Astonishing UK cabinet office blog post on round table

The UK cabinet office washes its dirty laundry in the open. They accuse the facilitator of their controversial round table on open standards, Dr. Hopkirk, of a conflict of interest: an advisory role for an American software manufacturer which is an outspoken opponent of open standard policies.

This could be seen as a clear conflict of interest and should have been declared by the relevant parties at that meeting. For this reason any outcomes from the original roundtable discussion will be discounted in the consultation responses and we will rerun that session and give time for people to prepare for it.

Observers noticed a lack of transparency and “naivity” of Dr. Hopkirk.

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Public Sector Information consultation

The European Union finances the ePSIplus plattform to cast light on Public Sector information in the member states and how it can be used. The now ask for your impressions how you like their web site:

Dear Colleagues,

The European Public Sector Information Platform ePSIplatform (http://www.epsiplatform.eu), funded under the European Commission’s eContentplus programme (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/index_en.htm), is operational from March 2009 to February 2011.

The ePSIplatform web portal is an online resource for all of Europe. It is ‘Europe’s One-Stop Shop on Public Sector Information (PSI) Re-use’ – ‘Working to Stimulate PSI Re-use’.

At this point the European Commission (Twitter @infsoe4 – http://twitter.com/infsoe4) has initiated an online survey about the ePSIplatform web portal. The purpose of the survey is collect feedback and ideas to further develop the web portal to make it a relevant and useful resource for European PSI and open data communities.

The ePSIplatform team encourages you to take a few minutes to complete the short survey. It is your opportunity to contribute the development of the ePSIplatform web portal, in the short and long term.

* Your comments, ideas and suggestions will be welcome and appreciated.

Access the online Survey – http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=ePSIplatform

The online survey:
* Short – only takes a few minutes to complete
* Requires no personal data or registration
* All responses are anonymous

The European Commission’s PSI Web Portal (what’s new section) announcement (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm) about the survey states:

“1 June 2010 – The Commission published a survey http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=ePSIplatform to identify the
strengths and weaknesses of the ePSIplatform portal (http://www.epsiplatform.eu)in the light of a possible follow up to the service. The questionnaire requires neither personal data nor registration, and is completely anonymous. The survey will end on 18 June 2010. The ePSIplatform portal was launched in February 2009. Its aim is to stimulate action, report developments and monitor progress towards a stronger and more transparent environment for the growth of PSI re-use.”

Please pass this message about the survey on to your colleagues and networks.

Contributions of news and content are welcome and can be submitted to the European PSI Platform team for publishing:info@epsiplatform.eu.

Kind Regards,

Robert Davies
Co-ordinator, ePSIplatform
Follow us on Twitter @ePSIplatform (http://twitter.com/epsiplatform)

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Creative interpretation at the European Patent Office

The spin machine of the European Patent Office in Munich in full motion. Its Enlarged Board of Appeal declared the referred questions of EPO-President Alison Brimelow inadmissible. A court would stop here but the EBoA is no Court but just an administrative appeals chamber and not bound by judicial standards, so they also discuss the substance. Whatever Rorschach interpretation you may get from the actual 56 pages(!) document, it is not what Rainer Osterwalder made up, contradiction ahead:

PRESS RELEASE

Enlarged Board of Appeal confirms EPO approach to computer programs

Munich, 12 May 2010 — Today the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO handed down its opinion on referral G 3/08, taking the opportunity to set out and confirm the approach of the EPO regarding the patentability of computer programs under the European Patent Convention (EPC).

The opinion relates to four questions referred to the Enlarged Board in October 2008 by the President of the EPO concerning points of law of fundamental importance for the Office’s patenting practice in this field.

The Enlarged Board analysed in detail the development of relevant case law, and found that there was a divergence between two decisions of Technical Boards of Appeal. However, recognising that the “case law in new legal and/or technical fields does not always develop in linear fashion, and that earlier approaches may be abandoned or modified”, the Enlarged Board found that this constituted a legitimate development rather than a conflict of case law.

In the absence of conflicting Board of Appeal decisions, the Enlarged Board concluded that the legal requirements for a referral were not met. Nevertheless, the Board affirmed the right of the President of  the EPO to “make full use of the discretion granted by Article 112(1)(b) EPC” in making a referral, and provided further guidance on how these requirements for such a referral should be interpreted.

For more information, please contact:
Rainer Osterwalder
Press spokesman
+49(0) 89 2399-1820
+49(0) 163 8399527
press@epo.org
http://www.epo.org/press

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Europe 2020 consultation responses

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT
Europe 2020 – public consultation
Overview of responses

…the Commission has in total received around 1400 contributions1 from a very wide range of interested parties coming from virtually all EU Member States and their regions and from a number of non-EU stakeholders and countries. All Member States’ governments, 2 national parliaments, 8 EU and national political parties, 30 ministries or governmental agencies, 148 regional public authorities, 10 EU-level bodies, 45 trade union organisations from both the EU and national levels, 232 EU and national business and professional federations, 51 individual companies, 190 NGOs, 54 ‘think tanks’, 32 representatives of the academic community, 10 consumer organisations and also around 500 citizens responded. All contributions can be accessed at http://ec.europa.eu/eu2020.

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EU Consultation on universal service principles in e-communications

The European Commission,

DG Information Society and Media has launched a public consultation on future universal service principles in the area of electronic communications networks and services. … This consultation is part of the European Commission’s follow-up to its Declaration on universal service to the European Parliament in the context of the negotiation of the ‘Telecom Package’ in 2009 and the second periodic review of the scope of universal service in 2008 (COM(2008) 572).

The aim is to facilitate an open-ended and wide ranging public debate relating to the place of universal service provision in electronic communications in a competitive and rapidly-evolving digital environment. The consultation is facilitated by a questionnaire which sets out the key areas for discussion.

For your contributions:

• Questionaire
• Background

What is a Universal Service?

Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country.

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