EU Software Patent Directive Adopted 455
sebFlyte writes "FTA: "An EU Council spokeswoman said on Monday morning that the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive had been adopted." Apparently it's due to 'institutional reasons' that they're ignoring the outcry from developers and several nation states ..."
Not the end of the world...yet. (Score:3, Informative)
"The directive will now be passed to European Parliament, which can reject or amend the proposal, for a second reading."
Note that this means it goes back to Parliament (Score:5, Informative)
Time for a straightforward declaration of our own, I think:
"We, the undersigned, will not honour or respect european patent law any more. There are millions of us. You'll have to kill us all before you ever get your patent monopolies, you corrupt corporatist fuckers. Good day."
It's Not Oer Yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Always go to ffii.org (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the press release [ffii.org]
Re:Not the end of the world...yet. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Time for a lobby (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:5, Informative)
The second reading will be much more difficult than the first reading because this time they need a majority of all MEP's (not just MEP's present) to change the directive.
FFII Press Release (Score:5, Informative)
And as someone else already said: the Council has adopted its "common position" (although it was far from common in this case). It still has to get into the European Parliament, through its second reading (where it can be amended or even rejected, after which the whole game is immediately over).
Anyway, as far as I am concerned, the big news is not what they adopted (a directive text which codifies the European Patent Office's US practice), but how they adopted it. Three countries with the support of several others asked to reopen discussions, and the Luxembourg presidency simply denied that even though they have to let the Council as a whole decide about that according to their own rules of procedure [eu.int] (point 3.8).
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:3, Informative)
Not true in EU. Here the patent is granted based on the application date, not the "discovery" date, which applies in the US. Makes it much clearer.
where is info (Score:2, Informative)
Anybody can point out some document saying what was the vote of each particular country - for all 25 of them? Everybody just mentions Denmark, Poland sometimes Portugal or Spain.
I listened to audio links on ffii.org ... I appreciate the effort, but the information quality is low. 1st 5 minutes is just "test ... another test ... one more test ..." and the rest gives again no insight on what actually happened.
The audio files from meeting in May 2004 were much more helpfull, thought I could not find out the position of all states in there either. Should not be there some written conclusion/minutes published after each European Comission/Council meeting?
Yes. I'm bitching. What else can I do? I can't afford to go there on my own, and the information provided is so so much stripped of facts that the only thing is left is the boolean value. Event that is not clear sometimes. Just try to find out the document ID of the damned directive.
Re:The European Constitution (Score:2, Informative)
Vote a punitive NO, emigrate or learn a new job (as you may have guessed I'm busy doing). Those are your only options, non-exclusive.
Re:Euro constitution vote (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Et muss een séch schummen Lëtz ze sin (Score:2, Informative)
Here you go:
Et muss een séch schummen Lëtz ze sin!
You/We should be embarrassed to be Luxembourgers
De Krécké as och nët besser wéi de Metzleschjong!
Krecké (current Minister of Economy, of the socialist worker's party, who is supposed to be on "our" side) is not better than the butcher's son (Henri Grethen, a butcher's son, who was the previous Minister of Economy, and who caught lot of flak over the softpat issue, before losing the national election last June big time!)
Jojo léiwe Lëtzebuerger ... wierklëch kee schéinen Daag fir ons haut :(
Yes, yes, dear Luxembourger... not a great day for us today :(
Hei elei kuck elei?? :-)
Here, look here?? :-) [also the name of a Sunday afternoon TV program in Luxembourgish language]
Et get einfach Zait dem Juncker eng Kugel an den Kapp ze scheissen, ass schon op d'Mannst 10 Joer iwwerfaelleg....
It's about time to shoot a bullet into Juncker's (dictator of Luxembourg, Christian-Social People's Party) head, this has been overdue for at least 10 years! (Hey, in Luxembourg we can at least say sth like this. In the US, similar comments about Bush would get you an all expenses-paid holiday in Guantamo bay...)
Re:What have YOU done? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think so. I believe it requires an absolute majority: that is, abstentions or absentees are counted as votes in favor.
Re:What's the matter? If you don't agree you have. (Score:5, Informative)
No one is defending stealing. The problem is (or this is the belief of many here) that it is not possible to write software without violating patents unvoluntarily: if you write a large enough software package, you just end up implementing patented algorithms without realising it. This leads to a situation where only big corporations can develop software (since they have a stack patents that they can bargain with when someone claims they're violating a patent). A "GNU license" is not going to help you there.
Re:Implications for a European believer in democra (Score:5, Informative)
Stopping the new Constitution will not get rid of the EU, or make it more democratic. Voting "no" will keep it the way it is now.
So you would be doing the "people who have a complete disinterest in democracy" a big favour by voting "No".
The new European Constitution greatly enhances the powers of the European Parliament, and so tricks like what the Council did today would become a lot harder.
There are 2 ways out of this undemocratic EU. One is to get rid of it. This is clearly not an option -- almost all economic growth in Europe in the last 20 years is due to the single market. Removing it would be an economic disaster.
Option 2 is to overhaul the EU to make it a lot more democratic. While I agree that it doesn't go far enough, the new Constitution is a huge step in the right direction.
So, please vote "Yes" on the new Constitution. It's our only way out!
Re:So they broke the procedure (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Note that this means it goes back to Parliament (Score:2, Informative)
The constitution finally gives the parliament teeth. At the moment the unelected commission can basically do what it likes, and the parliament has no power at all.
Re:ffii article (Score:2, Informative)
Let's take the Council Presidency to the European Court of Justice then for refusing the request for a B-Item when it doesn't have the authority to make such a refusal.
Can I take a case to the ECJ?
Perhaps surprisingly, private individuals are also allowed to bring proceedings to the Court to have an EU law annulled if it affects them directly and individually. This can't be done lightly of frivolously and the individual needs to have legal representation. But they do not need to go through their national courts first to bring proceedings to the ECJ.
What is the European Court of Justice?
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) deals with disputes and upholds the Treaties of the European Union. Its job is to ensure that European law is uniformly interpreted and applied throughout the Union. It has jurisdiction in disputes involving Member States, EU institutions, businesses and individuals. It sits in Luxembourg and is composed of 15 judges, one judge from each Member State.
In addition, there are eight Advocate Generals whose role is to present publicly and impartially reasoned opinions on the cases brought before the Court. France and Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom each appoint one of them, the others being appointed on a rotation basis from the rest of the member states.
To be appointed, the Judges and Advocate Generals must either be highly qualified academic lawyers (known in the European jargon as "jurisconsults"), or be High Court or Appeal judges in their own jurisdictions. They are appointed by joint agreement of the Governments of the Member States and have a renewable term of six years.
Their independence must be beyond doubt. Once appointed, they are not allowed to hold any other office of an administrative or political nature, indeed, they can't be involved in any occupation, paid or unpaid.
Re:where is info (Score:3, Informative)
In today's council meeting, at least DK, PL and PT formally asked for rediscussing the directive as a B-item. There were critical comments from several other countries.
B-item means reopening discussion, and a formal vote.
Now for the audio:
http://mm.ffii.org/ConsAudio050307En
Note that the audio breaks off when Dutch minister Brinkhorst starts speaking. At that point, the link from the council to the press room was suddenly broken. Noone has his speech, not even the council administration, it seems.
And about audio quality: please keep in mind we had to get feed the audio signal through a GSM cell phone. This is the best streaming (!) solution we could get without an internet connection.
Re:What can be done? (Score:3, Informative)
1. Follow the Latest News at http://ffii.org (it tends to be the first place news comes out and is comprehensive).
2. Sign the various petitons (e.g., Thank Poland).
3. Lobby your own MP and MEP (spamming all MPs / MEPs is likely to get you ignored).
4. Write to the media with your concerns (e.g., the UK is thinking about a Computer Tax to replace TV licensing - front page Times last week. Can the Software Patents "Software Tax" make the front page too?)
OSC Press Release (Score:3, Informative)
Mark Taylor, Executive Director of the Open Source Consortium has branded the concept of European democracy a sham. This follows the adoption of the controversial proposals on software patents (the computer-implemented inventions directive) by the European Council.
He said,"..the fact that an unelected body can ride rough shod over the near unanimous wishes of an elected parliament demonstrates that any pretensions the EU has to being democratic are just that - pretensions. To many this smacks of institutionalised deference to vested interest and intrigue, some of which originate outside the EU.
"Without this law Europe has a chance to lead the World but now risks sinking into mediocrity behind areas of the world free of this kind of castration.
"This law, if it is passed, will crush the economic prospects of entrepreneurial software organization seeking to challenge multinational
proprietary interests. As such the government of Europe has shown that it is incapable of standing up to global commercial interests and incapable of handling its own consultative process.
"I would call on all stakeholders in Open Source and other affected software industries to demand and require their MEPs to re-instate democracy."
Ends
Re:What's the matter? If you don't agree you have. (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, the IP man is back. Let me say this once again. There are no economic arguments proving your case. I have asked many times here, and on other bulletin boards, for such proof. None is ever forthcoming. In fact, most research on the subject shows that a patent system distorts the market and has no positive effects on innovation.
See, for example, the paper by the economist Bronwyn H. Hall at the University of California at Berkeley 'Business Method Patents, Innovation, and Policy'. Hall reviews the research into patents and comes to the conclusion: " Broad evidence that the patent system encourages innovation always and everywhere is hard to come by. When innovations are incremental [such as with software] and when many different innovations must be combined [such as with software] to make a useful product, it is less obvious that benefits of the patent system outweigh the costs."
In the Journal of Economic Growth, 2004, vol. 9, issue 1, pages 81-123, you find: "Furthermore, patents affect the allocation of R&D resources across industries, and patents can distort resources away from industries where they are most productive."
The only people to benefit from software patents are
Dutch Parlementarians (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.europeesparlement.nl/content/content
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:4, Informative)
>Your MEP sits in the Parliment, and that has made it perfectly clear it
>doesn't like this stuff.
>Your MEP sits in the Parliment, and that has made it perfectly clear it
>doesn't like this stuff.
Yes, but they now all have to hate this stuff enough to show up and vote.
>Get you MP to join with other MP's to put pressure on your government
>to change it's position in the Commission
You mean the counsel.
That was the plan until last friday. It even kind of succeded here in Denmark (The MP's joined and put pressure on the government, but it is not clear how much the government actually changed its position inb the councel).
But unless this last decision gets annulled, it is too late to put pressure on your government.
Re:The European Constitution (Score:3, Informative)
Over the past year, we have seen how "powerful" the EP is in codecision, with both the Council and Commission ignoring everything they say (first reading) or ask (restart). And today, we have seen how much the Council cares about opinions of national parliaments.
Re:Knuts (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Constitution gives more power to parliament? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It still has to go for a 2nd reading... (Score:1, Informative)
Unfortunately, there already exist thousands of software patents in Europe, which have been applied for by companies willing to bet Europe will soon grant a directive such as this. Until now, these have been unenforcable, but they may come in full force once the directive comes into effect.