SOFTWARE PATENTS AND EUROPEAN SME
A conference organized by the Greens-efa in European Parliament
Brussels Thursday 8 May 2003 9:00-12:00 room ASP 1G2
9:00 Welcome address by Dany Cohn-Bendit MEP chair Green-efa and Graham Watson MEP Chair ELDR
9:15 "The Commission's proposal in a legal perspective" by R. Bakels, university of Amsterdam, co-author study Juri 107 With the participation of E. Plooij-Van Gorsel (ELDR, rapporteur ITRE) and M. Rocard (PSE, rapporteur CULT) to be confirmed
9: 45 "Economic consequences of software patents" by Ph. Aigrain, European Commission
10:00 Panel I : "Innovative SME and Software patents" : Case studies
David Axmark, CEO MySQL (data bases) Sweden Hakon Wim Lie, CEO Opera (makes sofware for Nokia) Norway Pierre Haren, CEO Ilog (object-oriented software engineering) France Wojtek Narczynski CEO Power Media (Custom web software) Poland Thorsten Lemke, CEO Lemke Software (Graphic Converter) Germany, CEO Symlabs.com (identity manager) Portugal
11:00 Debate with MEPs, SMEs and the public
11:30 Keynote speach : Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project :"Software patents: restricting users and SMEs for the megacorporations ? " 12:00 Conclusion MEP Dany Cohn-Bendit, co-chairman of the Green/efa group in European Parliament
After the conference a gathering on the theme "Free ideas for a Free World" with street theater and a buffet lunch is planned in front of the Parliament Place du Luxembourg.
On May 7 afternoon a conference "Software patents from legal wording to economic reality" with B. Kahin and Lawrence Lessig will take place in Hotel Dorint Bd Charlemagne 11-19 Brussels http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/05/07/
Translation is available in al EU language Access in free however registration is mandatory
Laurence Vandewalle lvandewalle@europarl.eu.int
The Wiki about this event : http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/ManifAgainstSoftwarePatents.
BTW, visit also http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/parl034/ for instructions on how you can help to reject software patents.
Fred.