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EU Patents Won't Stay Dead

Posted by Zonk on from the like-legislative-zombies dept.

sconeu writes "Apparently the EC is ignoring the restart directive, and has placed software patents as an A-Item on the Council of Minister's agenda with an aim for approval on Monday." From the article: "The directive is pitched as offering greater protection for software developers. Opponents, including many in the European parliament, fear it will simply provide big players, including America's powerful and litigious software giants, with a very large stick to batter upstart developers and the Open Source movement." Update: 03/04 22:04 GMT by Z : And just as quick as you please Denmark stops things in their tracks. Denmark's objection means that there will have to be further debate before the patents get the stamp.

4 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Denmark and Poland Will Deal the Death Blow by TerminalSpin · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apparently, the Danes have stepped up to kill this one! http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=428

    --
    :wq
  2. Re:I don't understand by Lussarn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why do Europeans allow a non-elected commission to determine economic policy?

    The Euuropean union is a young and a very fastmoving project. I believe very few europeans know what the parlament actully do and what the commission do. I'm a swede and very seldom we get to vote, there is close to zero follow-up on the people we vote on in the media and frankly we don't know what they do. I don't think democracy is one of the strengths of the EU right now. Maybe in the future.

  3. The danes blocked it again... by SlashDread · · Score: 5, Informative

    Today, the danish comission of European affairs ORDERED their governement to not treat the new software patent directive as a "done deal".
    The Dutch governement had earlier said it was hoping on a redraft opf the bill, but would not block the vote, something the German Governement had also done.
    In the meantime the Dutch VVD also brought in a motion to try to get an amendment to bring "community patents into the bill, which then would have to be completely redrafted.

    Source: www.webwereld.nl

    I dont know about you folks, but I'm thinking: "It ain't over 'till the Fat Lady sings"
    And I somewhat like the idea of a commons of patents.

  4. Re:US influence peddling goes world-wide by badfish99 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Actually, the first draft of the proposed patent lay was found to have been written by the Business Software Alliance (see here

    If you look at the BSA web page, you will see that the members of this alliance are primarily US businesses: they list Microsoft, IBM, Intel etc etc as their members.

    So in this case the original poster is correct: this law seems to have been "bought" by US businesses.