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"The preferred document exchange among European Institutions is OOXML", this is the summary of an awful document produced by the "Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics" of the European Institutions. Basically the document says that European bureaucrats use Microsoft Office everywhere on their desktop, and this is not gonna change. Here is the document in full:

Ref. Ares(2011)808658 - 25/07/2011

Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics

Conclusions on document exchange
formats following the discussion on office
automation platforms

The mandate of the Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics (hereafter “CII”)
includes, on the one hand, the exchange of information about the IT policies of the
Institutions represented in it (hereafter “the Institutions”) and, on the other hand, the
identification and encouragement of potential areas of synergy.
In this context, during its meeting held in Brussels on 14 December 2010, the CII held a
discussion about the current situation of, and the future strategies for, the office
automation platforms used by the Institutions, based on a survey distributed ahead of the
meeting and filled in by all the Institutions as well as by 15 additional EU Agencies
(hereafter “the survey”).
In addition, in order to initiate and facilitate the discussion, the Commission delivered a
presentation of its project “Next Office Automation Platform” (NOAP).
The main findings of the survey were the following:

(1) At present, the EU institutions typically run Microsoft-based solutions on the
corporate desktop, as their office productivity suite, on the e-mail platform side,
and on the collaborative platform, although diversity is certainly higher in the
latter.

(2) All respondents indicated their expectation to remain on Microsoft-based
platforms in the office automation realms mentioned above for the foreseeable
future (i.e. for the 2 years to come).

(3) The revisable document formats used at present are mostly Office 2002/2003
formats (84% of replies). The expected prevailing document format for the future
is Office Open XML (68% of replies).

(4) The Internet browser offering is already diversified at present, with a strong OSS
presence (Firefox) alongside Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, and this
offering will become increasingly diversified in the years to come.

The discussion showed the following:
– A decision is due on what how revisable document exchange format should evolve in
the future. Indeed, Microsoft Office 2003 with Office 97 compatibility, the format
currently used for inter-institutional exchanges, as well as the most widely used
internally in the Institutions, is outdated.
– Standards have since been adopted by standardisation bodies in this area, as well as in
the area of non-revisable document formats.

– Irrespective of the migration intentions of each of the Institutions, there is now a high
expectation both internally and externally that document exchange formats should be
based on standards.
Following the discussion held during the meeting, the Institutions agreed that a common
approach to revisable and non-revisable document exchange formats was advisable.
This common approach can be summarised as follows.

1.
Exchanges with the external world.

1.1.
As a general rule, non-revisable document formats should be preferred. In
this area there are two standards, both of which are implemented by a large
variety of viewing tools, including Open Source Software (OSS). The PDF
(ISO/IEC 32000-1:2008) is a widely used official standard. However, for
archiving purposes, the second standard PDF/A (ISO 19005-X) offers some
advantages. It is recommended to use at least one of the two ISO standards
for non-revisable document formats.

1.2.
In cases where documents have to be exchanged using revisable document
formats, the principle to be applied by analogy is the same as when dealing
with multilingualism. Citizens and the Institutions’ partners (e.g. Member
States) should be put at the centre, and the Institutions should take all
appropriate measures to be able to provide them with documents in the
standard format of their choice.
The minimum requirement is to support XML-based revisable document
formats standardised by the International Organization for Standardization,
namely:
– Open Document Format for Office Applications, or ODF (ISO/IEC
26300:2006).
– Office Open XML, or OOXML (ISO/IEC 29500:2008).
In addition, the Institutions are encouraged to support, on a best effort basis,
other widely used document formats.
Whenever multiple formats are supported, equal quality may not be
guaranteed.

2.
Interinstitutional exchanges.
2.1.

As far as non-revisable document formats are concerned, there is no
reason to depart from the format recommended for exchanges with the
external world. Therefore it is recommended to use at least one of the two
ISO standards (ISO/IEC 32000-1:2008 or ISO 19005-X).

2.2.
As far as revisable document formats are concerned, XML-based
international standards are the preferred approach. Given the fact that:

2
– on the one hand, OOXML is much more widely used than ODF at the
moment, and this situation is not likely to evolve in the foreseeable
future; and
– on the other hand, all the Institutions plan to migrate to office automation
platforms which will produce XML files natively while providing 100%
native support for legacy formats such as Office 2003,
the preferred document exchange among the Institutions is OOXML.
2.3.

The guidelines given above should not become an impediment for achieving
even greater administrative efficiency through interinstitutional cooperation. In particular:
– where, for legal or other purposes, a non-revisable document must be
regarded as the official version, the Institutions should, where necessary,
exchange also its revisable version;
– where, for technical reasons, an Institution needs a revisable document in
its native format, the originating Institution should provide it in that
format, in addition to the official exchange format (if different);
– where, for legal or other reasons, a closed group of users is established,
specific arrangements can be made.

The Institutions agreed to take the appropriate measures so that, at the end of their
ongoing or future migration projects, they can implement this common approach in an
efficient and fully synchronised manner.

Groklaw.net has published a detailed complaint from B&N on Microsoft abuse of software patents and market dominance against Android and Linux device manufacturers. We all know that this is the case, but prior deals have been concealed by NDAs. The documents shows how Microsoft is trying to kill free software like GNU/Linux and Android.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, famous for the "one click shopping" patent agree that the market would do better without such patents. Mobile Computing News has an article where Mr.Bezos blame Microsoft of taking full advantage of the broken patent system.

Tim B. Lee at Forbes also notes that the iPhone also suffers from software patents and would do better without them. When Venture Beat asked what Vint Cerf would tell the developer of the Next Big Thing, the technology that could replace the Internet, Cerf said, "Shoot the patent lawyer.".

Yet patent-lawyers claim that we should be happy (ipbrief), when patents are allowed to cover software and business methods. Because patents equals innovation, right?

best,
jonas

FFII was invited by the Swedish justice department to participate in a hearing on ACTA - the question was simply if Sweden should sign an intent to allow EU to sign the criminal measures. Along the ACTA-process we have mostly seen information as leaks from negotiators. Even now after most participants have signed the treaty, some questions are hard to answer even though the treaty is public. Perhaps its because it is so generalized - something that could create a wide set of interpretations. See: EU Council file 12196/11 ACTA EU-memberstates agreement

First of all, EU has decided to add Patents to ACTA, something that the US does not want due to the implications of possibly harder injunctions and damages, as it seems.  Still, our Swedish negotiators and the EU-council seem confident that the agreement won't affect current injunctions and damages wrt patents.

Adding to the equation is the fact that the EU enforcement directive on criminal measures (IPRED-2), has come to a political halt. ACTA is used here as a shortcut, perhaps even with broader regulations, circulating the IPRED2 political process. It will probably even eradicate the need for IPRED2 - now that patents are in ACTA as an option that the EU council will most certainly adopt. Further adding to the EU equation is the setup of an new patent court for EU-wide patents. Such a court would need harmonization.

So whats the difference in interpretation between the US and EU on patents in ACTA?
Will ACTA make patent enforcement harder in EU? If so, how will it affect innovation and growth?

KEI-online on US Patent stance:
http://lists.keionline.org/pipermail/ip-health_lists.keionline.org/2010-October/000440.html

"Additionally, sources said the U.S. likely wants patents excluded from this ACTA section because it could also contradict a separate U.S. law that limits injunctions and damages in the case of an unauthorized use of a patented surgical method during a medical procedure."
EU should perhaps be more concerned here if it wants to stay in control of a very broad set of problems related to patents in different fields? Surgical Methods are not allowed to be patented but such borders have been broken before by the European Patent Office (EPO) - that accept lots of patents that are not supposed to be allowed, at the cost of real innovation and growth.

As it seems, EPO and the new "unified" European Patent Court will be outside EU influence by means of ACTA and EPO.  EPO certainly gets everything it wants.

On the meeting:  Everyone but me seemed fine with the agreement. Some from the attorneys office asked for broader tools, including domain name seizure etc. Not much room for digital rights - as in freedoms.

/jonas
More from FFII on ACTA at http://acta.ffii.org/