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.

Comments

Re:Council of Agriculture and Fisheries ???????

[cheezemonkhai]

It's the next meeting of enough of the right people, so in theory the meber states could vote on it there.

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 :D

NoSoftwarePatents has it in English

[Christian Engstrom]

You can read about it in English here.

But it's good news in whatever language :-)

Re:Corruption

[Halo1]

The biggest story here is the way the European Parliament and associated croonies keep on trying to get this directive through the backdoor without no reference to the rules, law or democratic society.

It's the European Commission and Council of Ministers that keep trying to push it through. The European Parliament is the one that tried to stop it in September 2003.

Fisheries and Agriculture? The people behind this must be offering big backhanders to all involved to push this through at all costs, that's all I can say.

In principle, the fact that it's handled by agriculture and fisheries is not special.

UK Wants EU Directive

[LilBlackKittie]

Here's what the secretary of state for trade and industry wrote to me:

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.

Re:Capitalism

[vidarh]

Ignoring the fact that the patent issue is currently going through the Council of Ministers and not the Comission, neither of them can make law on their own.

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.

Re:Corruption

[sepluv]

Actually its the EPO (who have been unlawfully breaking the current laws to create more work for themselves and want to have their unlawful action legitimised) and the European Commision (who are being bribed by a certain large US software company) who are pushing this through.

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).