Second Round of EU Patent Fight, Coming Up

An anonymous reader writes "Seems that last fall's victory over EU patent regulations was just round one. The current draft rejects all clarifying amendments made by the European Parliament, allowing direct patentability of computer programs. A net-wide protest is being organized on April 14."

Comments

isn't this the same as

[Anonymous Coward]

this http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/10/16 27239&mode=thread&tid=117&tid=155&tid= 99 ?

Re:As has been said before.

[flossie]

If you would really like to promote change, please take the time to write or call officials.

e-mail works fine. Most of the ones I write to (we have 8 Scottish MEPs) are generally happy to receive and reply to e-mails.

Re:As has been said before.

[Tsian]

Well, by either:

a) Calling the office of the Prime Minister

or

b) Writing the office of the Prime Minister.

Much as you would contact a regular MP.

time for me to once again...

[cribb]

put up a link to

http://petition.eurolinux.org/

on my webpage. also it looks like they'll be

organizing a demonstration on 14th of april

in brussels.

Re:As has been said before.

[flossie]

Excuse me, but how are you supposed to write or call your Prime Minister?

If you write to ministers directly, you will rarely receive a reply; even if you do, it will be a standard civil service reply. The correct way to contact ministers (in the UK at least) is to write to your MP and ask them to pass your concerns on to the minister responsible. They will then forward your letter/e-mail to the minister and (eventually) send you back the reply.

If you have a really good MP, you may be able to get them to take an interest and raise the issue themselves, in parliament.

Re:As has been said before.

[pjt33]

Tony Blair doesn't read every letter sent to him, but he does get a summary of the letters he receives by subject and position. I imagine it's similar for most PMs.

Re:Will anyone give a fuck about a "net-wide prote

[Three Headed Man]

Thousands of concerned Internet users in "turning its web pages black" in protest of President Clinton's signing the unconstitutional "Communications Decency Act" in 1995. People paid attention then.

Re:Need to keep hammering

[flossie]

It may be true that the majority of people don't have an opinion on software patents, but that also means that it is a fair bet that they are not writing to their representatives about the issue. Therefore, it is up to those of us that do care to make enough noise.

Re:As has been said before.

[pjt33]

Karma-whoring...

Brits can find the name of their MP from the Common's list of members by constituency, or can use faxyourmp.com. They can find names and contact details for their MEPs from the UK Office of the European Parliament. I'm sure similar sites exist for other countries.

Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Irish politicians will do anything to kiss-up to corporations so it's no surprise.

Response from Irish Dept. of Enterprise received re software patents concern at the end of last year included below.

Tries to pass off a fundamental change in the law as 'harmonisation' and 'clarification'.

Also, could anyone tell me if the pseudo-legal threat at the end of the email has any real significance? This from a Government that claims it is a champion of freedom of information.

Dear Mr.

The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms. Mary
Harney, T.D. has asked me to refer to your recent e-mail regarding software
patents in Europe.

Computer programs "as such" are excluded from patentability by EU Member
States' patent laws and Article 52 (2) of the European Patent Convention
(EPC).

While the statutory provisions setting out the conditions for granting such
patents are similar, their application in the case law and the
administrative practices of Member States is divergent. In addition, there
are differences, in particular, between the case law of the Boards of
Appeal of the European Patent Office and the courts of Member States.
Thus, a computer-implemented invention may be protected in one Member State
but not in another one, which has direct and negative effects on the proper
functioning of the internal market.

The Commission's present proposal for a Directive is aimed at
rectifying the position and making the conditions of patentability more
transparent. Under the proposal, in order to be patentable, a
computer-implemented invention would have to be new, involve an inventive
step and be susceptible of industrial application. It would be a condition
for involving an inventive step that a computer-implemented invention makes
a technical contribution. Thus, computer programs "as such" will continue
to be excluded from patentability.

The Competitiveness Council reached a common political approach on the
Commission's proposal in November 2002. In September, 2003, the European
Parliament adopted a resolution proposing a number of amendments to the
proposal, some of which run counter to the common approach reached by the
Competitiveness Council. The European Parliament amendments are currently
being considered by a Council Working Party on Intellectual Property (made
up of officials from the Member States).

Ireland's basic position is that we do not want to see the common political
approach undermined and this is the approach we will be adopting in
relation to the European Parliament amendments. The effect of some of the
European Parliament amendments would be to deny patent protection to
inventions that are currently patentable. Such a reversal would not be in
the best interests of industry seeking to protect their R&D investments in
computer ?implemented inventions. However, I should point out that Article
6 of the proposed Directive provides that the rights conferred by patents
granted for inventions within the scope of the Directive shall not affect
acts permitted under Directive 91/250/EEC on the legal protection of
computer programs by copyright, in particular under the provisions thereof
in respect of decompilation and interoperability. This is an important
safeguard for software developers as it will ensure that such developers
can continue to engage in the same acts to achieve interoperability as are
currently allowed under the Copyright Directive.

Yours sincerely,

Bridget Flynn
Private Secretary

The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity
to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of,
or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities, other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you receive

Re:It's a fight worth fighting...

[Anonymous Coward]

The members of parliament are much more accessible than US senators or congressmen. But the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CAN'T PROPOSE LAWS!

The European Commission is the source of European legislation. The Commission is not voted for directly by the people. It's not even voted for indirectly, through the parliament!

Re:The important lesson: they never give up.

[flossie]

current legislation does not allow for software to be patented. However, some software patents had been granted, and the directive is an attempt to legalize that. This means that, if the directive is accepted, we can expect more patents to be granted, BUT there is a good chance they will be in accordance with the directive, which used to have various provisions to protect rights like reverse-esgineering to achieve interoperability.

The original intent of the directive was to legalize the patenting of software. The commission introduced the directive with the stated aim of harmonising and clarifying patent law in Europe. The actual aim was to codify current practice of the European Patent Office which has recently been issuing software patents despite Article 52(2) of the European Patent Convention which states that computer programs are not patentable inventions. The original fight, therefore, was an attempt to prevent a change in the law which would make software patentable. Although patents have been granted by the EPO, we have not yet seen many adverse effects because the patent holders would risk having their patents invalidated by the courts if they tried to enforce them - hence the desire (by the pro-patent lobby) to introduce the directive.

However, the European Parliament significantly amended the text of the directive. The most important change was that they explicitly reinforced Article 52(2) and insisted that software not be patentable. This is the reason that the European Commission threatened to withdraw the directive entirely rather than allow it to pass in its amended form. The directive was originally a Bad Thing, but in its form as last seen by the parliament it is definitely a Good Thing.