they are unable to reform and put at risk too many European businesses with their soft granting policy.

On 2005 the Commission appeared to be more supportive to the interests of major international conglomerates than of small and medium sized enterprises from Europe - who are a major driving force behind European innovation. The European Parliament rejected at the end the software patent directive, but has no rights for legislative initiatives.

Studies

A large number of serious scientific and economic studies justify ruling out patents on software.

Copyright for software, but no patents

Software authors are already protected by copyright law, allowing others to innovate in the same space generating healthy competition, but this protection is undermined by patents on software. It is far too easy to violate patents on software whilst being completely unaware of any transgression. Software companies do not use and do not need the patent system to innovate. They must be protected from owners of dubious granted patents.

Litigation instead of innovation

Software patents miss their legitimate purpose. Patents on software favour litigation in detriment of innovation, defeating their democratic justification. They force software producers to spend on bureaucracy, lawsuits, and circumventing dubious granted claims on software what would otherwise be spent on Research and Development. Owners of patents on software, who sometimes doesn't produce software themselves, obtain a means to exert unfair control over the market.
American mistakes

In the USA there are billions of dollars in litigation over software patents each year, and not only between software companies, but also other companies just because they have a web site (this starts to happen in Europe also). This mistake needs to be avoided in Europe.

We urge our legislators

  • to pass national legal clarifications to substantive patent law to rule out any software patent;
  • to invalidate all granted claims on patents that can be infringed by software run on programmable apparatus;
  • to also strive to propagate these rules to the European level, including the European Patent Convention.

Source: Stopsoftwarepatents.eu "Petition to stop software patents in Europe"

 

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