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EU Commission Declines Patent Debate Restart
maxkueng writes "I just recieved an email from NoSoftwarePatents.com. They say: 'The EU Commission, under the leadership of someone who previously failed as Portuguese prime minister and as per the suggestion of a Microsoft puppet, has decided to decline the European Parliament's request for restarting the process on the software patent directive.' More can be read on Florian Mueller's Forum post."
Because they don't think the parliament will fire them over just this, and that is the only option of sanction the European Parliament has.
The reported reason was that if they do restart, they must produce a new text on which several other Directorate Generals (DG), such as Information Society and Competition, must agree as well. These other DG's would reportedly never support an extreme text such as the one currently on the table in the Council, or even the original Commission proposal from 2002. They would insist on a more balanced approach, which is apparently not desired by DG MARKT - Directorate General for the Internal Market.
In the mean time, highly placed government sources have also confirmed to the FFII that the directive will once more appear as an A-item on 7 March, this time on the agenda of the responsible Competition Council formation. All hope for a democratic and balanced resolution now rests on the shoulders of the ministers and officials who will attend that Council meeting. Turning the directive back into a B-item, i.e. a discussion point, seems to be the only proper way out now.
http://wiki.ffii.org/Com050228En
Any celebrations about the directive being thrown out were premature - the BBC site for one got carried away:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4274811.stm
The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented.
We wish! The headline was more accurate than the sub-text:
EU software patent law faces axe
Faces, but the axe isn't falling yet.
More of a flame than flamebait, but certainly not showing themselves as the voice of reason.
FFIIs statement was much better. While still being highly critical of the decisions it avoids personal abuse.
Because with the lack of a restart we not only retain status quo which has software patents in obscure terms, but also means the commision can keep trying to press the legislation through as a secret A-item.
I don't believe that the European Commission negated any sort of democracy.
The Commission is intent on ignoring the democratic will of the parliament.
However, a democracy cannot be negated; the fact is, a democracy is a form of government where the people as a whole have the final say.
In this case, the elected representatives of the people are being ignored and unelected ministers will have the final say - that's negating the democratic process.
The European Commission is not directly elected - it is not accountable to the people, that's the job of our MEP - member of the European Parliament. The MEP's have spoken and have requested the restart - the Commission is dictating their will against the express desires of the elected parliament.
You are right , No software patents doesn' want software patents and you don't understand either.
It's confusing so I will screw some of this up.
A law was propsed. It got shot down in parliment, The EC picked it up, and tried to ram it through anyway, it got shot down and sent back to the begining of the process to be rewritten. the EC ignored that and is trying to shove it through again.
Somebody wants this law so badly they will bend and break any EU rule they can to get this software patent legistaltion through.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Meanwhile, one of the Directive's key supporters, the German Federal Ministry of Justice, has reportedly received approximately 500 bananas, shipped in more than 150 parcels, from constituents appalled by what they consider "banana republic style" disrespect for the national and European parliaments.
The parliament does have the power to fire the commission ... whether they will over this is unknown.
"Restart" in this case does not mean that the process is currently stopped. The process is currently being rammed through by the EC, even though it appears to be against just about everyone's wishes. NoSoftwarePatents.com and others are trying to buy more time before the EC succeeeds in bypassing the will of the people.
They stopped the restart, so the previous draft laughably called a "compromise" from the council will now be put forward for a second reading (unless the council decides not to - which it might, in an effort to spin it as "see, we're not an antidemocratic corporatist whoretank").
The "compromise" from the council (under the Irish presidency - remember that Microsoft, Intel and IBM basically 0wn Ireland) erased all the european parliament's amendments that would have at least granted patent exemption for interoperability (so that, say, Samba or OpenOffice could continue to exist...).
At a second reading, the european parliament needs an absolute majority rather than a majority of people in parliament on the day to make any changes. This is harder to get, for obvious reasons, and once the date for the parliamentary debate is known, various ministers will be invited to various functions by corporate types...
No, I have no idea why it's set up that way, unless it's to give some illusion of democracy when the EU is really designed solely for bilderberger-set corporations or something.
Either way, I won't be obeying any patent law any time soon if they pass this directive (which will then allow the same national governments who appoint people to the council to implement the law and blame it on "those damn bureaucrats in brussels" - a favorite trick in britain in particular, if you want a law that your citizenry would reject coming from you, get Europe to do it...).
I think there is a misunderstanding over what exactly the European Parliament is. The group has no real political power.
Now this isn't exactly a problem of democracy. It's just that the favored scale of democracy in Europe is national, not European. Europe is not a federation like the US, where States really have not much power compared to the federal power, for "macro" policy matters (including intellectual property).
Thus the important decisions are always taken by mutual agreement of the governments of the countries themselves. It used to be that unanimous agreement was required, but now with the extension to more countries I think the requirement has been relaxed to a "qualified majority" for some issues.
Getting a vote at the European Parliament brings in little more than publicity.
The right place to petition against software patent would not be the European Parliament, whose advice gets routinely ignored anyway, but the *individual governments of each country*.
They keep the real power, and even though they usually say "it's been decided by the Commission in Brussels" to avoid getting the heat when the shit hits the fan a few years later in each country, the truth is that *they* have been deciding it in Brussels.
The respective place of national and European government is something that Europeans have really struggled with since the earliest days of reconstruction following WW2. Even in some States, some contend that the federal govt is taking away too much... picture what would happen if each State in the US spoke a different language and had had a distinctive political history dating back to the Middle Ages...
Here is fax your mp = get a question asked about this in Parliament = it will destroy the British software Industry. /. for democracy and all our coding futures.
http://www.faxyourmp.com/
And Contact details for your MP's phone and address.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
C'mon lets
In the tradition of long words, the EU Commission is attempting to turn the vetos of software patents into so much floccinoccinilihilipilification.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
First of all, software patents are not currently prohibited in the EU. The EU does not yet have a position on them, and the EU patent office grants them; they are valid in some countries and not in others, and they are effectively valid in some where they are not strictly valid, due to allowing patents on which don't specify what they apply to to apply to software, despite it not being allowed to specifically apply them to software. Obviously, the current situation is a complete mess, and the EU Commission has called for a directive to resolve it, since that's the Commission's job.
The process started with a directive that would permit software patents. After much discussion and popular outcry from individuals and small and medium-sized businesses, the Parliament amended the directive to prohibit software patents, and passed the resulting version.
The Council (which is composed of people appointed by the democratically-elected governments of the member countries, rather than directly elected individuals), on the other hand, set aside the amendments and passed the original version of the directive, and then claimed that they had reached agreement with the Parliament.
The Commission is supposed to determine what, exactly, the Council and the Parliament have done. They keep trying to sign off on the process without a vote, on the theory that the Council and Parliament agree (on the Council version). Various Commission members have kept this from happening. Meanwhile, various committees of the Parliament have been calling for the entire thing to start over, and the Commission has been ignoring them. Furthermore, the support in the Council for the version is eroding as national parliaments send instructions to their government's representatives not to support it.
So the current status is: the legality of SW patents in Europe is current ambiguous and nobody wants to leave it this way; the resolution currently on the table permits SW patents; the Council is refusing requests from the Parliament to restart the process from scratch, which would permit an anti-SW-patent result.
" ... The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors. l #bgates91
If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.
"
Bill Gates 1991
This was quoted by Fred Warshofsky in "The Patent Wars" of 1994. The text is from an internal memo written by Bill Gates to his staff. Part of has appeared in another Gates memos.
http://swpat.ffii.org/archive/quotes/index.en.htm
You do mean floccinoccinihilipilification, the act of estimating something as worthless, right? (there are only two 'ili' in there, not three.)
:-)
Okay, I admit that I had to look that up on google.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I didn't ask about "things", I asked about enacting laws. Note that while a EU directive is not a law, the EU member countries are required to transform it into a national law, so it has the same power as a law.
To answer my own question: Some web searching has revealed that the US president cannot enact laws without involving Congress.
For a simple flow chart demonstrating the wonder of modern, simple, transparent government, attend http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/di agram_en.htm.
AFAIK, Poland has stopped the law getting as far as 5 twice, and Denmark(?) once. Then the Parliament's legal affairs comitte (JURI) decided almost unanimously that the legislation should be scrapped. But the commission doesn't actually have to listen to the democratic parts of the EU, so now we are at 9-10.
If we are very lucky, MEPs will be angered by the comission's undemocratic actions and reject the common position at 11. Unfortunatly this requires a 70% absolute majority, meaning that 70% of all MEPs (not just those who turn up) have to vote against the legislation. If this happens then we will be proceed to 15, and the European software industry will be saved.
Write to your MEP today! Even if they are neutral on the SWPat issues, they are likely to be angry at how the commission is trying to ignore the entire parliamentry institution.
No, no and no.
The European Council consists of members of the governments of the member states. They are the ones that have to accept this directive proposal for it to become law. There are obviously countries that want the proposal to go through very badly, and some (maybe enough) that don't. The prospect of opposition is why they are afraid to reopen discussion on the proposal inside the Council.
The Parliament asked for the restart. The Commission chose not to listen to the parliament, but instead listen to the countries on the Council who want the proposal to go through.
The Commission is an independent body, but the members are chosen by the council and approved by the Parliament. Both the Council and the Parliament would have the power to fire the Commission(which will NOT happen, believe me), but the Parliament has no power whatsoever over the Council.
So yes, the GP post was correct -- at this stage the *only* people to complain to are the ministers in your government. They're the ones who will make the vote when the item comes up in a Council meeting.
Let us hope they get sacked (again).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
He's everything but a free software spokesperson.
Donate free food here
While Minister for Finance in Ireland he was forced to row back on a number of announcments made in his budgets due to opposition from the general public. He also gave 50m to an equestrian center without going through the correct procedures; for no apparent reason other than he likes horses.
Eventually his tactics were hurting the government party so badly that he was shafted and sent to Europe for retirement.
Whether he can maintain his current position on patents I do not know, but as an Irish person it isn't surprising to see Charlie's tactics remain the same.
Unfortunately, the Commission is not an unelected body. They were elected by the Parliment. However, once elected they are free to give the finger to the parliment as much as they like, and the only thing the Parliment can do is sack them, which is NEVER going to happen.
It sort of reminds me of that Discworld novel, where the only decocracy on the Disc was where people elected a new tyrant every year. Each year all of the candidates would promise to do things differently and not terrorise the populace, and every year once elected, they would proceed to be another terrible dictator. This continued year after year, with the whole system being proclaimed a resounding success.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm portuguese and this man Durão Barroso as the EP is in no condition to represent Europe as President. He is an enormous disgrace. He left his country in political and financial shambles, he ran away from responsabilities and left all this in a tremendous caos. The reigns of power were inherited to a meager selfish brat of a man which caused the fall of the parliament by the President, something that is legal by our Constitution but never enforced in any way.
This man as EP is a selfish egotistical sell out to USA lobbies in the worst kind possible. I wish we had French or German presidency in the EU again.
I wouldnt get this guy employed in a coal factory even.
My 2 cents.
The CECA (Coal and Steel Union) was not started as a democratic process because so early after the war (1950) very few europeans would have agreed to support a paneuropean government where at least half the representatives would be Germans.
The building of Europe relies on the "spillover" political theory: people build trust through commerce, then political integration follows when they've realized that the neighbour aren't that evil anymore. Looking back over the past 50 years, I'd say it worked pretty well, eventhough there's still a long way to go.
The socialist party withdrew definitively their support for the current directive last week.
. asp?Mode=2&Art icleID=27184
The directive no longer have a majority support in the parliarment, and so the government has no mandate to vote in favour of the directive.
This means that even if the directive appears as an A-item, it must be blocked.
In danish (sorry - I have no english equivalent):
http://www.computerworld.dk/default
The big problem is that EPO - illegally - has issued a huge number of software patents. Most estimate about 30-40,000 software patents.
These patents are illegal. To this date not a single case of software patent infringement has been won in any court within the EU. People who start infringement cases risk having their software patents invalidated by the court, as they are illegal according to the law.
The EU directive is meant to force the EU member countries to change their laws to legalize software patents, and the political pressure from the owners of the illegal software patents is huge.
Actually the process started a lot earlier. The EPO - who is outside political and judicial control - started issuing software patents even though they are not allowed to do so according to EPC article 52. Then EPO called for a diplomatic conference to have the EPC changed to legalize their conduct, but their request was denied. Later they called for another diplomatic conference with the same purpose, and once again their request was denied.It was not until after the second diplomatic conference that the EU commission proposed the directive.
No. That is what the pro software patent lobby and the European Commission would like us to believe, but it is simply not true.Fact is that the law is perfectly clear: Software patents are illegal in all EU member countries, and most (all?) european countries that are not EU members.