EU Patents Won't Stay Dead

sconeu writes "Apparently the EC is ignoring the restart directive, and has placed software patents as an A-Item on the Council of Minister's agenda with an aim for approval on Monday." From the article: "The directive is pitched as offering greater protection for software developers. Opponents, including many in the European parliament, fear it will simply provide big players, including America's powerful and litigious software giants, with a very large stick to batter upstart developers and the Open Source movement." Update: 03/04 22:04 GMT by Z : And just as quick as you please Denmark stops things in their tracks. Denmark's objection means that there will have to be further debate before the patents get the stamp.

US influence peddling goes world-wide

Is it just me or does it sound like Microsoft and other litigious American software giants has bought the influence of this European commission? I can only hope that the many countries involved will stand up and fight to at least hold debate on a matter that might ruin most small and mid sized European software companies.

Here they are...

The members of the commission. [eu.int]

Since telling it nicely doesn't work, and telling it with lots of money is out of the question, we should find other ways to uhm...convince them. The first step is to peel them out of this anonymus term "European Commission", so they can't hide in it.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

Blaming the US my ass, it is the corporations that are being blamed. They bought the politicians here in the US and now they are buying them everywhere.

Patriotism has no substance and is always pure rhetoric and therefore invalid, move beyond it.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

Well the main purpose of the US (government) has always been to help its corporations and to push them worldwide as far as possible, by force of arms if need be if that's what it takes to secure markets or raw materials.

So the thread title isn't that far off. Even though the US people don't think of corporations first when they see "US", the rest of the world pretty much does (that or the wrong end of an M16).

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

The other option is to tell the US to fuck off. How about growing a set of balls and doing it?

The whole planet has been doing so for a while. It may not have been aired on Fox News though, so it might be news to you.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

Its your representatives. If they are willing to get bought out by corporations that is your problem.

Yeah, a shame that these so called "representatives" aren't even elected, so they don't even answer to the citizens of the countries they "represent". Don't you find it odd that the elected portion of the EU repeatedly turned down software patents while these "representatives" are going full steam ahead?

the groupthink here won't allow me to expound on that, so I won't bother.

To counter groupthink, you'd have to first think, but most of the people who blindly defend software patents fail to do that.

What do you think will happen if this EU directive passes, and countries that previously did not accept software patents are forced to accept patents from those countries that do? You ARE aware that software patents are allowed in some countries, and that the EU is acting in its capacity to "smooth out" legal differences to facilitate trade right? Just wanted to make sure you're not spouting off bullshit about things you have no clue about. So what happens when your 5-year-old product meets the 2-year-old patent that suddenly materializes from another country where they didn't care about your software as prior art?

Before you bitch and whine about groupthink, note that this post has nothing to do with goodness or badness of patents, or abuse of the patent system or anything, it simply points out that the change in patent law will allow companies in countries with patents to wake up one day and crush everyone else.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

Uh, did you read the part where I said that if your "representatives" don't answer to the citizens that you have bigger problems than software patents? I know the EU is a fucked up idea. I am glad that some of the people in the EU are starting to realize this. Don't blame it on the US.

The EU is NOT a fucked up idea, the current organisation is. Of course, the US are not exactly pleased by the increasing power of the EU, but hey...

By the way, software patents are GOOD. They DO protect the small developer. As a small developer who has a couple of software patents that I have successfully licensed, I can PERSONALLY vouch for them. Of course, the slashbots don't want to hear this. The current issue with patents isn't the fact that there are software patents, but maybe the fact that there are cases where they have been granted without a good reason. Saying that "patents are bad" is just silly.

Bullshit. Even "normal" patents have bad side effects for the famous "little guy", and we're here talking about SOFTWARE patents, patents on ideas. That's the dumbest thing ever. I doubt that you're saying the truth with your "I can vouch for them" (ie, as an AC I think you're just pulling shit out of your ass), but even if that's the case, you should realize that your situation is the exception, not the norm, and by far. Software patents are used by big company to stiffle innovation. Ask bill gates, he wrote it black on white.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

Actually, the first draft of the proposed patent lay was found to have been written by the Business Software Alliance (see here [zdnet.co.uk]

If you look at the BSA web page [bsa.org], you will see that the members of this alliance are primarily US businesses: they list Microsoft, IBM, Intel etc etc as their members.

So in this case the original poster is correct: this law seems to have been "bought" by US businesses.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

While technically correct, it's misleading to say that the Council of Ministers have voted against it. It implies that they don't want the legislation pushed through, whereas in reality they do.

Decisions made by the Council must be unanimous. The Software Patents directive has been placed on the agenda as an A-list item (one that is passed without discussion unless a council member vetos it). Previously it has been prevented from passing by Poland, twice, and Denmark, once (I think).

It is the Council that will pass the Software Patents directive on Monday, unless another Council member vetos it: stage 5 of the flowchart at http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/di agram_en.htm [eu.int].

The flowchart says "approves all the EP's ammendments" but (I believe that) the Parliament didn't make any modifications to the directive at the time of the first reading, because it predates any of our lobbying to make them aware of how bad the directive will be for the European software industry.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

Just FYI, the parliament did make significant amendments to the directive, effectively keeping the status quo and keeping software patents invalid, back in September 2003, but in the process made some parts of the directive contradict itself.

However, the working party that reworked the directive for the Council removed the bulk of the parliament's amendments, while promising that they had put in additional protections against software patents, when in fact the protections were meaningless.

It was this theoretically neutered directive that the Council agreed to in May 2004 by a slim majority. Now that members have realised what they've done (agree a directive that allows patents), some are now trying to prevent this directive from being rubber-stamped as an A-list item, as you mentioned, despite the pressure of the Commission to force through the may 2004 version. I believe this is the 'common position' stage, step 9.

If it goes onto its second reading, the EP can still amend or block the directive, but it's a lot harder to do so, given the absolute majority required.

Here's hoping sufficient people in the Council can block the directive as an A-list item, and either force a restart or at least knock it back to a B-list item again for further discussion.

Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide

5 of the flowchart

No, they appear to be on step 9 or 10.

(I believe that) the Parliament didn't make any modifications to the directive at the time of the first reading

The Parliment did amend the directive. In fact Parliment did an excellent job. We WANT that version passed. The Council simply threw out essentially all of the of Parliments amendments. In fact they proceeded to re-amend it to be even more extreme and further from the Parliments position. They then had the gall to call it a "common position", to claim it was some sort of compromise and concilliation with Parliment. This is where we are now, they are attempting to officially sign off on this "common position" and pass it back to parliment.

I hate missleading names. It really shouldn't be titled a "common position" at all. The Council is certainly supposed to draft it in an effort to resolve differences with Parliment, but as this case shows there is no reason to expect it actually *is* any sort of common position.

-

Well

There is nothing wrong with patents per se, but rather the *reasons* why they are being called for.

The European computer patent measure seems to be aimed at stifling competition rather than encourage innovation - that is why it's not a good idea.

Unfortunate, the US patent system has the idea right but it's been misused into oblivion (with wonderful contributions from those granting patents, too) - but it was never created for the reasons that the European Computer Implemented Inventions Directive is being created for.

Damn unfortunate.

Re:Well

If you want people to innovate, then pay them to do so.

You don't need to give people the power to stop OTHER people from innovating in order to encourage THEM to innovate.

Re:Well

> If you are a lone programmer (or a small independent group) who comes up with
> something that you need to make money out of, patents genuinely help you.

Copyright helps me, having to do a patent search for every 15 lines of code helps nobody!

> that does not mean the spirit of software patents is wrong.

The spirit of software patents? Some things were excluded from patent protection for a good reason, math, literature and computer software included!

I don't understand

Why do Europeans allow a non-elected commission to determine economic policy? It makes no sense to me that a state would agree to hand out such important matters that, in my mind anyhow, require representation to do. Personally, I don't give crap about software patents, I'm more amazed the EU is run like this.

Re:I don't understand

Because their governments refused to give the EU Parliament real power, instead sending commissioners to make up a cabal.

Re:I don't understand

Why do Europeans allow a non-elected commission to determine economic policy?

The Euuropean union is a young and a very fastmoving project. I believe very few europeans know what the parlament actully do and what the commission do. I'm a swede and very seldom we get to vote, there is close to zero follow-up on the people we vote on in the media and frankly we don't know what they do. I don't think democracy is one of the strengths of the EU right now. Maybe in the future.

Protects small developers?

Sure, software patents protect small developers. That's why Carmack's Reverse is patented by 3DLabs (who John Carmack doesn't work for, and received royalties from Doom 3 sales), one-click ordering is patented by one of the online auction giants, and is why we're seeing elements of standard computing operations being patented on a weekly basis.

How does the patenting of the components and standard processes of computing protect the small developers if the small developers are no longer allowed to freely develop?

Denmark and Poland Will Deal the Death Blow

Apparently, the Danes have stepped up to kill this one! http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=428 [nosoftwarepatents.com]

Actually, they are as good as dead

According to this article [heise.de] in the German IT magazine Heise.de (use the fish [altavista.com]), the danish parliament has giving their minister for economy, Bendt Bendtsen, binding orders to request a complete restart of the whole negotiations.
The parliament of the Netherlands have giving their representative orders to support any demands for new negotiations.
Finally, the German representative would face sever pressure (he'd probably have to resign) should he ignore the German parliants demands for new negotiations.
As for many of the "new" EU members, they will probably not support a decision that might severly restrict their fledgeling IT economy - no matter how much Microsoft and the other "big players" try to lobby.
So, all in all, its as good as dead - at least for now.

The danes blocked it again...

Today, the danish comission of European affairs ORDERED their governement to not treat the new software patent directive as a "done deal".
The Dutch governement had earlier said it was hoping on a redraft opf the bill, but would not block the vote, something the German Governement had also done.
In the meantime the Dutch VVD also brought in a motion to try to get an amendment to bring "community patents into the bill, which then would have to be completely redrafted.

Source: www.webwereld.nl

I dont know about you folks, but I'm thinking: "It ain't over 'till the Fat Lady sings"
And I somewhat like the idea of a commons of patents.

Update: Denmark will stop it!

As heise reports [heise.de], the Danish parliament has bindingly instructed their secretary of commerce to vote AGAINST software patents,
so the law can't be nodded through.
According to their parliaments some other ministers are instructed (more or less bindingly) to support another country's approach to restart the whole process:
Poland, Netherlands, Spain (had already voted against it in the last session), maybe Germany (but represented by some stubbor a..hat, so..)
Also it is likely that some countries that were neutral during the last voting (like Austria, Belgium, Italy) will support a complete restart.

Political disinterest

IMHO, this is the effect the general political disinterest the population has here in the EU. It may be stronger than in the US, but it' still declining.

And it is now SO LOW that corruption rises steeply. This is corruption, isn't it? Not calling it corruption would euphemise it.

Maybe, people still care a bit about what the media say. The media don't say anything about 'smaller political issues', only the important ones.

But the media also decide what "important issues" are. For example they redefine that corruption is about privately using frequent-flyer-miles (not ok, of course, but corruption?), about contacts of politicians into red-light districts (wtf?!)
They let politicians talk about "high-tech", "information economy" etc.pp. But if important laws are proposed in this area, they do not notice or they do not want to notice.

If the Minister for Economic Affairs overrides decisions of the cartel office for apparently no good reason (as it happened here in germany), it's pictured as "saving the economy". Arrrrrrgh!

If they push this through, "we" should not stop trying to prevent software patents. We should lobby for the abolition of software patents then. But this will be hard.

Sometimes, I have the vision for 2020-2030 of some grey-haired FLOSS developers drinking tea together and being nostalgic about the wild times where software development wasn't illegal and fundamental rights were still respected.

But I can not, in any way, accept such a development.

Commission colluded with Microsoft, says MEP

According to Austrian MEP Dr. Maria Berger, the European Commission acted in collusion with Microsoft [nosoftwarepatents.com] in denying the restart request.

Dr. Berger describes the letter of the president of the Commission (José Manuel Barroso) to the president of the EP (Josep Borrell), in which a restart of the process is declined, as "yet another provocation of the parliament". She concludes that Barroso "apparently loves to play high-stakes poker with the EP", and recalls that he already suffered his first defeat with that approach last year when he had to withdraw his list of proposed commissioners because the EP would otherwise have withheld its approval. The way she sees the present situation, Barroso may now face another defeat. Dr. Berger concludes saying that Bill Gates, who recently traveled Europe to pressure politicians toward a directive to his liking, "is at the moment making himself ever more enemies in the EP".

Another interesting tidbit from the article:

Microsoft's push for EU software patents drew major attention last month after a leading Danish financial newspaper quoted Microsoft Denmark's chief lobbyist who said that Bill Gates had threatened the Danish government with killing 800 jobs unless the EU were to legalize software patents. The Danish social democrats responded with a press release that "blackmail shall not dictate Danish policy". Microsoft subsequently denied that Gates made the respective statement but did admit that intellectual property rights and their connection with the location of jobs were discussed in the respective meeting.

Re:If it is going back to parliment anyway...

I suspect it's a matter of who has greater willpower, very much like the periodic brawls in the US between the White House and Congress. The Parliament can (and should) reject it, and keep rejecting it every time the EC kicks it back to them, but will they have the political will to do so? Cf. "Social Security" and "judicial appointments."