Dutch Say No to Software Patent Directive

Rik writes "Thursday night the Dutch parliament has decided that the Dutch government should not vote for the EU Software Patent Directive at the European Council of Ministers next week. The decision of the Dutch parliament strengthens attempts of MEPs of the European Parliament to send the Software Directive back to the drawing board."

Original article (dutch)

[smooc]

here [webwereld.nl]

Besides that, I wonder this means they (=Brinkhorst) is actually going to vote or will abstain which would basically mean yes.

Background information from FFII

[Halo1]

• Press release [ffii.org]
• English translation of the motion [ffii.org]

Thank the Dutch, but not their government

[Scarblac]

71 voted in favour, 69 against. Note that the Dutch parliament has 150 seats, so an extremely close call - could have gone the other way if some more people bothered to vote, it seems.

Voting was along party lines, but the Dutch parliament is like a zoo: in favour were PvdA (labour, largest leftish-center party), SP (socialist, populist, at heart even maoist...), GroenLinks (merger of communist, pacifist, green parties), D'66 (center party, slightly leftish, pro-education, pro-democratic reform), ChristenUnie (leftish christian party). Against were CDA (traditional biggest party, center, christian), VVD (what we call "liberal", i.e. pro-free market, pro-business, traditional values, typical rightish), SGP (right wing hardline christians).

Currently government is formed by CDA, VVD and D'66, who together have a slim majority. So this win is because D'66 defected, and SGP is slightly smaller. D'66 is much the smallest party in government, and this is certainly not what government wanted (remember they pushed hard to pass the directive in the last few meetings of the Dutch EU presidency end of last year). The minister pushing then was Brinkhorst (D'66!).

Anyway, this is the first time I see D'66 do something that makes me actually happy with the vote I gave them :-)

Re:Original article (dutch)

[SYRanger]

From the article:

This means that the Dutch government is instructed to *vote against* the Software Patent Directive if it is put on the agenda at a meeting of the European Council of Ministers next week

It seems like they will actively vote against. SYRanger

Donate today!

[Zeroth_darkos]

I'll say it again.
Don't want to see software patents in EU? Want to do something about it?
Donate money to FFII today:
http://ffii.org/money/account/index.en.html [ffii.org]

Re:"should" vs. "must"

[Halo1]

How about deciding that they must vote against it?

They can't, the Dutch government isn't bound by motions from the Dutch parliament.

Some additional notes on this

[neanderlander]

The result of the decision by the dutch goverment is that the Central European Commission cannot continue with it's intention to put the proposal on the agenda for approval. Instead the European parlement has the initiative again: they can rethink the whole plan. The major problem with the current proposal is that it allows for strong ownership/copyright of software-solutions, making it difficult for other parties to expand and further improve on current software, since lot of features may be protected. While i generally support protection of idea's and developments, i consider the software world still a developing one. Strong protection of idea's might easily lead to a halt in new software developments, a concentration of innovative power in that hands of those who already have the power to begin with. Software isn't just good enough right now and the 'powers that are' haven't proven they can innovate the way that is beneficial to us users. And stricter laws won't change that as well. Patenting is intended to reward those that invest in developing new idea's. I think there are still many many commonly shared idea's on how to improve software. For the moment, to develop those idea's, all that is needed is time, time to develop. So companies have a way of protecting their investment: they invest the time, and get a lead on their rivals that didnt invest the time in that particular advancement. When the time comes when significant advancements in software are the result of intense high cost investments and true developement of new idea's and insights, then more strict protecting laws should be applied.

Re:Would someone explain me...

[Scarblac]

Each country in the EU is sovereigen and has their own government, which is controlled by their own parliament.

The governments work together in the the Council of Ministers of the EU. Here political deals are made - governments that are against patents may agree if they can get some extra agriculture subsidies in return, whatever. They can claim at home that they were against but the pressure of other countries was too high.

In theory the EU parliament controls that process, but their powers are far too weak. Perhaps the proposed "EU Constitution" will meredy this, I don't know. Governments say that giving the EU parliament more power is giving up national sovereignity (i.e., the power countries have to make shady deals).

Voting in the Council must be unanymous. A directive that is finally accepted must be implemented by all the member countries.

Can you trust the patent system?

[OwlWhacker]

Perhaps it was incidents like this [theregister.co.uk] that persuaded the Dutch parliament to make this decision.

Re:Can't we get rid of patents altogether

[klmth]

Actually, patents are a temporary monopoly on a design. How you choose to use that monopoly is up to you - you can choose to license it to others, or you can choose to be the sole supplier of your design.

In some countries, there laws that force the licensing of patents if there is no implementation available within a reasonable time-frame.

Re:Original article (dutch)

[pe1chl]

But in previous discussions Brinkhorst has stated he will not vote against even if instructed so, because he considers loss of face more important than this case.
(he has voted in favour before, then claiming it did not matter because it was not the final decision but only a decision to go ahead)

Re:I hate EU

[Colm Buckley]

If the Repulicans amongst you think the US government is too big; 'hoo boy, you ain't seen the EU.

The EU directly employs about 30,000 people. The U.S. Federal Government directly employs about 1,900,000 people. Work it out.

Re:Can't we get rid of patents altogether

[Anonymous Coward]

lul = dick

Re:"should" vs. "must"

[Halo1]

In all EU countries, the government governs on sufferance of the parliament, and the government must adhere to any motions legally passed by the parliament.

No, they don't. See e.g. this page [overheid.nl] (in Dutch) from the Dutch government.

Translation of the relevant part:

A second instrument of De Kamer (= Parliament) is the motion. In a motion, De Kamer voices an opinion or asks a minister or the whole cabinet to do something, or on the contrary to not do something. Such a statement carries much less weight than an amendment, because it's not binding. A minister can ignore a motion.

I think that's pretty clear.

Re:I hate EU

[mirko]

People are allowed to patent anything provided they don't use these against others ;)

OK, I was joking, here's [haslo.ch] the status:

In accordance with art. 1 PatG patents for new, commercially applicable inventions are given (art. 1 exp. PatG) [ sic ]. Which can be derived however in obvious way from the respective state of the art, is not patentable (art. 1 exp. 2 PatG).

Furthermore it is presupposed that the invention solves a technical problem [... ]

The demarcations are indistinct and disputed in detail, do not need here however not more near to be examined. For the purposes of the available appraisal it is sufficient to assume the patent protection for computer programs can be given after Swiss right under certain conditions. In particular at embedded software, which is in technical devices, it is to be counted on the fact that this can be protected (by patent laws) as a component of an invention.

(English [google.com])

So, well : not perfect but not still consistant.

Article is misleading

[Gadzinka]

The article is misleading, the Dutch won't be voting against the patent directive, because there will be no voting.

Basically, the whole patent directive is one big swindle:

• Council erased all ammendments made by the only democraticly elected EU body -- the European Parliament -- and passed the directive as "compromise proposition" which in reality is even harsher than original proposition: it allows patenting of data structures (say "hello" to patents for file formats, internet protocols etc)
• Countries were counted as voting "for" where in reality they abstained (e.g. Poland)
• Ministers lied to their Parliaments about what the shape of the directive really is and what does it do (e.g. Dutch).
• After some countries voiced their protest to the procedure and their parliaments obligated their governments to vote against the final text of the directive, and the voting weights changed from Nicean to new system, presidency (first Dutch, against its own parliament, then Luxemburgish) decided to pass it to Agricultural Commission (obviously the relevant for Patents on Computer Implemented Inventions) without a vote, as an A-item. The A-item is for matters without any controversy, which all countries agree upon. It is the case for a directive for which several countries wrote papers in opposition longer than the directive itself, isn't it? And when Poland stroke this directive from the order of council twice it is still going to be reinstated as an "uncontroviersial" A-item again...

The only thing that Dutch government can do is to strike this A-item again from the order of council. What's gonna happen when Council decides to ignore JURI recomendation for returning this directive to first reading? Honestly, I don't know...

Robert

Your Local Authority employs more bureaucrats

[Paul Crowley]

Actually, the EU employs fewer bureaucrats than an average UK Local Authority.

Re:Thank the Dutch, but not their government

[oever]

They did vote! They voted in favour of the motion to stop the vote on software patents being an A-item.

For: PvdA, SP, LPF, GroenLinks, D'66, Lazrak

Against: CDA, VVD, SGP, Wilders

Re:I hate EU

[Gadzinka]

May I observe, my fellow countryman, that you are confusing "houses of parliament" with "branches of government (power)"?

Modern democratic states divide the power between three (at least in theory) independant branches: legislative (parliament, one or two houses), judiciary (courts) and executive branch (gornment, council of ministers or the cabinet, headed by prime minister of president, depending on the system).

So Poland has three branches of power (government) and two houses of Parliament (Seym and Senat). Press is so called "fourth power", not third or fourth "house".

Robert

PS And it's "bullshit", not "bull shit".

European patent system explained

[Husgaard]

Most people here seem to falsely believe that the european patent system is administered or governed by the EU. That is incorrect.

The EU patent system is governed by a multilateral treaty called the European Patent Convention [wikipedia.org] (EPC). Both EU and non-EU countries have signed and ratified EPC.

In 1973 when EPC was signed, all the countries harmonized their patent laws to conform to the text of EPC. At the same time the European Patent Office [european-p...office.org] (EPO) was created as the administrative body to issue patents in Europe.

The big problem with EPO is that they are outside any political or judicial influence and can do pretty much what they want to.

EPC Article 52.2 clearly states that software "as such" is not patentable.

But over the years EPO has changed their "interpretation" of this. First to say that software is not software "as such" if loaded in a computer and having some useful effect (what they call "further technical effect"). Later to say that even software residing on a media without being loaded into a computer may not be considered software "as such". Their arguments for these "interpretations" are really convoluted, and it takes weeks of study to understand them.

This means that EPO illegally has issued a large number of software patents. Most estimates say at least 30,000. Fortunately these software patents cannot currently be enforced in court because they are illegal.

To fix the problem that the software patents cannot be enforced in court they have twice called for a diplomatic conference with the goal of changing EPC to legalize software patents. On both diplomatic conferences the request of EPO was denied.

Only after the second failed attempt by EPO to have EPC changed did EU propose a directive attempting to legalize software patents.

With a directive the EU can force the EU countries to change their national law. If that happens the illegally issued software patents can be legally enforced in court.

MEPs on the warpath

[Submarine]

Some MEPs are really angry about the Commission's actions. MEP Michel Rocard (France/"Socialists") pronounced a speech [ffii.org] before the JURI (juridical affairs) committee of the European Parliament, in which he accuses the commissionner who pushed the project of sneaky actions. I think that Rocard and others are decided to shoot down the proposal by whatever means.

Re:Netherlands == Paradise

[AgentSmit]

1. Writing your own software in the States can be against the law? Man, what a madhouse!
2. Officially yes, practically no. This is what's called "gedogen" (no English translation, means "allowing something that's officially forbidden"). Legalizing softdrugs is politically difficult since there is no consensus between all parties. The fact that other countries, especially France, are strongly against it, also makes it quite difficult. More and more EU members however see the benefits of allowing softdrugs since it ends the underground softdrug scene and makes controlling and checking softdrug use much easier.
3. As long as it is with here consent of course. Here in Holland we think that a 16 year old girl is capable of deciding herself who she has sex with instead of letting others decide. Yes, we are still quite liberal, even though more and more Dutch think we are not anymore.