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#title: Organising the Economic Majority in 2005

#descr: Urgent Measures for securing freedom of innovation and competition in
view of imminent dangers from software patents and pending patent
legislation in the EU.

#rWa: Current situation

#ssO: Brussels Representative Office

#fWs: Conferences in Brussels

#eao: Media Work

#Rta: PR Materials

#Wnl: Patent Database Extensions and Applications

#dve: Media Advertisements

#lre: People in charge of execution

#gmW: Budget Summary in EUR

#nts: All respected programmers, and software entrepreneurs and economists
agree that, roughly speaking, patents are bad for the software
business whereas copyright serves it well.  In the 1990s, the software
industry has suffered an invasion by the patent system, consisting of
patent lawyers, patent bureaucrats and patent departments of large
corporations from neighboring hardware fields.  In the meantime, large
software companies have also discovered patents as a means of quelling
competition and free-riding on the creative work of others.  Since the
late 1990s, most people in the software industry had resignated under
the brute force of the patent establishment.

#ewf: However, European law still says that programs for computers are, like
aesthetic creations and mathematical methods, as such not patentable
inventions.   In November 2000, a long-planned move to delete these
provisions from the law failed, due to an unexpected broad opposition,
led by the FFII.  In September 2003, the FFII led a successful effort
to persuade the European Parliament to reaffirm the written law and
vote for clear exclusion of software solutions from patentability.

#lWa: However, parliaments have only very limited influence on lawmaking in
present-day Europe, and an alliance of governmental patent
bureaucracy, patent lawyers and large corporations has meanwhile
struck back.  We have been able to fully unmask this alliance and
force it to visibly resort to anti-democratic maneuvering and breaches
of procedural rules.  Yet, due to the lack of checks and balances in
the EU system, they managed to bring their proposal for unlimited
patentability over procedural hurdles.  Now the European Parliament
has three months to obtain an majority of component member (whoever is
absent counts as pro-Council) for amendments that reimpose real limits
on patentability.

#rnr: In spite of these requirements, the Parliament now stands good chances
to reaffirm at least some of its key amendments.   It can then be in a
drivers seat in a conciliation procedure against an embarassed
Commission and a split Council.  Yet the risk is high that during this
process the clear position of September 2003 will deteriorate. If, on
the other hand, we succede in maintaining clear exclusions, the
Commission and Council can be expected to resort to killing the
directive project.  They have the right to do this during many
occasions in the procedure.

#tbs: Although this prospect may seem frustrating and unrewarding, it is
likely that the MEPs will want to choose this route.  And without
doubt, this route also gives us a highly valuable opportunity to raise
public awareness and melt the ice which the patent lobby has
accumulated over the last decades and centuries.  This however
requires that we unite the world of independent activists with the
software business world.   We need to organise a sustained,
well-financed and continuously growing movement which the other side
can no longer ignore.

#tWW: So far, imfinancial ressources have been the main asset of the patent
lobby, and we have witnessed and can further expect a firestorm of
lobbying in the European Parliament during the coming months.  If we
do not perform well, the battle is over very soon.  If we perform
well, we may impress the established power structure so much that even
in the Council and Commission the diehard pro-patent support will
crumble.

#aWo: The activists of FFII are meanwhile experienced and highly motivated. 
They have already proven that they give donors much greater value per
euro spent than most of the activists of the pro-patent camp.

#ire: Below you find some of the priority projects for which money needs to
be spent.

#oWn: We need to continue having at least one permanent representative in
Brussels/Strasburg who will %(ol|provide expertise to members of the
European Parliament|prepare the ground for short stays of
non-permanent representatives from all countries of Europe.)

#sse: Our office currently consists in a room in the office of the
Confederation of European Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises
(CEA-PME) in Brussels, which costs us 300 EUR per month.

#aWW: Our first candidate for this is Erik Josefsson.  Erik is very
knowledgable about patent caselaw and EU rules and a genius in
networking in the European Parliament.  He enjoys the trust of key
MEPs and assistants.  In his home country Sweden, a renowned magazine
lists him among the %(q:50 most powerful IT persons in Sweden).  We
owe very much of our success of September 2003 to him.  If we want him
to be able to concentrate on his work in Brussels, we need to pay him
2000 eur per month.

#efW: There are several other FFII activists who have proven their
effectiveness in moving political groups and national governments in
our direction.  Many of these will want to come to Brussels for
temporary stays, involving considerable travel expenses.  The more of
them we can keep concentrating on our work, the better.  In some
cases, smaller sums such as 600/month already can make a big
difference.

#lWt: It is moreover necessary, especially during the upcoming period in the
European Parliament, to have people who are permanently available to
provide quick advice and usable texts to MEPs.  Again the commitment
of these people must be secured.

#enf: We have conducted several conferences in Brussles in cooperation with
research institutes, to bridte the gaps between software developers,
scientists and politicians, usually with a part of the conference
taking place in the European Parliament.

#fWf: See %(q:program of the last conference).

#era: We have been planning for a conference to be conducted later this
year.

#sn0: Once such conference costs 20000 EUR.

#ifW: Our media work has been fairly successful recently.

#leW: Many people in the Brussels institutions, especially the European
Parliament, regularly read our %(sc:software patent news ticker).  It
has become the source of the most accurate reporting on the issue,
combined with an encyclopedia-like knowledge repository.  We have de
facto become the Europe's leading news agency for software patent
news.

#giW: Several people have been working day and night to process incoming
news submissions into press releases and documentation pages.  But
often at important moments the work is not done.  The number of
competent activists is still limited.  Several people would be
available to work full-time or at least half-time.  1000-2000 eur per
month payed to some news writers as well as maintainers of underlying
software systems could dramatically improve the situation.

#Wda: There has also been talk about a possible transfer of
Nosoftwarepatents.com to FFII.  This would have to be done by our
media team, and this team would have to be strengthened by regular
payments before it can take up such a job.

#pYW: We have produced a lot of impactful posters, flyers stickers, etc for
use at tradefairs and in the European Parliament.  Yet here too the
flow has not been steady.  We should try to involve Peter Gerwinski,
Wiebe van der Worp and others in a steady effort.

#WWe: The %(q:Economic Majority) campaign itself needs a new website which
highlights testimonies of the participating companies, with nicely
prepared sympathetic documentation, so as to bring us closer to some
of the people who do not understand software and patents. 
Preparations for this are under way, and here again, fairly
unrewarding permanent work is required and must be paid.

#Wee: We need to be able to provide more accurate information about the
current status of the patents in various fields granted by the EPO and
elsewhere.

#wtv: Currently the only database which provides data about the category of
%(q:software patents) at the EPO is the one which we provide.  The
categorisation and the involvement of the public must be refined.

#ofn: This work helps us gain competence in patent policy benchmarking and
helps us address the problems of many people in the community of
potential patent infringers.  It also forms the basis of our
participation in the research community and our role as a co-organiser
of conferences and surveys which involve this community.

#Wlt: During the hot phase in the Parliament, it will moreover allow us to
refute propaganda of the big patent bullies (Nokia, Siemens etc) and
to document in detail with accurate data how these patent bullies are
harming industry and consumers with their aggressive patenting
strategies and huge portfolios of broad and trivial monpolies.  It
needs to be more widely recognised that, whenever the subject of
innovation policy or patents is raised, patent bullies and their
lobbyists have no moral authority whatsoever to speak on this subject.
 Part of this work can possibly be performed by our partners in the
research community.

#aec: We need people regularly working on this.  The costs can be estimated
as similar to those estimated for the %(q:social engineering) work
above.

#rac: The patent lobby has bought large whole-page newspaper advertisements
in European Voice and other organs.  One such advertisement costs a
five-digit figure, and the effect comes only when they are placed
repeatedly.

#pWl: At certain junctures of our campaign it would have been extremely
useful for us to place advertisements, and many supporters have
proposed it, but this would become realistic only by adding six-digit
sums to our budget.

#pWa: Responsible Organisation

#sbr: responsible person

#oii: position

#eWt: Legal Status

#xko: tax-exempted non-profit association

#8mb: 180 members

#0pe: 3600 supporters

#0rp: 1,400 corporate supporters

#eWc: governed on the basis of german association law

#eei: registered in Association Register of Munich District Court

#syt: tax-exempt status granted and regularly checked by Munich corporate
taxation office

#ylr: Physical Address

#0ng: DE 80636 München Blutenburgstr 17

#hdt: near the European and German Patent Offices

#pho: phone

#fax: fax

#iso: Mission

#kWb: support work to make general-interest information ressources publicly
accessible

#Wte: protect the creator against the plagiator and the public against
monopolies, i.e. promote an equitable system of property in software

#men: help programmers, information-creating entrepreneurs and
informationally literate citizens to gain a fair share of influence on
information policy decisionmaking

#naa: Financial Status

#ecn: currently 6000 eur, derived from member fees and occasional donations
by software companies and foundations.

#aAu: Bank Account

#onr: country

#aWd: Bank Code

#ead: bank's physical mail address

#aWm: bank name

#cuW: account nr

#cnw: account owner

#eep: Project Partners and Sponsors

#Woh: Details of the project organisation structure are published at %(URL).

#cem: Achievement

#Cos: Cost

#Psr: Sustained Presence in Brussels/Strasburg: office, Erik, 3 part-time
helpers

#0Wo: 5000 eur per month

#oes: 1 Conference in Brussels

#eao2: Media Work

#poW: 5000 per month for 3-4 paid helpers

#iWr: Printed Materials

#poW3: 2500 per month for 1-2 paid helpers

#tDa: Patent Database

#poW2: 2500 per month for 1-2 paid helpers

#asm: Media Advertisement Campaigns

#sh0: realistic only with at least 100000 eur

#Tot: Total

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