EU patent policy consultation

[Francois Letellier <francois.letellier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

- To ObjectWeb members who are based in Europe or have interests in Europe -

The European Commission (Directorate General for Internal Market and 
Services) is consulting stakeholders [1] on their needs in relation to the 
legal framework and possible actions in the field of industrial property. 
More specifically, the Commission is consulting European players about the 
patent system in Europe, with the goal to make proposals to improve this 
system.

You are probably well aware that the issue of software patents has been a 
hot topic in Europe lately, and ObjectWeb members expressed positions on 
software patents [2]. This new consultation is an opportunity to make your 
voice heard by the Commission and to express a position about patents in 
general, and more specifically software patents as it is a more direct 
concern to open source software proponents.

Please be aware that the deadline for answering is March 31, 2006.

I would like to recommend reading a couple of position papers [3], [4] 
before answering. These position papers give a perspective on the European 
patent system that you may find especially relevant as members of the open 
source community.

Regards,

[1] 
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/indprop/patent/consultation_en.htm
[2] https://wiki.objectweb.org/Wiki.jsp?page=CWP_SoftwarePatents
[3] 
http://consultation.ffii.org/Downloads?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=wgepl0601-11a.pdf
[4] http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/PATSTRATpositionpaper.pdf



François LETELLIER
INRIA Rhône-Alpes - ObjectWeb Consortium Executive Committee
email: francois.letellier at objectweb.org - cell: +33 (0)6 84 64 00 24 - 
Skype: francois.letellier - Gizmo: francois_letellier
blog: http://os3g.blogspot.com/ ObjectWeb: http://www.objectweb.org