The Companies that form the Economic Majority
Studies and statistics show: Most companies only stand to lose from software patents
Small and Medium Enterprises are the backbone of the digital economy, accounting for more than 70% of the jobs and taxes in Germany, with an upward trend.
Economic studies have shown that the patent system in general is of questionable value as an instrument for promoting innovation, and that software patents in particular are dreaded by most players in the field.
A recent German survey shows that most players, including large software companies, expect far more disadvantages than advantages from software patentability.
The patent statistics themselves show a strong concentration of patents in the hands of a few large corporations, particularly from the US and Japan. These corporations cross-license their portfolios to one another and create cartels to exclude smaller players.
The Eurolinux Petition has collected 400,000 signatures, among them more than 3000 of software company CEOs. It is the largest number ever to have been gathered by a petition on an IT policy related subject.
SME Associations
In its current form, the directive would be damaging for SMEs. 
— Hans-Werner Müller, UEAPME Secretary General
The major European SME associations have expressed opinions similar to ours.
- CEA-PME position on 1st reading (The alliance of associations behind this statement represents 1.5 million member SMEs)
- UEAPME: new proposal needed (UEAPME represents 10 million SMEs)
There are also some regional initiatives of SMEs that are specifically dedicated to the software patent issue.
Other Associations
Several big national industry associations, such as PRO and PIIT from Poland, ASSOFT from Portugal, ISZV from Hungary, SEPE from Greece, KODA from Slovenia and others have taken a strong stand against software patents, in line with our position. In other cases associations were unable to adopt a unified position due to a split between the majority of members and those members who pay most of the fees and dominate the work in the patent law committees.
In big industry associations such as EICTA and UNICE, positions on software patents tend to be formed by IP committees consisting of patent lawyers from large corporations. The opinions of other committees and smaller members are regularly ignored. Often it is even questionable whether the corporate patent lawyers are faithfully representing their own companies' interests.
The main argument of UNICE and EICTA has consisted in false claims of representing "industry". This includes listing member associations and companies as being in support of their campaign site but which have expressed opposite views, and sending dependent SMEs as their mouthpieces to the European Parliament.
Testimonies
- Why the Economic Majority is more Innovative without Patents (collection of testimonies from our supporters)
- ProtectInnovation.org (collection of testimonies mainly from UK companies)
- patentfrei.de (partially building on the testimonies of this site)
- Quotes on Software Patents (includes a section with quotes from mostly large and well-known software companies)
- Testimonies collected by Fulda LUG (German, mainly from Linux users who are running small businesses in the Fulda region)
- ESR Pollmeier on Software Patents (Precise and detailed analysis by a company that provides automotive control systems)
If you know of other company testimony pages which should be listed here, please enter them in the FFII Quotes Wiki page or contact us.