The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure or FFII is a lobbying association based in Munich, Germany. It initially took emphasis on electronic data processing and on language and writing. Currently the FFII is active in the fight against software patents, not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world. A mainly European term mirroring the official US term National Information Infrastructure, introduced in early nineties by a US Patent Office paper [1]. The terms global information infrastructure and information highway were also used as a governmental term for the Net. ... It has been suggested that Interest representation: Academic overview be merged into this article or section. ... A voluntary association (also sometimes called an unincorporated association, or just an association) is a group of individuals who voluntarily enter into an agreement to form a body (or organization) to accomplish a purpose. ... Munich: Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple Munich: St. ... Software patents are a type of intellectual property and one of many legal aspects of computing. ...

Views of FFII

FFII's view is that software patents present a burden, not a benefit to society, as it is found by Economic studies such as:

• An Empirical Look at software Patents(PDF) Bessen (MIT) & Hunt (Federal Reserve Bank)
• The Software Patent Experiment(PDF) Bessen & Hunt 2004.

and suggested by the To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Mapúa Institute of Technology (MIT, MapúaTech or simply Mapúa) is a private, non-sectarian, Filipino tertiary institute located in Intramuros, Manila. ... Federal Reserve Districts The United States Federal Reserve System consists of twelve Federal Reserve Banks, each responsible for a particular district, and some with branches. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

• Federal Trade Commission 2003 patent report
• and lots of other material.

FFII has been active on this front at least since 2000 when an attempt to change the European Patent Convention to legitimize software patents failed. In 2003, it strongly lobbied the European Parliament against the proposed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. This article is about the year 2000. ... The Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, commonly known as the European Patent Convention (EPC), is a multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation and providing an autonomous legal system according to which European patents are granted. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sign in the entrance of the European Parliament building in Brussels, written in all the official languages used in the European Union as of July 2006 The European Parliament building in Strasbourg The debating chamber, or hemicycle, in Strasbourg The European Parliament building in Brussels The European Parliament (formerly European... The European Union (EU) Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (2002/0047/COD) was a proposal for an EU law which aimed to harmonise EU national patent laws and practices, which involved the granting of patents for computer-implemented inventions provided they meet certain criteria. ...

FFII is the leading European NGO on this issue. Through its partnership with many other European organisations with the same goal, it has a reach across all nations of the EU. The term non-governmental organization (NGO) is used in a variety of ways all over the world and, depending on the context in which it is used, can refer to many different types of organizations. ...

FFII is directly supported e.g. by more than 1500 SME, many thousand software developers, tens of thousands of software users system administrators as well as a number of scientists, academics and economists. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises or SMEs are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits. ... A software developer is a programmer who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming. ... A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person employed to maintain, and operate a computer system or network for a company or other organization. ... The physicist Albert Einstein is probably the most famous scientist of our time. ... Plato is credited with the inception of academia: the body of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations. ... Paul Samuelson, Nobel Prize in Economics winner. ...

FFII represents:

• about 1,000 registered members
• more than 1,500 companies
• more than 2,000 CEOs of SMEs
• more than 90,000 supporters worldwide
• more than 400,000[1] signatures for a software-patent free Europe.

FFII organizes Conferences about the topic in Brussels, about twice a year, the last one took place on April 14, 2004 (together with a demonstration of more than 400 people against software patents) and November 9-10, 2004. In Karlsruhe, FFII organized a demonstration of about 1,000 people against software patents. See external link for details. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the job of having the ultimate executive responsibility or authority within an organization or corporation. ... Nickname: The Capital Of Europe, Comic City City of a 100 Museums Map showing the location of Brussels in Belgium Coordinates: Country Belgium Region Brussels-Capital Region Founded 797 Founded (Region) June 18, 1989 Mayor (Municipality) Freddy Thielemans Area    - City 162 (Region) km²  (62. ... April 14 is the 104th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (105th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ... Karlsruhe (population 283,959 in 2005) is a city in the south west of Germany, in the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border. ...

Structure of the FFII

The FFII was funded originally by donations from SuSE and Infomatec. The Open Society Institute has contributed regularly, as have Red Hat, and Stichting NLnet. The historical list of donors from 1999 to 2005 can be found on the FFII web site. SUSE (properly pronounced , but often pronounced /suzi/) is a major retail Linux distribution, produced in Germany. ... The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a coordinating body, started in early 1994, of the national Soros Foundations, especially in Eastern Europe, which spends money donated by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. ... Red Hat, Inc. ...

The FFII exists as a mother organisation with more or less formal chapters in many countries. The national FFII chapters (such as FFII France) handle national membership, media and lobbying, while the mother organisation operates at the EU level and in countries where there is no formal FFII organisation.

The FFII board currently consists of Jochen Ahleff (Treasurer), Antonis Christofides, Pieter Hintjens (President), Jan Macek, Jonas Maebe, Hartmut Pilch, co-founder of the association (Vice-President), and Gérald Sédrati-Dinet (Vice-President, President of FFII France). Pieter Hintjens Is the president of the FFII(Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) an association that is well known for fighting against software patents He is also the CEO of iMatrix He has also written Free software,an example is his first program relased under GPL called libero Sources... Hartmut Pilch (born July 7, 1963 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) founded the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure or FFII, and is a simultaneous conference interpreter, translator and software developer, who lives in Munich, Germany. ...

Partners in Europe

EuroLinux, EFFI, ABUL, AFUL, FSF Europe, Vrijschrift, SKOSI (see links to lists of organisations below) EuroLinux is a campaigning organisation that promotes open source software / free software in Europe, and that are opposed to the European Unions proposals to introduce laws on software patents. ... Electronic Frontier Finland or EFFI is a Finnish on-line civil rights organization founded in 2001. ... FSF Europes logo The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) was founded in 2001 as the sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the USA to take care of all aspects of Free Software in Europe. ...

See also

• Software patent debate
• Software patent
• Patent
• EU Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions
• Hartmut Pilch
• European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations (EICTA)

There is heated debate as to whether and to what extent it should be possible to patent software and computer-implemented inventions as a matter of public policy. ... One possible definition of a Software patent, supported by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), is that it is a patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program. ... A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee (the inventor or assignee) for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which... The proposed European Union Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions has become a major arena for policy conflicts over the granting of patents over computer-implemented inventions, software and business methods. ... Hartmut Pilch (born July 7, 1963 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) founded the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure or FFII, and is a simultaneous conference interpreter, translator and software developer, who lives in Munich, Germany. ... The European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations (commonly known by its abbreviation, EICTA) is a Brussels-based European trade association of electronics and telecommunications companies. ...

External links

• FFII main site
• http://webshop.ffii.org/ - 20 examples of software patents
• AEL wiki: main reasons why people are opposed to patenting of software

National sections:

• FFII UK Chapter
• FFII Polish section
• FFII Swedish Chapter
• FFII French Chapter
• FFII Belgium
• FFII Czech Republic

FTC/DoJ hearings and the report

• FFII: some written submissions
• FTC: and Intellectual Property Law and Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy