David Berlind: “When a proprietary (often patented) technology earns the status of de facto standard (aka: practically unchallenged market dominance), the licensor of that technology (usually the patent holder) is basically afforded a legal monopoly and an unprecedented amount of market control.”
The europeans have a totally different approach from the americans.
The commision refused to accept the american model related to patent and intellectual property over patented technologies.
Yet europe has a long way still to go. We will see
Jannick, this is simply not true. We in the EU do NOT have a different approach to patents. I guess what you’re saying is about software patents, so let me write a few words about it to clarify the situation in the EU:
The EU commission tried to rush the sw patents directive through the EU parliament (no doubt under intense lobbying), but failed to do so. Parliament rejected that directive with an overwhelming majority. Sadly, not because the directive is flawed, but because the commission failed to include _ANY_ proposed ammendments from the MEPs.
What this means is that the European patent office can still grant SW patents, just as it did before. It’s a gray area. Luckily, they’re not as widespread as they are in the US, but that is surely going to change, unless a directive banning SW patents is going to be adopted.
For more information, see http://www.ffii.org