EU Ministers Went Off-Brief In Patent Vote

MartinB writes "Several EU ministers reportedly went against the wishes of their nations in voting for the proposed EU Software Patent legislation in May. Among those misleading the council of ministers were representatives from Holland, Poland and Germany. The Dutch parliament is going as far as asking to change its vote, which was originally in favour of making software patentable."

Comments

Heh, fairly nice leg-pulling

[horza]

*lol* That is hilarious. For those that don't live in the EU I'd better explain the jokes.

Don't talk rubbish. The bad people in this are representatives of National Governements: they are the Bad Council Ministers. The good people are representatives of the people: elected members of the European Parliament, not beholden to National Government interests.

Your personal interests are pretty beholden to your nation, the freedoms it gives and the wealth it generates and you partake in. In the EU no-one has no idea who their EU representative and vote for their EU candidate along national party lines (which makes it doubly funny).

The European Parliament wants to guarantee my software and business method freedom. The freedom to write and share my creative work. And they frame it in quite noble and clear language too, so the good intent isn't easily twisted. It means I am free to do the work I want and invent and share all my best ideas, as much or as little as I want. It's my choice, I'm free, so I'm happy.

The European Parliament not just voted for software patents, taking away our (techie) freedoms, but the 'creative' works can also refer to the EU talking about extending copyright pretty much indefinately like the USA. The noble and clear language is a dig at the pathetic failed attempts at creating an EU constitution. Unlike the clear and noble US constitution, the EU one is a botched long incomprehensible one with the introduction being a self-congratulatory note to those that wrote it.

The UK Government wants to take away my software and business method freedom, making it illegal for me to publish my own code on my own web site and making it even more illegal to sell my own code. If I come up with an improvement to an existing idea, I cannot safely share my improvements in public. I can be sued, and go to jail if I cannot pay massive fines.

The UK government is one of the only government that came out clearly against software patents. You don't go to jail in the UK if you can't pay massive fines, you just declare yourself bankrupt. I know it's meant as barb against the US DMCA, but the joke falls a little flat as publishing crypto in the UK is still a bit of a touchy subject.

I have no special interest in being a member of the EU. But when the European Parliament would guarantee my freedom, and UK government if it was totally independent would take away my freedom, then I must support the European Parliament on that issue. Wouldn't you?

Again, mildly funny but the joke falls flat with the UK talking about ID cards. This subject comes around once every decade, and always falls flat on its face, but this time with 9/11 it's gone a lot further than it has ever done before :-(

Phillip.