How Hartmut Pilch, Avid Computer Geek, Bested Microsoft
Foe of Software Patents,
He Prevailed With Europe;
Next, a Court Battle
BRUSSELS -- A proposal here to create a new European patents court has the support of Microsoft Corp., Siemens AG and many other giants of Western industry. But can it survive an attack from Hartmut Pilch?
A 43-year-old linguist from Munich, Mr. Pilch speaks Chinese, Japanese and an artificial language called Lojban intended to eliminate ambiguity and promoted by some programmers. He is the unlikely leader of a movement of self-styled computer geeks out to sink a patents plan they say would stifle software programmers.
"Patents on software mean any programmer can be sued at any time," says Mr. Pilch, a simultaneous translator who writes computer programs for his own use in his leisure time.
In July last year, heeding appeals posted on the Web site of Mr. Pilch's lobbying group, about 200 programmers descended on the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, waving signs demanding the right to freely exchange computer code. "U.S. Software Patents Go Out," read a banner, in English, held aloft by two young Frenchmen.
The Parliament was poised to approve a law extending American-style software patents to Europe, the most lucrative consumer market outside the U.S. A technology industry group had hired a boat to cruise the river outside Parliament with a banner urging the lawmakers on. The programmers rented canoes and paddled out to the boat to unfurl their own banner: "Software Patents Kill Innovation." The president of the Parliament later called the incident a "naval battle."
The unhappy result for the big technology companies: A panicky Parliament suddenly backed off a law the industry giants had spent several years and millions of euros lobbying to enact. "It was the sheer volume and number of people," said Parliament member Sharon Bowles of Britain, a patent attorney and industry ally. The surprise winners: U.S. software companies Red Hat Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., the only large companies that had taken public stands against the software patents law.
Today, the battle has shifted to an effort to create a special patents court that would handle appeals cases from all over Europe. Companies like Microsoft support the idea in large part because many national courts currently reject software patents, bucking rulings by the European-wide patent office.
Mr. Pilch wants to maintain the antisoftware patent status quo, and so do the European programmers and students who belong to his group, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. Known as FFII, the organization is committed to the idea that basic computer language should be as free as human speech.
Mr. Pilch calls his mission vital to keeping Europe free from the lawsuits over digital rights that he claims increasingly hamper innovation in the U.S. Software around the world already is adequately protected from theft by copyright laws, he says.
Mr. Pilch's opponents liken FFII to a bunch of communists who don't want companies to profit from what they create. "They do sound closer to Karl Marx than Adam Smith," said Mark MacGann, executive director of the European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association, which represents Philips Electronics NV, SAP AG, Microsoft and more than 70 other companies backing software patents.
Mr. Pilch counters: "That's not true. I want to make money, too." He admits, however, that he became so absorbed in lobbying last year that he forgot to bill clients in the small translation business he operates out of a run-down office in Munich.
Mr. Pilch began FFII in 1998, as little more than a Web site. As news spread, he began getting small donations from like-minded programmers and small businesses. His growing cadre of volunteers, however, struggled to remember the Lojban words, such as "Cnino" ("news") and "Penmi" ("events"), that Mr. Pilch used to name FFII email lists.
"It would have been easier just to call them 'news' and 'events,' " says German university student Andre Rebentisch, who helps administer the lists. Still, more than 200 people eventually registered to help maintain FFII's member-edited site.
In 2002, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, proposed the law that drew FFII's ire. It aimed to elevate the European Patent Office and its pro-software patent policies over the national courts. The EU's argument: A simpler, more unified patent system would make Europe's economy more competitive. Mr. Pilch's FFII put out a statement saying the proposal "paves the way to a global control of the information society by multinational -- mostly U.S." technology companies.
In April 2004, as the debate heated up, several hundred FFII demonstrators marched around European Union offices in Brussels in yellow "No Software Patents" T-shirts. They hoisted banners slamming Microsoft. Some demonstrators wore Che Guevara-style berets meant to symbolize a revolution against the Redmond, Wash., company's dominance of software markets. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.
Buoyed by $61,000 in grants from the Open Society Institute, the philanthropy of billionaire George Soros, FFII sent an army of students to lobby EU lawmakers. "Sometimes they would just burst in the door and demand to see you," says Ms. Bowles, the pro-patent member of Parliament. "Some of them didn't seem to understand the concept of making an appointment."
Mr. Pilch spent so much time lobbying that he began showing up exhausted for his day job in Munich. Japanese and Chinese clients were furious, says his Chinese-born wife, Wang Tao. Because he was forgetting to bill for his work, money was tight. The couple's two small children hardly ever saw him. "The marriage almost broke up," Ms. Wang says.
The grass-roots show of force worked. At the 2005 meeting in Strasbourg, pro-industry members of Parliament abandoned the proposed software law. "They produced a whole movement," said German Parliament member Klaus-Heiner Lehne, who led the unsuccessful push for the law. "Industry was sleeping."
FFII has reorganized to fight the proposal for a patent court. Prodded by his wife, Mr. Pilch has ceded day-to-day control of the group to Pieter Hintjens, owner of a small software business. Mr. Hintjens, a Belgian, was elected president at an FFII board meeting and keg party in Brussels last November, which, he says, "lasted until the beer ran out."
In July, the EU held a hearing in Brussels on the new patent court and related proposals. FFII activists packed the room, applauding loudly when speakers criticized the court. His group still is short of cash, Mr. Hintjens says. But he believes the movement has an asset even more vital than money: "a burning, true, almost religious conviction that we are right."
电脑怪才搅乱微软专利梦
有关创办一个新的欧洲专利法庭的提案得到了微软(Microsoft Corp.)、西门子(Siemens AG)以及其它西方工业巨头的支持。但是，它能经受得住来自哈特穆特?皮尔希(Hartmut Pilch)的反击吗？
这位43岁的慕尼黑语言学家会说中文、日文和一种名为Lojban的逻辑语。Lojban旨在消除人类沟通中的模棱两可现象，得到了一些程序员的支持。不可思议的是，正是皮尔希领导一帮电脑怪才发起行动，促使一项他们称将扼杀软件程序员创新精神的专利计划被迫搁浅。
皮尔希说，“软件专利意味着任何程序员在任何时候都有可能被起诉。” 皮尔希同时是一位同声翻译，还常常在业余时间编写一些电脑程序自娱自乐。
去年7月份，大约200名程序员响应皮尔希游说团体网站上的呼吁，突然涌入位于法国斯特拉斯堡的欧洲议会，他们挥舞着要求有权自由交换电脑代码的标语。其中两个法国年轻人高举的一条横幅上用英语写着，“美国软件专利滚出去” 。
当时，欧洲议会即将批准一项法律，将美国式的软件专利扩大至欧洲──美国以外最具商业潜力的消费者市场。某个科技行业团体甚至租用了一条游艇，停泊在议会附近的河上，打着横幅向议员们施加压力。程序员们则租用了小船，划到游艇边上，展示他们自己的标语：“软件专利扼杀创新” 。欧洲议长后来称此次事件为一次“海战”。
结果令一些大型科技公司感到不快：惊慌失措的议会突然退却了，放弃了业内巨头花了好几年、破费了数百万欧元游说议员颁布的软件专利法。“就是因为抗议者呼声太大，人数太多，”来自英国的议员、同时也是专利律师和行业支持者的沙龙?鲍尔斯(Sharon Bowles)说。意想不到的赢家：美国软件公司Red Hat Inc.和Sun电子计算机公司(Sun Microsystems Inc., 又名：升阳微电脑)，它们是仅有的两家公然反对软件专利法的大公司。
今天，矛头指向了创建一个特殊专利法庭、受理来自欧洲各地申诉案件的行动上。微软等公司对这个想法表示支持，很大程度上是因为许多国家的法院目前并不承认软件专利，与欧洲专利局的裁定背道而驰。
皮尔希希望维持不承认软件专利的现状，他为此成立的团体──自由信息架构基金会(Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure，简称FFII)的诸多欧洲程序员和学生会员也抱着同样的想法。FFII的宗旨是：基础电脑语言应当像人类的语言一样得到自由交流。
皮尔希认为，他的使命对于保护欧洲免受数字版权诉讼之害至关重要。皮尔希称，正是数字版权诉讼在日益阻碍着美国的创新。他说，在保护全球软件免受盗版侵扰方面，有版权法的震慑就已足够。
皮尔希的反对者将FFII比作一群不愿让企业通过创作赚钱的共产主义者。“他们听起来更象卡尔?马克思(Karl Marx)，而不是亚当?斯密(Adam Smith)，”欧洲信息和通信技术行业协会(European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association)会长马克?麦甘(Mark MacGann)说。该协会代表皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司(Philips Electronics NV)、SAP AG、微软和其它70多家支持软件专利法的企业。
皮尔希反驳道，“并不是这样。我也想挣钱。”不过他承认，去年他有一度太专注于游说工作，以至于他在慕尼黑开的那家小翻译公司忘了给客户开帐单。
皮尔希于1998年成立FFII，当时不过是一个网站。随着知名度的提升，他开始收到一些志同道合的程序员和小企业的小笔捐助。不过，队伍不断增加的志愿者们却很难记住皮尔希用来给FFII电子邮件名单命名的逻辑语，如“Cnino”（“新闻”） 和“Penmi”（“事件”）等。
“其实，就叫‘新闻’、‘事件’倒更容易理解，”来自德国的大学生Andre Rebentisch说，他协助皮尔希管理这些名单。尽管如此，最终有200多人报名协助维护FFII的会员编辑网站。
2002年，欧盟的执行机构欧盟委员会(European Commission)提出一项法案，它立即受到了FFII的抨击。欧盟委员会想把欧洲专利局及其对软件专利的支持政策凌驾于各国法院的裁决之上。欧盟认为，一个更简单、更一体化的专利体系将使欧洲经济更具竞争力。为此，皮尔希的FFII刊登了一份声明，称这项提案“为跨国──大多数为美国──科技企业在全球范围内控制信息社会铺平了道路。”
2004年4月，随着辩论的升温，几百名FFII示威者聚集在布鲁塞尔的欧盟办公室附近举行游行，他们身穿印有“不要软件专利”字样的T恤衫，高举抨击微软的标语。一些示威者头戴格瓦拉(Che Guevara)式的贝雷帽，意思是要对微软在软件市场的主导地位发起革命。微软的一位发言人拒绝对此发表评论。
FFII后来收到亿万富豪乔治?索罗斯(George Soros)的慈善机构开放社会学院(Open Society Institute)价值61,000美元的捐款，更是大受鼓舞，他们旋即派出大批学生游说欧盟议员。支持软件专利的议员鲍尔斯说，“有时侯，他们干脆就突然闯进来，要求见你。”“他们中的有些人似乎根本不理解预约这个概念。”
皮尔希花在游说上的时间太多了，他开始很难顾及自己在慕尼黑的日常工作。他的中国妻子王涛（音译）说，日本和中国的客户曾经勃然大怒。由于皮尔希总是忘记开帐单，因此经济上也很拮 。两个还年幼的孩子几乎都没见过他。“我们的婚姻几乎破裂了，” 王涛说。
大众的力量终于起作用了。在斯特拉斯堡2005年的会议上，欧洲议会中的亲行业议员放弃了软件专利法提案。推动软件专利法的德国议员克劳斯-海纳?林(Klaus-Heiner Lehne)说，“他们实在是声势浩大，软件行业简直偃旗息鼓了。”
为了抗击专利法庭的提案，FFII进行了改组。在妻子的压力下，皮尔希放弃了基金会的日常管理工作，而把它交由小软件企业主皮特?亨特金斯(Pieter Hintjens)负责。亨特金斯是比利时人，去年11月，他在FFII董事会会议暨啤酒狂饮会上当选为基金会主席。
今年7月份，欧盟就新的专利法庭及相关提案举行了听证会。FFII的积极分子挤满了会场，一听到演讲者批评专利法庭他们就大声喝彩。亨特金斯说，FFII仍然很缺钱。但是他相信，他们的行动有着金钱无法衡量的价值：“这是一种热烈、真诚、几乎是宗教式的信仰：我们是对的。”
逻辑语
逻辑语(Lojban)是一种人工语言，旨在消除人类沟通中的模棱两可现象，它在电脑程序员中有一群忠实的追捧者。下面就是一些皮尔希用来为他的游说团体网站编程的逻辑语及其含义：
gacri意为cover ，gasnu意为do，girzu意为group， jarco意为show；minra意为reflect；papri意为paper； preti意为question；sarji意为support；stidi意为suggest；vecnu意为sell；vreji意为record；xatra意为letter。
Mary Jacoby
