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Euro Patent Restart Demand Repeated by Parliament

Posted by Zonk on from the once-more-into-the-breach dept.

sebFlyte writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents has ratified and repeated the demands of the Parliament for the computer-implemented inventions directive to be sent back to the drawing board, even though the Commission has refused to re-start it after previous demands. From the article: "It is not certain that the Commission will comply with the request of the Parliament, nor that it will use the opportunity to draft a good text ... The new Commission is not obliged to follow the Parliament's request and they might still try to keep all options open and ask the Council to adopt the agreement of last May without a new vote, so as to gain even more options for themselves."

4 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Re:would this invalidate the GPL? by NiceGeek · · Score: 5, Informative

    no because the GPL'ed software is copyrighted not patented. Not the same thing.

  2. Re:would this invalidate the GPL? by SmokeHalo · · Score: 5, Informative
    There's a difference between a patent and a copyright. Berkeley Labs has a nice "noob" summary for people like me. From there:
    ...patent protection can apply to the method or process. Remember that copyright protection does not protect the method, but the expression of the method. Patent law, on the other hand, can protect the method as well.
    --
    I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
  3. Is EU really democratic? by Husgaard · · Score: 5, Informative
    I think this is one of the worst cases showing the democratic problems in the EU.

    Nobody wanted this in the first place - except patent lawyers, patent offices and a few large software companies.

    Before the directive was proposed by the European Commission, software patents were rejected twice by governments at international diplomat conferences on the change of the European Patent Convention.

    Before the directive was proposed the European Commission held a public hearing. 91% of those responding were against software patents. 47% of the rest were patent lawyers and patent offices.

    When the European Commission proposed the directive they sent out a press release saying the directive was to make software less patentable (liars!).

    The only elected institution in EU is the European Parliament. Here the proposed directive was amended to not allowing unlimited patentability of all software and business metods.

    Later the European Counsil amended the directive again, undoing most of the amendments the the Parliament did.

    And now the European Commission and the Counsil (both non-elected, but appointed) are pressing to go through with the directive, completely ignoring the rights of the European Parliament.

  4. Re:What the ?????? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The EU explains itself:

    http://europa.eu.int/institutions/index_en.htm
    Take a look at the dropdown box in the upper right side of your browser window for different languages.