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European software patent update

January 28, 2005

This article was contributed by Tom Chance.

On 24 September 2003, after 19 months of consideration, the European Parliament voted on the software patent directive, and made substantial amendments to exclude patents on pure software and business methods. However, regular rows between the European Council and Parliament; the Council ignoring many of the Parliaments amendments; and the Committee for Legal Affairs of the European Parliament's (JURI) subterfuge tactics to try and push it through, mean that pure software patents in Europe are still a scary possibility

Restart the process?

Under the co-decision rules for European lawmaking, the European Parliament, Commission and the Council all have to agree to the text of the directive before it can come into force. However at this stage in the legislative process (it is now at its second reading), if the European Council continues to ignore the Parliament's amendments, it will be extremely difficult for the European Parliament to keep them.

An absolute majority (two thirds of all MEPs, or at least 367 votes) is required in a second reading for each Council amendment the Parliament wishes to reject. Every MEP absent in the plenary chamber that day and every abstention vote would count in favor of the Council proposal. In 2004, the University of Duisburg-Essen released a study which showed that on average only 56.2% of Italian MEPs took part in the 4,437 roll call votes held in European Parliament between 1999 and 2003. The most diligent MEPs are from Luxembourg with a presence of 85.2%. We would, in other words, have to encourage an abnormally high turnout of MEPs for an issue that struggles to capture their imaginations.

This is even more worrying when you consider that a majority of the MEPs currently in parliament were elected in 2004 and did not even participate in the first reading of the directive. Ten new countries, with no previous say in the directive, also joined the EU in 2004. If the council position is officially announced, the Parliament will be forced to vote on the second reading within three to four months. This would give a relatively new Parliament little opportunity for discussion and consultation, and could lead to software patent loopholes if critical amendments were left out.

On the 2nd of February, JURI is set to decide whether or not to restart the procedure. This decision has only been possible because of a motion, signed by 61 members of the European Parliament, calling for a new first reading of the software patent directive. Poland has also helped significantly by repeatedly postponing the adoption of the Council's software patent agreement, but can only do this for so long before other states pressure them on issues more important to the Polish economy.

A complete restart is one of the best (and only) feasible solutions left. As there are no absolute majority requirements in first readings, it would be easier for European Parliament to pass amendments. The Council would have to have a new first reading, canceling their current pro-software patent position and putting pressure on them to avoid adopting a similar stance so contrary to the will of Parliament. A restart would also enable new member states to have their say from the beginning, making it a more democratic directive.

What can you do?

The only reason we don't have software patents in Europe is because of the efforts of activists protesting and lobbying against them. In Europe, according to the European Patent Office, already 7% of applicants hold more than 50% of patents. If we don't want to go down a path whereby a start-up or open source company with no patents will be forced to pay whatever price larger corporations choose to impose, we must get out there and fight to stop it happening. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • Help spread the word about software patents by joining the Web Demo. Register your site at http://demo.ffii.org/.

  • Contact a member of JURI with your concerns about software patents and your support for a restart of the software patent directive. The JURI committee has members from many different European member states, and these MEPs are best contacted by people from their own countries, since they will be much more likely to respond and raise your concerns within JURI. Find your MEPs here.

  • Contact your local MEPs to lobby members of JURI on your behalf. If you don't have time to seriously lobby a member of JURI, get your local MEP to do it for you. MEPs are supposed to represent their constituents, so let them help you get your message across. Find out who they are here.

  • Visit European Parliament in Brussels to lobby MEPs (especially the JURI committee) about software patents. Ask for more information on this mailing list.

  • If you are too busy to do any of the above, you might consider donating to organizations like the FFII and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who are trying to ensure that software patent legislation is compatible with small and medium enterprises as well as free or open source software. Large software companies employ people to do nothing but patent lobbying, so we need to support those people who are opposing them as much as possible.

(Edward Griffith-Jones contributed to the writing of this article).

Index entries for this article
GuestArticlesChance, Tom


to post comments

European software patent update

Posted Jan 28, 2005 18:16 UTC (Fri) by bjlucier (subscriber, #5281) [Link] (5 responses)

This should be a free article.

European software patent update

Posted Jan 28, 2005 18:23 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

Jon, I have to concur. Due to the timely nature - action required on Monday - it would be helpful to unset the subscribers-only flag on this article.

Thanks

Bruce

European software patent update

Posted Jan 28, 2005 20:21 UTC (Fri) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

Agreed, and as I just verified, it is. By the way, has everybody signed the "Thank Poland" web letter?

http://thankpoland.info/

Regards,

Daniel

SOFTWARE PATENTS ARE NEEDED

Posted Jan 31, 2005 11:33 UTC (Mon) by Smokeskull (guest, #27580) [Link] (2 responses)

The GPL is about giving away software that you write, not about stealing other people's work.

Come on now people. You expect to gain respect for the Linux community by supporting anarchy and theft? Not good.

Lets face it. This whole idea that no patents should be allowed is predicated by the fact that Linux is a hodgepodge of stolen source code. Don't kid yourselves. There is no moral high ground or higher purpose here. It is plain old "I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar, now I need to lie my way out of it".

SOFTWARE PATENTS ARE NEEDED

Posted Jan 31, 2005 14:16 UTC (Mon) by rmt (guest, #27583) [Link]

You are in violation of my patent on the process of trolling on web forums (EU-65783). You have no right to troll on web forums without purchasing a license from me. You are a thief and an anarchist.

you mean COPYRIGHT is needed

Posted Feb 5, 2005 11:17 UTC (Sat) by raboofje (guest, #26972) [Link]

Patents are not intented to fight stealing source code - that's what Copyright is for. Stealing source code is sufficiently protected.

Patents are supposed to protect innovative ideas (not code). If you have a patent on an idea, no-one else may commercialize that idea, even if he invented it independently.

That's why patents should only be granted on non-trivial ideas for a limited period of time. Personally I basically agree that software-ideas should be patentable in some situations, but the current text allows too much misuse.

European software patent update

Posted Jan 28, 2005 23:49 UTC (Fri) by wladek (guest, #1071) [Link]

In fact we still have two possibilities: restart or to reopen the debate in Council followed by new voting. The latter could be better because restart takes more time to reasonable version of directive and IMHO good law is better than no law.

During last three months the only Poland acted against the Directive, both in Council and in Parliament - restart motion was joined initiative by Jerzy Buzek (former prime minister from christian democratic party) and Adam Gierek (from far-left Labour Union; he is a son of former gensek).

In last weeks parliaments of Austria, Belgium, Danemark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Latvija and Slovakia requested an effective actions against proposed directive from their governments. If you are from one of those countries please let know your goverment that lack of activity means no care about your own freedom and prosperity. Also citizens of Spain - the only european country which voted against the proposed version of directive in Council in May 2004 - should ask their government for more active efforts to request a new voting in council.

Also position of majority of Members of European Parliament is not decided yet. We still need to convince leaders of both biggest europarties: christian democrats and socialists. Both are divided internally and unable to act consistently during procedxural meetings. Same can be said about liberals from ALDE. Both Greens and nationalists from Union of European Nations are mostly against swpats for very different reasons but the leading parties are not eager to vote along with them.

Please write to MEPs from your country and make them aware that your support for them depends of their activity on this issue. We need public opinion in all european countries united and vocal about this issue - it is how the firm position of goverment of Poland was secured and sustained.

Even last week's open letter from Siemens and Nokia to our prime Minister with clear suggestions of economic sanctions against Poland was not only rejected by both government and public opinion but helped us by openly showing who, why and how fights for swpats.

Changing French position

Posted Jan 29, 2005 14:41 UTC (Sat) by ecureuil (guest, #3507) [Link]

The French FFII chapter was auditioned last week by a French Parliament Commission and lobbyied for a reconsideration of the French Government position on the actual Patent directive. The French Government position was decided by the French patent office (INPI) an arm of the Ministry of Industry.

The French FFII is trying to push for a creation of an interministerial committee on the question that would mean that the decision process would be made more by the politicians and less by the technocrats of the Patent Office. There was a political consensus within the members of the commission that it was the way to go but a parliamentary commission in France does not have a lot of power and certainly not the power to block the executive.

On the political level, Jacques Chirac and Patrick Devedjian (the Industry minister) have been more or less pro-Open Source (or at least left the door open) and they would certainly not go against a popular movement like the FFII managed to raise. Will Patrick Devedjian have the courage to go against its administration ?

http://www.ffii.fr/audition_devant_groupe_etudes_internet...

European software patent update

Posted Jan 29, 2005 15:15 UTC (Sat) by rankincj (guest, #4865) [Link] (1 responses)

What does the existing directive have to say about large (e.g.) U.S. corporations who wish to enforce their home-grown software patents in Europe? Would they have to resubmit their thousands of patents for "proper review" ("Technical contribution? Good. Next!") or would it be a more blatant kind of rubber-stamping?

European software patent update

Posted Jan 30, 2005 23:51 UTC (Sun) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

The process for approval of patents is a bureaucratic procedure and can be modified without reference to the European Parliament. You can expect the US administration to tie the wholesale recognition by the EU of US patents to a future EU-US trade negotiation. Just as the US has recently done with Australia as part of the AUSFTA, and hopes to do in the forthcoming negotiations with China.

Not in the 2nd Feb agenda?

Posted Jan 30, 2005 20:57 UTC (Sun) by serzan (subscriber, #8155) [Link]

I couldn't find any reference to the software patents directive within the
JURI's 2nd Feb agenda [1]. Am I missing something?

PS. Greek readers may sign against software patents at
http://noepatents.gr and visit http://epatents.hellug.gr for relevant news
(in Greek).

[1]
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep/owa/p_calag.oj?ipid=0&...

Thanks,
Serafeim

JURI has voted to restart the process

Posted Feb 3, 2005 6:53 UTC (Thu) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

I just got this email from Piia-Noora Kauppi, Conservative MEP and delegate in the JURI. Freely translated from Finnish, I'm unsure of what some of the things should be called in English, but most of you wouldn't know anyway:

**********

Hi

[This committee she's in] (JURI) has today decided, based on article 55.1 in the bylaws, to ask for a new first reading of the [software patent directive]. The decision was supported by a strong majority and by all the significant political groups. Before deciding on it's position, the committee had discussed with [internal affairs] commissionaire McGreevy. During this discussion a majority of the MEP:s asked the Comission to withdraw it's proposal, so that the locked situation could be solved.

European software patent update

Posted Feb 3, 2005 16:39 UTC (Thu) by dlapine (guest, #7358) [Link]

Per Groklaw, JURI made the decision to reset the process from scratch. Apparently, the aggressive moves to push a patent act through by using the Commission for Agriculture didn't sit too well. See the article on Groklaw, with the original announcement and translation JURI Votes: It's Restart.


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