EU Software Patent Law Moves Forward

Zygfryd writes "Just when we were all celebrating, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reports that the Patent Directive is not likely to return to the first reading as the Commission may ignore the Parliament's vote on restarting the process. Revisions are said to be still possible, but under political pressure the Polish government stated they would no longer oppose the directive's adoption and support the former agreement made in May. Polish diplomats will, however, support any opposition initiated by other countries on the February 17 meeting." At the same time, drseuk writes "The Spanish Senate has just voted against Software Patents. This should hopefully require the Spanish EU representative to vote against any attempts by the Council of Ministers to ignore the will of the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee."

Comments

Demonstration

[Halo1]

As a result, we're organising a demonstration next Tuesday in Brussels. Everyone's welcome!

Re:Demonstration

[Halo1]

Possibly, but unfortunately the Council meeting starts at 10, so we don't have much choice.

Political pressure from whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way this can get blocked in the council of ministers is if most votes are against it going through. It does seem that that would be the case. Given that most votes would oppose it, who is the political pressure against Poland from? Just the UK and Holland? How do they get so much influence?

Re:Political pressure from whom?

[sepluv]

Because there is another country's government who are really exerting political pressure. Guess who put the pressure on the UK and Holland to back this?

Re:Political pressure from whom?

[Halo1]

I don't believe in a US conspiracy, especially not in a US political conspiracy. The pressure mainly comes from Nokia, Ericsson, Alcatel, Siemens, Philips and indeed also US companies such as IBM and Microsoft.

These companies claim to represent "the" European IT industry and that they need patents on "computer-implemented inventions" (which generally are pretty much the same as what would be called software patents in the US). In reality, SMEs represent a much larger part of the European economy (both IT and non-IT, and software patentability obviously goes much further than just IT), they are heavily opposed (see e.g. UEAPME and CEA-PME).

The larger companies are of course much better organised regarding lobbying, so it's mainly their voice which is heard at the top levels. Slowly, we are changing this though.

Re:Political pressure from whom?

[Halo1]

No, because of Occam's razor. We have seen tons of lobbying documents from that club of companies. There was also a fax sent by the "Mission of the United States of America to the European Union", and of course there could be a lot of behind-the-scenes lobbying we don't know about, but I really doubt that the US government is a major reason for the fact that the Council and Commission are so stubborn.

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

So what point is the Parliament if it doesn't even have the capability to influence procedural issues within the EU superstructure?

Though I am afraid I don't know as much about how all of this works as I should, it seems this entire mess ought to be a real wake-up call to the people of Europe that they have given too much power too quickly to an entity without enough democratic safeguards. Either the EUs power needs to be scaled back, or the democratic influence needs to be expanded to give the EU responsibilities to the people in proportion to the powers it holds. Unfortunately I fear that this is an issue that the average person will not understand well enough to realize the significance of what has happened.

Hey, Europe, do you want to be a significant software player, or do you want America to have the ability to artificially lock you out of the market? Because the ONLY people who benefit from this patent directive in ANY way, and the only people who are promoting it, are American companies... and they are NOT promoting it for YOUR benefit.

The EU system has been shown to be such that American companies can engineer and pass EU-wide legislation for their own benefit and there is apparently nothing either you, or your elected local governments, can do to stop it.

this is getting ridiculous

[d_strand]

I live in the EU, and I'm getting more and more pissed at this. I mean for fuck sakes, nobody outside MS and some other big companies want this. Anybody, even a simple minded politician, is able to understand the idiocy of software patents given a 3 minute explanation. The only possible explanation is that they are all bought (surprise surprise). What makes me *really* furious is the thought that the commision (not publicly elected) will simply ignore the decision made by the parliament (publicly elected). Some people better realise that their decisions might have unfortunate personal consequences for them...

Ignore me, I have nothing constructive to say, I just want to punch someone in the face (preferably Mr. Prodi)

This is a joke

[ultrabot]

This is starting to get ridiculous, plain and simple. If this is democracy, I don't want to have anything to do with it.

I guess this is where a fascists would-be dictator steps in and uses this case to showcase his agenda, namely that democracy == corruption.

And this is democratic how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how does the EU work? If the executive body can simply ignore the parliment, why does the parliment even exist? Who exactly are the ministers accountable to?

Re:And this is democratic how?

[Hope Thelps]

If the executive body can simply ignore the parliment, why does the parliment even exist?

The parliament does have some power. It can still vote this whole directive down, and there's at least a chance that it will if only out of anger at being ignored. I think it can dismiss the EU commission as well, though I doubt that's going to happen. It would be satsifying.

Who exactly are the ministers accountable to?

Their own national legislatures and electorates.

A novel device for creating corporate legislation.

[Doc Ruby]

The current EU system looks geared towards creating corporate legislation. My observations are based, though, on only the tiny press the EU government gets in the US, and seen largely through the prism of this ongoing EU patent debate. Please correct me where I'm wrong.

Every time the EU government demonstrates that it rejects patent law, it springs up again immediately. Why not? Just a cost of doing business, until it finally passes. Meanwhile, people without a profit motive get "opposition fatigue" - some of the outrage at first being confronted with these artificial monopolies goes away merely with repeated contact, though the opposition remains. Something like a "three strikes and you're out" rule for laws, where a policy repeatedly fails in its process, should be applied. At least such failed policies attempts should produce a new policy statement, to the effect that no such policy is in effect, despite much deliberation. To be considered the next time such a policy is attempted.

And how can it be possible that the Spanish EU rep can misrepresent the Spanish Senate decision for Spain? Or that Dutch traitor last year? That sounds like sedition to me. What's the power hierarchy here? The parliament exerts its power, merely to suggest something to an unelected bureaucrat, who's unaccountable when ignoring it? The whole contraption is completely geared in favor of corporate gaming, and against any sensible representation of the people.

Could stop it but don't want to...

[jimbro2k]

"apparently nothing either you, or your elected local governments, can do to stop it."

Actually, the problem is that you, your elected local goverments, et. al. could stop this if you wanted to badly enough to actually try, instead of just moaning about it.

Those who want software patents are taking positive steps ( $$$ ? ).
What are YOU doing?

Re:Could stop it but don't want to...

[KontinMonet]

Writing and writing and writing to MPs and UK MEPs. They studiously ignore just about everything sent and, where they do reply, simply echo the Patent Office mantra of 'technical effect'. I have had only one supportive letter. That was from Tam Dlayell who is, unfortunately retiring in May from the UK parliament. The rest (especially Irish and UK MEPs) have simply been corrupted by Euros/Dollars and lobbyists. It's very dispiriting, especially when the Council/Commission ignore proper procedure and arrogantly ride roughshod over the democratically elected representatives who don't want to see s/w patents.

Re:Could stop it but don't want to...

[mormop]

Sadly, the once bolshi British (forget the stiff upper lip image and read some english history) have had the shitty end of the stick for so long now that most people can't be bothered any more.

I remember my brother-in law telling us about how he watched a group of police assemble in Wapping at the time that News International bought the Sun, a "newspaper" in the UK. The resulting purge of print workers from the Wapping factory led to demonstrations of striking workers one of which was marching past his flats at the time. He had a perfect view of the whole demo as he lived on the 5th floor and could see nothing apart from a peaceful march in progress.
The police stormed around the corner and piled into the marchers starting a very widespread fight that was reported on the news as evil protestors attack police shock.

The same happened at the Poll tax protest in the 80's when a Police van hitting a pram in Trafalgar Square triggered a riot (seen the film from CCTV at the point the riot was triggered). Further into the demo more Police came pouring out of South Africa House (despite the fact that sanctions were in place against the aparthied regime Maggie was a great friend of SA) but this time their were enough "normal" middle class people there to see what was going on and the "evil commies start riot" line didn't stick.

Funnily enough I feel sorry for the police who, bound by the job, have to put up with being painted as uniformed thugs after carrying out the politicians dirty work. Conversations with many coppers on duty during demos have shown that they generally don't want to end up in a punch up as it sours the taste of the overtime cheque they get.

The repeated use of start a fight and then blame the protestors worked well through the 80's but Maggie overdid it and the strategy was finally seen through. Still, in most cases the government just went ahead and did what they wanted anyway leading people to believe that regardless of what you do it will make no difference. 2 million protest against invading Iraq (biggest march in English history) because no-one believes the "evidence" of WMD - Government goes ahead anyway and refuses to apologies when it turns out that there was no evidence.

Politicians know why voter turnout is around 30% i.e. no-one believes that they work in the public interest anymore. Blair himself is in power not because people believe he's the best man for the job but because he's percieved as the least worst of an appalling range of choices. The patent issue just demonstrates the accuracy of this belief and should, despite the best efforts of those of us who still give a shit, the law go through it'll just strengthen the apathy and feeling of helplessness.

The truly shocking thing is that two of the countries who stand to gain most from the success of Open Source and Linux e.g. France and Germany seem so willing to play along.

Checks and Balances

[Godeke]

You know, I normally ignore EU (for that matter political in general) stuff, but this stuff makes me laugh at the comments made about American political issues. I know the EU is attempting to do something immensely complicated by tying together many countries with diverse cultures, languages and political and legal histories, but everything I have seen seems to indicate that the upper tier of the EU basically ignores the local governments wishes and has just about zero accountability to the people. I'm baffled as to the reason that direct elections were avoided in the EU: it is clear that the upper tier politicians have no reason to fear the popular opinion of the actions they take.

Because of that appearance, could someone tell me what the "check and balance" is in the EU system against abuse of power by the actual EU vs the populace? Here in the US, as broken as it is, if someone ticks the populace off enough they have to worry about re-election...

Re:Checks and Balances

[LeftOfCentre]

What may from the outside world (and sometimes from the inside) look like a mess is the result of how the EU has developed.

At first (decades ago) the parliament was selected by the national governments and it was supposed to just monitor the decision making. The actual decision makers comprised the commision, whose members were selected by each local (national) government and whose main task was to propose Europe-wide legislation but to do so without consideration of local / national interests, and the council, which was the organization comprising the actual member governments and who had to approve any new legislative proposal.

With time it was decided that the members of the European Parliament should be directly elected by European citizens (which has now been the case for quite a long time). In addition, it has gained the power to sack the commision (though not individual members, only the entire group) in a vote of misconfidence should it want to. Meanwhile the EU as such has been expanded from a purely economic organization to a sort of quasi-government involved in all sorts of issues, including foreign policy, economic policy, environmental protection, labour issues, law enforcement, etc. The parliament has been granted more and more powers and actually has veto power over some, but not all, of the EU policy areas (in those that it lacks veto powers, it's supposed to have an advisory role).

At this point, an overview of the most important institutions might look like this:

1) European Commision. Members (one per country for small countries, two per country for large countries) selected by national governments and supposed to work for what is best for the EU as a whole. Members have to disavow strictly national interests and concerns. Has the role of proposing new legislation for Europe as a whole.

2) European Council. Comprises national governments and / or their diplomatic representatives. Concerned with the "national" interest. Has veto power over new legislation. In many policy areas a single country can stop an EU law, while in other areas a qualified majority (defined differently depending on policy area) is sufficient to pass any law. Small countries have more votes per person.

3) European Parliament. Directly elected by EU wide elections every five years. Organized in EU-wide political party groupings that correspond to the national political parties (for example, liberals, greens, conservatives, social democrats, communists, independants, etc). In some policy areas has veto power over new legislation. In other areas has merely advisory power. Small countries have a higher percentage of representatives per citizen (sort of like vote distribution in the council) to reduce the risk of large countries trampling all over small ones. Not unlike the vote distribution aspect of the US electoral college, I suppose.

4) European Court of Justice. Overrules national courts and is empowered with interpreting law and treaties / constitutional issues and resolving conflicts. Each country has exactly one judge although judges are of course expected to be legal professionals and not represent their nationality.

5) The European Ombudsman, tasked with investigating abuse by and within EU institutions.

What I think has happened with the patent issue, is that the Council members (i.e. national governments) have decided on their own to go ahead with the patent proposal, bypassing the other EU institutions and making it national law immediately (which would be subject to national parliaments, though). This may seem strange but if we remember that the council is just a collection of the national governments it sort of makes sense, they would be able to do this even if the EU didn't exist just like other groups of countries sometimes get together to form treaties and laws. It admittedly is a problem, though.

Ultimately what happens in the EU is something that national governments and EU parliamentarians have control of. Accountab

I knew this would happen...

[wintaki]

I said it in the last Slashdot story about EU patents. And now it seems to be happening, again. These corporations will never give up. Sooner or later, the side with no profit motive gets tired and grows week, and the other side wins. The pro-patent people will just keep trying and trying and sooner or later get their way, I'm afraid.
These politicians are constantly pressured by the corporations, and that's all they hear. They are told its "good for business and the economy" and then they announce they support "A broad software agenda to increase jobs in the EU" and most people who know nothing about software patents think their government is doing a great job, instead of just selling out.
It really is time for a revolution...

a moment of enlightement

[raxyx]

With all these forces driving for software patents, its the first time in my life that I truly understand what motivation lies behind terrorists.
Just imagine the situation that a governement is doing something you are convinced is terribly wrong, and you cant find a way to change their mind, you might not have any other choice than using violence. I'm certainly not saying violence is good, don't get me wrong with that, but these days it seems more and more an alternative. I expected such things to happen in, I don't know, Arabia (seems like i'm a little influenced by propaganda as well) or something like that, but even in Europe... I'm truly losing my belief in the world :-(

Re:Weak parliament is the problem

[Doc Ruby]

Well, is there a state in the EU that even directly elects its "head of state" (typically "prime minister")?. Even that setup might be "representative", if the Commisars and Councilmembers were required to represent the parliaments of the states that send them. As is, they're like ambassadors who don't get recalled when they work their own, contrary agenda.

Commission critised before

[NigelJohnstone]

Originally the commission called the shots and Parliament just monitored them.

Then the commission grew too strong and the countries objected, so a co-decision process was created to bring more democracy into the EU.

The Parliament and Commission are supposed to agree a compromise under the co-decision process.

The Council of ministers can bypass this (which they did thanks to Brinkhorst telling porkies).

JURI has concluded that Commission are misleading Parliament and the wording they want DOES make software patentable. Commission still claims it does not.

Commissions response to Parliaments request to restart in a more honest transparent way seems to be a diplomatic "FUCK YOU".

Its no longer about patents its about accountability, democracy and the Commission walking all over the co-decision process.

If the Commission can walk all over the Parliament like this then the Parliament has to be strengthened. It is the only democractic part of the EU.

Democratic?

[sepluv]

Yes, I am seeing a strange pattern here (which suggests that passing this directive may be less than democratic). Let's see what the current position of everyone on this directive is: elected European Parliament: 100% AGAINST (this version of directive) European Council of Ministers: majority AGAINST (with new countries joining the against all the time) European citizens/software users (who know about it): all AGAINST AFAICC (except some professional astroturfer called ) European software-industry alliances/coalitions: all AGAINST European software companies: nearly all AGAINST European programmers: (probably) all AGAINST €PO (i.e.: the guys who are breaking the current law because they receive so many brown envelopes to do so and as it brings them jobs, who want their current behaviour decriminalised): FOR €C (i.e.: unelected civil servants who are bribed by M$ and have strong connections with the €PO): FOR

Hmmm...

Democratic (adj.) Of, representing, or carried on by people at large

Take note of Rousseau's words

[maynard]

Free peoples, be mindful of this maxim: "Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered." --Rousseau, Book II, chapter 8, "The Social Contract"

Re:Software patents are bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

So those who would eliminate software patents, thinking they are striking a blow against the Microsofts of the world, might actually be favoring the Microsofts of the world.

This is true. Microsoft and similar companies only lobby for software patents out of altruism. They are desperately trying to help small companies against themselves. Really.

Unfortunately there is a conspiracy amongst economists to deny the benefits to small businesses. *Boo* *boo* the evil economists. Fortunately the good and just patent lawyers come to the small companies' defense *hurray* for the patent lawyers. They too are acting out of altruism and not lining their own pockets. Really.

Donate today!

[Zeroth_darkos]

Do you want to do something about this?
Donate money to FFII today:
http://ffii.org/money/account/index.en.html

Thursday, not Tuesday

[Anders Andersson]

As a result, we're organising a demonstration next Tuesday in Brussels.

That's appearantly next Thursday, not Tuesday. Thursday the 17th of February, 2005. Mentioned just in case someone who won't be attending still wants to know...