froscon2009 - 1.0

FrOSCon
Free and Open Source Software Conference

Georg Jakob

Georg Jakob is a lawyer, researcher and former University teacher on patent and copyright law and is currently leading the FFII's appeal against Amazon's gift ordering patent and has written the FFII's Amicus Curiae Brief within the Referral G3/08.

Georg Jakob is a lawyer and an active critic of the over-abundance of so called "intellectual property rights" in general and Software patents in particular. From 2003 on, he was repeatedly invited to hearings in the European parliament regarding Software Patents as well as Copyright, Rights Enforcement and other Industrial Property issues.

He has been working as a researcher at the University of Salzburg from 1999-2003 where he also was lecturing from 2000-2003. In 2003, he was lecturing Copyright, Patent and Telecommunications Law at the University of Milan - Bicocca, Italy. From 2004-2205 he held a Marie-Curie Fellowship within the research project "Fundamental Rights and Private Law in the European Union" at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, Italy. From 2006-2008, he was a board member of FFII e.V. He has also led a series of freelance research projects, e.g. on Digital Film Distribution in Europe and been counceling various institutions on patent policy, Free Software and related issues.

He is currently representing the FFII e.V. before the European Patent Office in the opposition against Amazon.com's gift ordering patent EP0927945 (the European variant of the infamous one-click patent in the US), which had been revoked in December 2007 (that decision is currently being appealed by Amazon). He is wrote the statement on behalf of the FFII within the recent referral G3/08 of the questions on the patentability of Software to the Enlarged Board of Appeals of the EPA. As of recent, he has also been involved in the criticism of patents on life, especially the patenting of conventionally bred animals and plants.

A detailed list of publications can be found at http://www.users.sbg.ac.at/~jack/legal.htm

The FFII Amicus Curiae Brief can is available at http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponet.nsf/0/C70567B9B4A0C809C12575AC0052D3DA/$File/G3-08amicuscuriaebriefFFII_de.pdf