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EU Parliament Approves Software Patents
AnteTempore writes "The voting has just ended. Few good and several bad amendments were accepted. The directive proposal was accepted: 361 for, 135 against, 28 abstentions. The precise numbers and results for each amendment will be available on
europarl.eu.int tomorrow." Reader swentel submits this report on the vote (French) with slightly different numbers (364 voting yes, 153 No, 33 abstaining) but just as bad. Watch this story for updates. Update: 09/24 15:44 GMT by T : Dr.Seltsam writes to say that the early reports are "not quite correct. The German publisher Heise states in this article,
that the vote concerned strong changes on the directive." In particular, "pure software patents will not be allowed." Google's translation engine does a decent job with the German.
The European Parliament approves the patentability of the software STRASBOURG (Reuters) - the European Parliament approved Wednesday the draft Directive very disputed on the patentability of the software inventions, after having amended it to limit its field of application to the "true inventions" having a technical range. The text, presented in first reading, was approved by 364 votes, against 153 and 33 abstentions. It specifies the European Commission proposal, which establishes a distinction between the pure, famous software nonpatentable in European right, and the "inventions implemented by computer", which would become it, with the proviso of presenting a technical projection, likely to receive an industrial application. The text of origin was considered to be "fuzzy" and "ambiguous" by considerable members of Parliament who feared that it too largely does not open the way with the taking out of patents on the software, with the risk to constitute a brake with l"innovation in this key field of the economy. Eurodeputes added a paragraph specifying that a "invention implemented by computer (a software) is not regarded as contributing a technical share only because it implies the use of a computer". In light, so that a data-processing program is patentable, it is not enough that it is new, it is necessary still that it allows a technical innovation independently of its own execution. Another amendment specifies that the use of a patented technique is not regarded as a counterfeit if it is necessary to ensure the communication between various systems or data-processing networks. It acts for eurodeputes to prevent the monopoly which certain giants of the software could exert on the data-processing networks, Microsoft being named but probably not aimed. The European Parliament being a colegislator in this field which concerns the domestic market, the text must now be examined by the Council of Ministers, before returning in second reading to Strasbourg. The European police chief charged with the domestic market, Fritz Bolkestein, had warned eurodeputes, Tuesday at the time of the debate, on the "unacceptable" character of a certain number of amendments deposited.
Article 2 = Fundamental definition of "technical": what is patentable and what is not. OUR DEFINITION ACCEPTED.
Article 3 = All software by definition patentable. KILLED.
Article 4 = Detailed conditions for deciding patentability. AMENDED. Will now be re-negotiated between the Parliament, Commission and Member States.
Article 5 = Program Claims. KILLED.
Article 6a = Right to use of patented techniques, without authorisation or royalty, if needed solely to achieve software interoperability. UPHELD.
This was achieved against massive counter-lobbying from the BSA and other industry giants.
In general, pretty much all important amendments to the articles were incorporated. There is a lot of patch-up work to do and in its current form, the directive is a complete mess because of this, but the basic line has been completely turned around.
Yesterday, Commissioner Bolkestein was still complaining that we (the opponents) were trying to destroyt the directive and warned against voting against the directive, because it would not fix the current legal uncertainty (software patents are being granted but not enforceable before a court of law as they are illegal). Today, rumors are doing rounds that the Commission is considering retracting the directive, because it was so successfully amended by us.
Finally, I would like to say that our lobbyiong in general has absolutely nothing to do with open source or Free Software. We simply think software patents would be bad for all SME's, independent developers and innovation/society as a whole. Of course, there are a lot of free software in the independent developers category (and especially in the Free Software category, quite a few people concerned with society as well).
Being stamped"linux junkies that want everything to be free/gratis" corner is however the last thing we want (our opponents have tried that, and failed until now since they have no basis that supports their claims), and we having backing from several commercial closed source companies (such as Opera Software).
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Slahdot-journalism at it lowest point ever. From FFII's PR:
FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute
See
http://swpat.ffii.org/#news
Now we will have to see whether the European Commission is committed to
"harmonisation and clarification" or only to patent owner interests.
Yesterday's threats uttered by Bolkestein against the European Parliament
suggest the latter.
The detailed results are available on our site
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/
It will now be our job to help the European Parliament assert itself against
attempts by Bolkestein and patent lawyers wearing the hat of national
governments to crush the directive project.
The current text has some remaining contraditions in it, but basically the
thrust has been turned around. It has become our directive which we
must help the European Parliament to defend. This is also a question of
the European Parliament's role in an emerging democratic Europe. On the
whole this is very good news for the EU.
--
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance