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EU Patents Won't Stay Dead
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.
Is it just me or does it sound like Microsoft and other litigious American software giants has bought the influence of this European commission? I can only hope that the many countries involved will stand up and fight to at least hold debate on a matter that might ruin most small and mid sized European software companies.
Its not users who are broken, it's systems not taking account their likely behaviour and fixing it technically.
... for a second reading, can't they kill the measure then even if the Ministers approve it?
I just can't imagine a world of software where the guy that thinks up an idea has sole possession of said idea, there won't be any room for improvement or growth of software.
;-) I don't think India is part of the EU...yet.
At least in Europe
Why do Europeans allow a non-elected commission to determine economic policy? It makes no sense to me that a state would agree to hand out such important matters that, in my mind anyhow, require representation to do. Personally, I don't give crap about software patents, I'm more amazed the EU is run like this.
Burn Hollywood Burn
I'm not up on my EU procedures. Assuming it is approved by the ministers, does it still need Parliamentary approval? If so, and assuming it receives such, is there some type of court to which an appeal can be brought? Does the EU have any type of Judicial redress?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
According to this article in the German IT magazine Heise.de (use the fish), the danish parliament has giving their minister for economy, Bendt Bendtsen, binding orders to request a complete restart of the whole negotiations.
The parliament of the Netherlands have giving their representative orders to support any demands for new negotiations.
Finally, the German representative would face sever pressure (he'd probably have to resign) should he ignore the German parliants demands for new negotiations.
As for many of the "new" EU members, they will probably not support a decision that might severly restrict their fledgeling IT economy - no matter how much Microsoft and the other "big players" try to lobby.
So, all in all, its as good as dead - at least for now.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
If the EU Parliament can make a stink about this autocratic move by the EU Council, and stop the power grab, it will be a larger victory for European democracy. This kind of abuse will happen all the time in Europe, making a sham of democracy as corporations and other interests make end runs around a subordinate democratic government. But if they can drive a stake through its heart now, democracy can rule a functionary state body instead. Europe has had centuries of warmup for a continental democracy experiment, including staging a mixed bag of results across the Atlantic. Now, as it is formally getting underway at home, is the time to ensure the balances are correct.
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make install -not war
That's a little extreme. Corporations are not obligated to commit ethical violations just because it might net them more money. Most shareholders would probably not put up with unethical behaviour just for increased value of the stock.
The people pushing patents believe in their black, black hearts that this is ethical. That Intellectual Property is just that. I've been in a patent discussion with our lawyers and it's amazing that they actually believe the IP argument. They just don't understand how software works, they like thinking of it as a CD or a web page, since those are concepts that they understand.
Save a life, sign your organ donor card.
I live in Switzerland, which is not part of the EU, thank God, and given the EC blatant disregard for the EU parlimentary request to restart the process of software patents, I will make very sure, by the democratic means of public initiative, aka privately initiated referendums, which we have in Switzerland, that Switzerland will never join that bastion of corruption.
I do not want my country ruled by a cabal of easily bought unelected scum in Brussels, and, given the way things are going, I think there are many current EU members, such as the UK and Denmark that are wondering how they can get out of it as fast as possible.
Has there ever been some study or likewise that support patents, in the sense that they show an increase in innovation in areas that are patent regulated?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
What I mean by that is that if someone defines, say, a new crime and brings out laws against that crime, from that point on you can try people for breaking those laws. But you can't retrospectively try people who committed that crime before the laws against it were written.
Sure, patent law has existed for years but software patent laws are not currently recognised in Europe. If they do get through, by the same logic, no software written before those laws were enforced can come under them - is that the case or am I missing something?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The requirements of fiduciary responsibility are usually negative, not positive. You can't do something that's clearly BAD for the company (remember the flap about the network whose manaagement wanted to run an anti-Kerry show? He backed down because it was clearly not in the best fiduciary interest of the company.) However, as for taking a particular positive action (should we develop X or Y? Should we lobby the EU for software patents?), there is no consequence as a breach of "fiduciary responsibility" for taking one action or another. You might get fired for incompetence, but not sued.
Clearly greed is a human motivation, and serves a purpose - medieval scholars wrote "Blessed is the inclination to evil, without which a man would not plant a vineyard, take a wife, or establish a house." But we all know it can be destructive to society as a whole when applied on a huge scale.
Fiduciary responsibility does not, in a practical sense, mandate immoral behavior. Dressing it up as some sort of moral obligation is the worst sort of cynicism. It's a call to inaction - "These huge powerful companies HAVE to act this way - no sense in trying to make it turn out any differently." What a bleak world that would be to live in.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
If so, why not appoint a new commission and negate their actions on patents?
Because if there is one thing parliaments _really_ hate, it is that kind of thing...
The cynic in me tells me that the "Software implemented inventions" item will probably be removed from the agenda next monday. It does not matter. It was a big mistake on the part of the pro-patent lobby to push so hard for the adoption of the directive when there was no majority. It put the pro-patent lobby in the position that they had to lobby against democracy. This destroyed any chance of a patent-friendly directive.
Commissioner McGreevy had effectively lost when the EU parliament voted for the restart with a very large majority. Sure, the commission could refuse the restart, and it foolishly did so. The council might even have adapted the directive. But there was no way this would get through a second reading. Denmark saved McGreevy and the rest of the commission from a devastating showdown with the EU parliament. The commission should be grateful.