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Intellectual Property

Against the backdrop of digitalisation and the ease of sharing of information provided by global networking, legal instruments regulating Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) need to be adapted to ensure they continue to spur economic and cultural growth without compromise to human and constitutional rights.


 

OFE defends the idea that computer programs should be protected by copyright, not patent law.

In the context of standards development, we believe in the need for a balanced approach towards inclusion of patented technology. In general, in the area of software interoperability, the world wide web and other technology areas have shown that Open Standards which are available royalty free – and largely restriction free – have had the most positive effects on boosting innovation. Therefore, OFE is a strong supporter of open standards for software interoperability and recognises its importance for the FOSS ecosystem.

In the context of Open Source, we work to protect Open Source development and sharing platforms from regulatory risk from platform regulation, to protect permissive licenses in the context of the European IP frameworks and to guard the Open Source Definition from being watered down.