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Euro Patent Restart Demand Repeated by Parliament
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:50 PM
from the once-more-into-the-breach dept.
from the once-more-into-the-breach dept.
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents has ratified and repeated the demands of the Parliament for the computer-implemented inventions directive to be sent back to the drawing board, even though the Commission has refused to re-start it after previous demands. From the article: "It is not certain that the Commission will comply with the request of the Parliament, nor that it will use the opportunity to draft a good text ... The new Commission is not obliged to follow the Parliament's request and they might still try to keep all options open and ask the Council to adopt the agreement of last May without a new vote, so as to gain even more options for themselves."
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Profit Anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Profit Anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. grew its industry rapidly by running roughshod over attempts by the European countries to control trade secrets & other forms of intellectual property. The U.S. wouldn't be where it is today economically if it had taken European whining about patents, copyright & such, seriously. It's only recently, as the primary economic superpower, that Americans suddenly think it's a good idea for everyone to let them control the flow of ideas & technology throughout the world.
Software & business model patents are being used to crush competition, rather than provide any kind of innovation for society's benefit. True entrepreneurs make money by providing desired goods & services, not by getting laws passed which let them earn money through extortion.
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Twats (Score:5, Interesting)
I want a close and strong European Union -- I just don't want this European Union.
Re:Twats (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Twats (Score:4, Funny)
Except that isn't going to happen because civil servants are the very last people to actually let politicians influence government.
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I'd patent Paper-Shuffling... (Score:5, Interesting)
The players:
European Parliament's Conference of Presidents
the Commission
the Parliament
The new Commission
the Council
Ok, I'm lost. Though I think I can see why nothing's happening.
It reminds me of a The Committee Game someone wrote on our PDP11 about 25 years ago. (The committee forms to form a plan of action to deal with the nefarious Kally Spaeth, but first they head up to McDonalds for refreshments in the arcane Dodge Dart, and generally it's a lot of running around without actually doing anything about the nefarious Kally Spaeth. I think it was in parody.)
It's highly worrying... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why further integration is needed (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance the parliament still has little power, but without it this directive would have been passed months ago. Without EU at all, it would have been passed years ago under pressure from US-based megacorporations.
I'd say that even though the situation is dangerous, it shows that the European parliament is perfectly doing its job and representing the will of the European people, and counterbalancing the ivory power that is the Commission. In particular, kudos to Michel Rocard, former French Prime Minister and one of the main forces in this legislative fight. A friend of mine met him when he was just starting to discover the issue; and he was pleasantly suprised to find how he listened to anti patent arguments and quickly acquired knowledge and decided to act.
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OK, question (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, question: Is the EU parliament in the end going to be, or are they right now, as pissed off about this as Slashdot seems to be? I mean, whether the parliament cares about patents or not, you'd think. In the U.S. if a branch of government got outright snubbed like this they'd probably wind up doing everything in their power to kill the idea of software patents forever, even if they didn't really care about software patents, just out of spite
Re:OK, question (Score:5, Informative)
This is a bit like the US legislature. They can pass laws, but the Justice Department can fail to enforce them (or the FCC can ignore them, etc.). If the Executive Branch department fails to respond, they can complain to the President, who can fire people. If the President fails to do anything, they can impeach him. This is, in fact, what happened to Andrew Johnson (backwards; he fired an executive for doing what Congress wanted), although he was acquitted by one vote.
So this is another step with which the Parliament can try to exert influence on the other branches without actually going all the way and using their actual power, which would be enormously disruptive to everything.
Note that the Parliament can also reject the directive on the second reading, but it's difficult and depends on enough MEPs actually showing up that day; if Parliament complains enough beforehand, the Commission is more likely to think that enough MEPs will show up to the vote to kill it, and the less interested they are in pushing the Council's text through (the Commission's mandate is to get some directive passed on software patents, because the current situation is broken, and their job is to get broken situations resolved in some way or other). If it's going to get killed in the second reading, they would rather save face and restart the process; if it's not going to get killed in the second reading, they want to get it done.
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What the ?????? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the EU even *have* a government? This is so confusing! Motions that can be executed with no vote, organizational groups that do what they want regardless of the vote? What gives? It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats, and voting is just a technicality.
Can somebody help to make me less ignorant and point me at an online EU-civics 101 tutorial that outlines how the EU government is organized, what are the responsibilities of the major components and a general overview of the rules?
Please?
Re:What the ?????? (Score:5, Informative)
It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats
Well, and I don't mean this in a bad-way, that's pretty much how the EU was set-up - or, more accurately, that's how the fore-runner(s) of the EU were set-up. Six European nations decided to have a coal and steel agreement. One thing led to another, over a long period, and with other nations joining at semi-regular intervals. The decisions were taken by career politicians and bureaucrats. It's comparatively recent that we've even had a parliament, and still more recent that we've actually been permitted to elect the members of said parliament.
Re: EU-civics-101. I'll second that. We - even those of us in Europe - desperately need to know how the hell our continent is run.
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Re:What the ?????? (Score:5, Informative)
http://europa.eu.int/institutions/index_en.htm [eu.int]
Take a look at the dropdown box in the upper right side of your browser window for different languages.
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Re:What the ?????? (Score:4, Informative)
No, At least not a democratic one.
It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats
That's essentially true.
Also, there's the parliament that is
a) a nursing home for politicians that some national party can't get rid off because of prior achievements or
b) has to move out of sight for a couple of years because of national affairs.
c) Also "parliament" sounds somewhat democratic; but don't give them real power because otherwise they might stop you from getting things done -
like introducing software patents against Europe's interests.
and point me at an online EU-civics 101 tutorial that outlines how the EU government is organized
This [dadalos-europe.org] looks promising (from the "International UNESCO Education Server for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education").
Also, there is a very short overview [eu.int] on the(?) EU site.
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EU Law Trails? (Score:4, Interesting)
The players:
- EU Parliament
- EU Commission
- EU Council
- Any others (like, eg, some kind of "EU Parliament/Council Reconciliation Committe")?
Re:EU Law Trails? (Score:4, Informative)
The EUROPA site [eu.int] which I found this handy-dandy flowchart [eu.int] on! With that many steps, no wonder it's confusing!
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Disgraceful FUD on BBC (Score:5, Insightful)
As a BBC license payer, I'm incensed that they could be spreading such FUD. Since when has Linux "eschewed the notion of property"?
Just because the open source community is vehemently opposed to software patents, doesn't mean that they don't support the "notion of property". Without such notions as copyright for instance, the GPL would be impossible.
Re:Disgraceful FUD on BBC (Score:4, Insightful)
As a BBC license payer, I'm appalled by the factual inaccuracy in the "EU software patent law faces axe" article.
The statement is made that "The open source movement, of which Linux is the flagbearer, eschews notions of property and instead allows anyone to examine and tinker with the inner workings of software."
This is nonsense, verging on the libellous. The open source movement has no such stance. Even minimal fact checking would quickly reveal that the Gnu Public License, under which much of today's open source software, including Linux, is released, depends fundamentally on the protections and rights granted by copyright.
The concept that the open source movement seeks to destroy any sense of property is precisely the sort of scare story being pushed by large computer manufacturers in their attempt to railroad the software patents directive through the European parliament.
I expect better from a supposedly neutral and unbiased news organisation.
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EU structure (Score:5, Interesting)
Conference of Presidents, Council, Commission, Parliament.... For the poor confused Americans among us, could somebody draw us the European equivalent of the "how a bill becomes law" flow chart? I'm completely lost.
--Bruce Fields
Re:EU structure (Score:5, Funny)
Dear sir:
Thank you for your interest in the political structure of the European Union! To better accommodate your request, we have set up a comission who will meet and discuss the best possible way to handle your inquiry. The committee will hold its first meeting whenever the participating local councils meet to select the representatives needed for the first meeting of the committee.
With kindest regards,
The helpdesk committee
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Is EU really democratic? (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody wanted this in the first place - except patent lawyers, patent offices and a few large software companies.
Before the directive was proposed by the European Commission, software patents were rejected twice by governments at international diplomat conferences on the change of the European Patent Convention.
Before the directive was proposed the European Commission held a public hearing. 91% of those responding were against software patents. 47% of the rest were patent lawyers and patent offices.
When the European Commission proposed the directive they sent out a press release saying the directive was to make software less patentable (liars!).
The only elected institution in EU is the European Parliament. Here the proposed directive was amended to not allowing unlimited patentability of all software and business metods.
Later the European Counsil amended the directive again, undoing most of the amendments the the Parliament did.
And now the European Commission and the Counsil (both non-elected, but appointed) are pressing to go through with the directive, completely ignoring the rights of the European Parliament.
An EU primer (Score:4, Informative)
Re:would this invalidate the GPL? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:would this invalidate the GPL? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:would this invalidate the GPL? (Score:4, Informative)
The GPL does not make any distinction between 'commercial' or 'non-commercial' distribution. Any and all distribution must follow the terms of the GPL. Commercial or not doesn't enter the picture.
Don't you know there are commercial linux distributions out there?
And patents and copyrights are completely different forms of protection. You can't patent music. But that doesn't mean it isn't protected by copyright.
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