11 Dec 2012 - the European Parliament committed suicide as a legislator in patent law. Captive patent courts will now validate EU-wide software patents without the need of a debate in Parliament(s).

On Document Freedom Day 2012 (March 28th) Internet company 1&1 was awarded for offering an open standards based and interoperable chat application to their customers. (More info)

FFII supports the EU Hackathon The Hack4Transparency event will take place from Tuesday 8 to Wednesday 9 November 2011 and will be the first-ever ‘hackathon’ within the European Parliament.

On Document Freedom Day 2011 (March 30th) tagesschau.de was awarded by FSFE and FFII for making their programs available in the open video format "Ogg Theora". (More info)

In a confidential manner the EU, US and Japan negotiate an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). No official drafts are published. ACTA will contain a new international benchmark for legal frameworks on the enforcement of copyrights, trade mark rights, patents and others. FFII ACTA WG presents an analysis of the planned Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Please follow our ACTA blog for the latest developments.

FFII analyses a new European Interoperability Framework 2.0 Draft. FFII explains why a release in its current form would undermine interoperability enforcement. The new draft is a follow-up to a famous earlier document 1.0 with a strong emphasis on genuine open standards (and open source). The FFII makes 10 recommendations on how to improve the EIF 2.0.

New European petition to stop software patents: With support the FFII and others, software developers launched a petition in 28 languages to stop software patents and protect European innovators. It requests legislative clarifications to clear out the legal uncertainty and imbalances created by software patents. We encourage you to sign the petition,

Bilski case at the Supreme Court: The FFII and IP Justice filed a joint Amicus Curiae Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case Bilski v. Kappos is expected to become a landmark ruling on the future of the U.S. patent system. Our Brief explains the dangers of software and business methods, the interlink between both, and points out alternatives to the so called Machine-or-Transformation test used for categorizing patents. Copies of our Brief were provided to each of the Justices and to a large number of depositories around the US. Bilski v. Kappos is considered the single most important decision worldwide on the issue of patents on business methods, software and algorithms since the rejection of the EU Software Patents Directive. Read more.

EPO Referral on the question of software patents. Interested parties were invited to file statements - Amicus Briefs - to the EPO Enlarged Board Of Appeal. The FFII created a working group to contribute to the referral, and a dedicated staff team worked full time on this issue. The FFII submitted a statement, helped other players and raised awareness to many affected corporations about the Referral. More than 89 statements have been published by the EPO Register. Find out more about the G3-08 Referral.