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!

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)

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...

[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...

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