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Italy: Patent application upsets EU

01 January 2000

Italy has registered its opposition to a patent application for a telephone-tapping system by KPN (Royal Dutch Telecom) that could have massive financial implications for the proposed EU-FBI global interception system (see Statewatch vol 7 nos 1, 4 & 5; vol 8 nos 5 & 6; vol 9 nos 2 & 6). The Institute for Communications and Information Technology, part of the Italian Ministry of Communications, has said that the invention, filed at the European Patent Office (EPO, Munich) in April 1996, lacks novelty. Through the EU's Police Cooperation Working Party Italy hopes to foster European wide opposition to the grant of the patent. Their delegation "stressed that the scope of the patent was so wide and discussed in such terms that it covered the entire content of the EU Council Resolution of 17 January 1995, which describes in detail all the features which telecommunications interception systems must have if they are to be used by the police". The Resolution, drawn up with the American FBI and other western nations, paves the way for an international interception system. Germany had also addressed the patent application during their Presidency of the EU (first half of 1999), suggesting that EPO approval would mean that any other company introducing a similar system in the European "sphere" would face increased costs arising from the intellectual property rights "with a knock on effect for the judicial and police authorities requiring the interception". Italy has asserted that the KPN system is described in such general terms that it can be compared to the automatic switching systems used by authorities in Italy as early as 1992.

Patent Application for a telecommunications interception system PCT/EP96/01611 filed by the Dutch company KPN, NOTE from Italian delegation to Police Cooperation Working Party, 12032/99 ENFOPOL 67, 21 October 1999.