| Felix Stalder on Thu, 25 Sep 2003 14:16:35 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> European Parliament Decision against Software Patentability |
The discussion on software patents in the EU parliament in Strasbourg has
triggered one of the most substantive political manifestations of the Open
Source / Free Software communities in Europe to date. In Vienna, for
example, there was a demonstration in front of the patent office, with a
surprisingly large turnout, 300 people [1] (very few software artists,
though). In other cities the story was similar [2].
These, and many other, initiatives had some success and positive
last-minute admendments were introduced. Apparently, most members of
parliament were rather surprised by the level of public response, as they
thought this to be an uncontroversial technicality, which was how it was
presented to them by the industry.
Below is an evaluation of the new patent directive in Europe. As usual,
there is quite a bit of uncertainty as to how it is going to be
implemented.
Felix
[1] http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/InfoStandVienna
[2] http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/InfoStands
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: [ffii] EP Decision against Software Patentability
Date: Thursday 25 September 2003 09:05
From: Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>
To: news@ffii.org
FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
EU Parliament Votes for Real Limits on Patentability
Strasburg 2003/09/24
For immediate Release
In its plenary vote on the 24th of September, the European Parliament
approved the proposed directive on "patentability of
computer-implemented inventions" with amendments that clearly restate
the non-patentability of programming and business logic, and uphold
freedom of publication and interoperation.
* [9]Backgrounds
* [10]Media Contacts
* [11]About the FFII -- www.ffii.org
* [12]About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org
* [13]Permanent URL of this Press Release
* [14]Annotated Links
Backgrounds
The day before the vote, CEC Commissioner Bolkestein had
[15]threatened that the Commission and the Council would withdraw the
directive proposal and hand the questions back to the national patent
administrators on the board of the European Patent Office (EPO),
should the Parliament vote for the amendments which it supported
today. "It remains to be seen, whether the European Commission is
committed to "harmonisation and clarification" or only to patent owner
interests", says Hartmut Pilch, president of FFII. "This is now our
directive too. We must help the European Parliament defend it."
"The directive text as amended by the European Parliament is
unbelievably good! I couldn't believe it as I was posting it article
by article to the Slashdot story. It just gets better and better, and
it hangs together incredibly cohesively. I think we have done
something amazing this week" exclaimed James Heald, a member of the
FFII/Eurolinux software patent working group, as he put together the
voted amendments into a [16]consolidated version.
"With the new provisions of article 2, a computer-implemented
invention is no longer a trojan horse, but a washing machine",
explains Erik Josefsson from SSLUG and FFII, who has been advising
Swedish MEPs on the directive in recent weeks. That the majorities for
the voted amendments had support from very different political groups
- this reflects the arduous political discussion that had led to two
postponements before.
However, when 78 amendments are voted in 40 minutes some glitches are
bound to happen: "The recitals were not amended thouroughly. One of
them still claims algorithms to be patentable when they solve a
technical problem.", says Jonas Maebe, Belgian FFII representative
currently working in the European Parliament. "But we have all the
ingredients for a good directive. We've been able to do the rough
sculpting work. Now the patching work can begin. The spirit of the
European Patent Convention is 80% reaffirmed, and the Parliament is in
a good position to remove the remaining inconsistencies in the second
reading."
The directive will have to withstand further consultation with the
Council of Ministers that is more informal and hence less public than
Parliamentary Procedures. In the past, the Council of Ministers has
left patent policy decisions to its "patent policy working party",
which consists of patent law experts who are also sitting on the
administrative council of the European Patent Office (EPO). This group
has been one of the most determined promoters of unlimited
patentability, including program claims, in Europe.
Says Laura Creighton, software entrepreneur and venture capitalist,
who has supported the FFII/Eurolinux campaign with donations and
travelled from Sweden to Brussels several times to attend conferences
and meetings with MEPs:
Now those people who claimed to be opposed to having a US style
mess, but only liked the bill because it permitted such things,
will have to expose themselves. I predict a good number of them
will claim that we must not pass this one, because we need a bill
that makes us more similar to the US and Japan for the sake of not
angering our trading partners.
Now is the time to ask European politicians to show courage, and
world leadership and vote up the directive that the American
citizens, government, SMEs and Alan Greenspan wish they had instead
of the current mess. Ask them to harmonise with Europe. The members
of the European Parliament deserve thanks for their efforts in
understanding the social consequences of this admittedly difficult
technical decision. This has not happened anywhere else in the
world so far. We Europeans can be proud of this political
achievement, and I hope our politicians share this pride.
Media Contacts
mail:
pr at ffii org
phone:
Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927
Jonas Maebe +32-485-369645
Erik Josefsson +46-707-696567
Alex Macfie +44 7901 751753
More Contacts to be supplied upon request
About the FFII -- www.ffii.org
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a
non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the
spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of
public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open
standards. More than 300 members, 500 companies and 40,000 supporters
have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy
questions in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in
data processing.
About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source
software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux
develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses
for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.
[1][DE Deutsch] [2][translatable text] [3][howto help] [4][printable
version] [5][Readers' Comments]
[6]EP 03-06-26 [7]EP 03-06-20 [8]Linus 03-09-22 EP 03-09-24
Permanent URL of this Press Release
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0924/index.en.html
Annotated Links
-> [17]Links to Documents related to the Plenary Vote
Contains Results of the Vote
-> [18]Europarl 2003/09 Software Patent Directive Amendments: Real vs
Fake Limits
Results of the Vote to be entered into this table
-> [19]Bolkestein's Threats
-> [20]McCarthy 03-02-19: Denying the EP its right to set the rules
McCarthy uttered the same threats in February already. The FFII
analysis of her paper pointed out that she couldn't have
uttered them if there was not someone at the European
Commission backing her. Now we know who her backer was.
see [21]Frits Bolkestein and Software Patents
-> [22]McCarthy Voting List
This voting list is based on a compromise within PSE. It
introduces several amendments which are contrary in spirit to
McCarthy's [23]JURI draft report. Yet only 1/3 or the PSE
members followed this voting lists. The rest created a voting
list of its own, which is closer to the FFII recommendations.
McCarthy was thus completely marginalised.
-> [24]McCarthy Press Release
The PSE-UK rapporteur, whose hardline pro-patent voting list
was not followed by any political group in the Parliament,
presents her defeat as a victory, all the while not forgetting
to lash out against "misinformation campaign" let by an unnamed
group, probably the "Free Software Alliance".
see [25]Free Software Alliance
-> [26]Plenary Debate 03/09/23
Rough Transcript of the Speeches given in the Plenary Debate of
2003/09/23.
-> [27]Who voted how
Tabular listing based on [28]MSWord original from the Europarl
website.
-> [29]Analysis of MEP voting
Report for all MEPs from Belgium. If they completely followed
the [30]FFII voting list, they get 100%. A similar analysis is
under way for all MEPs. First results show that many EPP
deputies followed Kauppi (against software patents) rather than
Wuermeling (pro software patents).
-> [31]FFII Neues Archiv
may contain some current news
-> [32]FFII News Archive
may contain some current news
-> [33]CEU/DKPTO 2002/09/23..: Software Patentability Directive
Amendment Proposal
In 2002 the patent administrators of the Council pushed for
unlimited patentability, although according to the procedural
rules of EU legislation it was not yet their turn. Like the
European Commission's Directorate for the Internal Market, the
Council's "Patent Policy Working Group" is an institution on
which the patent department of big IT companies can count. It's
members are always willing to act against written instructions
of their own government, if the consensus of the patent lobby
demands this.
References
15.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/deba/index.en.html#bol
k 16.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/resu/index.en.html 17.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/index.en.html#links
18. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/index.en.html 19.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/deba/index.en.html#bol
k 20.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/amccarthy0302/index.en.html#alt
ern 21. http://swpat.ffii.org/players/bolkestein/index.en.html
22. http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/plen0924/amccvotlst0309.pdf
23. http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/juri0617/index.en.html
24. http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/plen0924/amccarthy-pr030924.pdf
25. http://swpat.ffii.org/players/fsa/index.en.html
26.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/deba/index.en.html 27.
http://mond.at/swpat/voting.txt
28.
http://www.europarl.eu.int/direct/documents/fr/vote/Resultats/Mercredi/Appel
s%20nominaux%202003-09-24.doc 29.
http://www.student.kun.nl/dieter.vanuytvanck/swpat/rapport.html 30.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/vote/index.en.html 31.
http://lists.ffii.org/archive/mails/neues/index.html
32. http://lists.ffii.org/archive/mails/news/index.html
33. http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/dkpto0209/index.en.html
34. http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/plen0626/index.en.html
35. http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/plen0620/index.en.html
36. http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/linu0922/index.en.html
37. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
38. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/index.en.html
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