Anti-Patent Campaigners of FFII Suggest that OHIM Should be in Charge of Coming EU Patent (Updated)

Former FFII President H Pilch and R Stallman protest against software patents in Munich After years of fruitless debates on possible language regimes of a EU patent system, a qualified majority of EU members is about to agree on enhanced cooperation to at least establish a 'small version' EU Patent (without Spain, Italy and a handful of others) based on a legislative proposal of the EU Commission. That's the moment in history when the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), which has become widely known for their emphatic resistance against the EU Software Patent Directive (COM (2002) 92) in 2002 to 2005, comes up with the idea that the EU Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) should be in charge of the coming EU patent rather than the more independent European Patent Office (EPO), since the FFII deeply suspects EPO "for granting of software patents without a prior legislative authorisation". In reply to a proposal for using enhanced cooperation of JURI committee chairman Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP), which has meanwhile been accepted by the committee, FFII suggested in an open letter sent to MEPs on 19 January 2011: "Enhanced Cooperation" is the saddest road to choose from an European integration perspective. Everything should be tried to avoid an European Union with member states on different speed lanes and to get a real European solution. Europe is not only about German industry needs. [...] The proposal [...] leaves an elephant in the room completely untouched. Without a consideration of alternatives or an impact assessment the European Patent Organisation (EPO) [...] would be tasked with examination. A strong role for the EPO makes the EU yield any governance influence over its Unitary Patent. [...] Pro forma the Unitary Patent should be managed by an EU institution with the actual administrative work distributed to specialists (at the EPO etc.) on EU terms. The Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market (OHIM) in Alicante (Spain) [...] looks ideal to govern the European or national patent offices [...]. A role for the EU institution in Spain would also unblock Spanish opposition to an actual Community Patent. So the FFII's mistrust against their old opponents from the days of the battle over the Software Patent Directive, i.e. the EPO and the EU Commission, is still a vital driving force. The strategy is clear: The two major weaknesses of the proposed EU patent in the eyes of FFII - namely the lack of unanimity ("saddest road") and the central legislative role of the EPO and its Boards of Appeal ("yield any governance influence") - could be overcome by one single stroke of genius: installing OHIM as a supervising EU patent authority, which, according to FFII plans, would firstly convince Spain to support the EU patent (but what will be offered to Italy?) and secondly degrade the EPO and its 'illegal' software patent legislation to an administrative role in which …