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EU Software Patents Delayed Again
Lord An writes "It seems the decision about software patents in Europe has been delayed again for at least a week (link in German). Once again we have to thank Poland that the corresponding item was removed from the A-list of the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries. Hopefully this delay will be enough that the opposition vs. the patents will finally get the upper hand." Non-German speakers might find it useful to plug that URL into the Fish.
It's the next meeting of enough of the right people, so in theory the meber states could vote on it there.
:D
Yes I know it has nothing to do with agriculture, and I think it's a stupid idea to.
The reason it got to this committee was that certain people had pushed and railroaded it through, and they wanted it passed by people who had no concept of it's effect and so wouldn't ask questions.
So good on Poland
This was also reported on Friday in eWeek here.
You forgot the link.
Just
But it's good news in whatever language :-)
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
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We already have patents for computer-implemented inventions in the UK. 20% of patents are for the above. Here's a few sentences on open source, even though your letter doesn't mention it. That's because we're sending you a boilerplate letter. The UK supports the EU Directive on software patents. We think UK innovators and users, especially small firms want software patents. There's no evidence that software patents will harm the industry. Not even in America. The EU Directive will only clarify the current law, not change it. UK Government did a consultation exercise in autumn 2000, which concluded that the status quo of having software patents is the best position. I'd never heard of this consultation. DTI is about the private sector. Nowhere in the letter does it reference my concern: the public sector.
Its why Linus Torvalds could later sow the seeds of an operating system built by volunteers that would challenge that multi-billion dollar company.
/. modbots to mod me -1 troll.
It was actually Richard Stallman who did that. Linus only coded a kernel and connected all the pieces together, GNU+Linux. Now I shall wait the
Due to the general election in Denmark the socialist party has withdrawn it's support for the software patent directive and demanded that the current government blocks the decision at least untill after the election on february 8.
A rt icleID=26766
Effectively, this means that if the minister of economy votes in favor of the directive on january 31, he will be forced to withdraw his vote when he returns.
Article (in danish):
http://www.computerworld.dk/default.asp?Mode=2&
The EU process for creating and ratifying a law is long winded - a simplified version (likely to contain errors - there is a proper long winded description at the official EU website but I can't be bothered looking it up) is that the comission will usually suggest a law, whereupon the parliament will discuss it and suggest changes and vote on it, after which the council will debate it and vote upon it, at which point it will go back to the parliament, giving parliament a second chance to reject it and force a reconsideration or restart the process.
The reason the council has the power it has is that the council represents the national parliaments, and because the EU is not a state/country or a federation it does not have real law making power itself. The EU can NOT create binding laws for the member states. It can issue directives requiring the member states to create laws or face sanctions.
The council members can be directed by national parliaments using whatever processes the member states prefer, while the national parliaments have no such authority over the EU parliament, and hence the EU parliament CAN'T be given control over the law making process without a dramatic shift in the power balance towards the EU.
Allowing the EU parliament to effectively make law (as opposed to now, when it can prevent a directive from being passed, which doesn't prevent the member states from unilaterally creating a law) would likely require ammendments to the custitutions of most EU member states since it would involve giving up sovereignty. Under the current process, on the other hand, the governments are only bound to treaties which, though costly to do, they can pull out of, and which retain the national parliaments sovereign rights to pass laws on behalf of their citizens.
In essence, the council is a result of the process by which the EU has been created as a loose confederation where the EU government is subordinate to the member states' governments. If the EU at some point becomes a federation, it would be logical to remove the council, or transfer large parts of the power to the parliament, but that's not a very likely prospect for many years.
It's a lot more than that now.
The EU member states are subject to EU laws, there's economic union thanks to the Euro. This also dictates taxes and monetary policy.
The €C were hoping that the farmers and fishing folk wouldn't notice that this fishy directive was being shoved through their council. NB: the €C only added it to the list of directives to pass at the council one working day before the council met (even though they are supposed to give at least six weeks notice) and were hoping no one would notice so it would have got passed by default.
Thankfully, both times they've tried this trick the Polish minister has been awake. Clearly they intend to keep on trying in the hope that eventually they'll get away with it. It seems that if everyone in the room snores through the entire meeting, it gets accepted by default.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
The majority of the council of ministers are against and nearly all of the parliament are (in fact I think every single MEP is against the proposal as it currently stands including McCarthy).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
They did not table the amendments (which I think were mostly tabled by UK Green and SNP MEPs) but they (specifically UK Labour MEP, Arlene McCarthy) did table the proposed directive they claim they called to be amended.
No Labour MEPs voted for it to be amended.
The UK Labour MEPs consistently used threats and underhand tatics to try and stop those amnedments being passed by other MEPs.
The UK MEPs originally wrote and proposed this directive.
Check the record on the European Parliament WWW site.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Afterwards, it became clear that this was wrong, and Brinkhorst claimed this was due to "an error in the word processing". Next, two motions were proposed: one to change the yes-vote into a no-vote, and another one to change it into an abstention. Only managed to get a majority in the Parliament.
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It seems that the right time has come to deliver the Thank Poland letter with all the signatures which have been confirmed so far; right now the most likely date appears to be Thursday this week (January 27). I plan to fly to Warsaw for this, and we'll try to get some significant media coverage. If you think you might be able to help with this, please drop me an email at nb@norbert.ch
Under construction: swpat politics overview article