I just read Björn Schotte's post on the activities of the European Union antitrust regulators concerning the intended takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle.

Björn mentions a news article that cites EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes saying that the commission has the obligation to protect the customers from reduced choice, higher costs or both. But to me, this bit is not the most interesting. Later on the article reads:


The Commission said it was concerned that the open source nature of Sun's MySQL database might not …

Jan Wildeboer pointed us to the Mayflower post about their letter from the European Commission.

It seems like the the European Commision , more specifically the Directorate General for Competition , really is interested in our input regarding the matter, I mailed them and also got a questionnaire to fill in.

So if you have something interesting to tell them don't hesitate to contact them too.

Technorati Tags: eu mysql orace …

Following a promotion at the registry. We will be offering .EU domain creations for €4 excl. VAT instead of €12 excl. VAT. This sale will last until August 31st and does not concern renewals or transfers.

Sun and Sourcefire report Q3 results. SpringSource elected to JCP executive committee. Alfresco launches Enterprise 3.0. How to go from 0 to 700 customers in one year. Open sourcing Jonathan Schwartz’s ponytail. And more.

Press releases
Sun Microsystems Reports Final Results for the First Quarter Fiscal Year 2009 Sun Microsystems

Sourcefire Announces 2008 Third Quarter Results Sourcefire

Sourcefire Adopts Stockholder Rights Plan Sourcefire

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Yesterday three groups in the European Parliament (PES, Greens/EFA, GUE/NGL) announced their motion for a resolution on patent policy. I published their press release earlier today on this Web site.

In parallel, the Independence/Democracy group in the European Parliament (commonly abbreviated as ID or IND/DEM) filed this motion for a resolution on patent policy. The motion was put forward by Tom Wise, an MEP from the UK Independence Party who spoke out in strong terms against the software patent directive.

The ID motion is materially consistent with the motion of PES, …

Three groups in the European Parliament (i.e., international-level parties) yesterday authorized me to distribute the press release below to my media contacts:

European patent controversy heating up again

PES, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups in European Parliament file motion for resolution — Proposal calls for “balance between the interests of patent holders and the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets” — Commissioner McCreevy’s preference, the EPLA, is seen as weakening EU democracy, increasing litigation costs and “exposing SMEs to greater risks” ? McCreevy to speak in parliament next week, vote to take place in mid-October

On Friday, EU internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy (whose historical ties with Microsoft and similar companies are mentioned in my book) delivered this speech on his intellectual property rights (IPR) strategy. He flew all the way up to Helsinki for an informal meeting of the ECOFIN (economic & finance) Council of the European Union.

In his speech, he said the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) “is a goal worth pursuing” and that he wanted to involve the EU in the EPLA negotiations “and bring them to finality”. He falsely claims that the EPLA would “offer valuable cost savings”: even Nokia and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline have already pointed out …

I fixed a couple of typos in my book No Lobbyists As Such - The War over Software Patents in the European Union. Thanks to Marco Menardi for having pointed me to those typos.

I have previously reported in this blog how certain European politicians and patent bureaucrats are trying, once again, to give software patents a stronger legal basis in Europe. On 12 July, the European Commission held a public hearing in Brussels, and the European Parliament is shooting for a vote on a patent policy resolution toward the end of this month.

If you’d like to know why the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) is, among other bad things, a road to software patents, please have a look at this two-page diagram (PDF file). And if you’re subsequently interested in some more background information and facts, this three-page briefing document (PDF) makes some additional reading. If you’re …

As I explained in this blog, it’s always a difficult decision for me to keep postponing my own project in order to work on the patent policy front. But once again, like so many times before, I have decided to do so for some more time. Given what happened at the July 12 hearing, there are some important things to do right away. I’ll talk a little more about my personal future on some other occasion, but suffice it to say that I’m still actively involved in the European patent policy debate!