foundation for a free information infrastructure

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure or FFII is a lobbying association based in Munich, Germany, and strongly against software patents. FFII initially took emphasis on electronic data processing as well as language and writing. FFII's view is that software patents created a mess in the United States, and, for many years now, FFII has been committed to "sparing the economy of the European Union the same mess". FFII has been active on this front at least since 2000 when an attempt to change the European Patent Convention to legitimize software patents failed. In 2003, it strongly lobbied the European Parliament against the proposed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. FFII is the leading European NGO on this issue. Through its partnership with many other European organisations with the same goal, it has a reach across all nations of the EU. FFII is supported e.g. by some SME, many software developers, some software users, some system administrators, some scientists, some academics and some economists. FFII represents (as of March 2004):

more than 20.000 registered members
more than 1.200 companies
more than 2.000 CEOs of SMEs
more than 50.000 of them European supporters (about 75.000 worldwide)
more than 300.000 signatures for a software-patent free Europe.

FFII organises Conferences against patenting of software in Brussels, Belgium, at least once a year, the last one took place on April 14, 2004 (see external link for details).