parliament has been gamed by the council already. several times on this issue alone.
The pushing-the-directive-back-with-no-changes trick was questionable, I agree on this, and the council is going to face prosecution for treason because of other things they did to their national councils on this matter. They have lost a great deal of their power because of this directive.
The 30'000 software patents exist because the EPO re-defined the terms of the EPC until it suited their needs. However, you can be fairly sure that in the third reading, should there be one, there's not going to be a radical pro-patent position like we had in the first reading.
my point was that these same high-tech firms are happy to continue gaming the national patent offices until they can get a new directive that suits them better.
The patent offices have no business in passing or rejecting directives. The EPO is currently undergoing restructuring, and the EP made it very clear that they want a controlling position over the EPO - which is exactly how it's supposed to be, by the way.
So unless a directive like the one we're going to see a vote on tomorrow is going to be passed legalizing the 30'000 software patents, they'll have a tough stand in any court, especially because there are precedence cases in which the judge referred to the EPC.
Let's just try our best with the Rocard ammendments or get the directive wiped out entirely. One thing we couldn't use less is paranoia.
Well, I never heard the word "Linux" so often in a parliament as in the vote on software patents, except of course for the decision of the german parliament to move their servers to it, and the decision to convert the german embassies to Linux too. Nevertheless, it was impressive.
I outlined this several times already, and I'm not going to repeat it entirely: read further up the thread list:
It's not the EICTA that wants to reject the directive, but the EPP and ALDE - EU parlamentarians. Humans, not companies.
A badly ammended directive is bad for both sides.
The national governments are under better control by their electors and the media. It's almost impossible to get a law passed there without attracting attention.
The European Patent Convention (Munich, 1974) already prohibits software patents so you cannot simply allow them on national level: the EPC would have to be ambolished for that, which would again only be feasible by the EU filing a directive.
If the directive gets rejected, we have a third chance, and an even better one than the first two.
The pro-patent MEPs and especially the lobbyists have lost a great deal of credibility in this second reading. The EU commission and especially the council of ministers has lost a significant amount of authority in trying to push this directive through without discussion and proper conciliation. They have put quite a lot of political risk trying to push this directive through. It's going to be very hard for them to try and push a third radical approach.
If we get this directive rejected in second reading, we have a much better leg to stand on in a second reading, given the EU commission breaks its promise not to bring it back up, also because we already had two parliaments reject it, and for a third generation of parlamentarians accepting the directive would mean ruining the work of the first two. Parliaments aren't fond of ruining their work.
Believe me, in a third reading we'd have a much better situation. The EU is currently losing a great deal of their power, especially because of the rejections of the constitution. The media is paying attention. The patent directive even made it into more broad media, and the amount of people claiming that anti-patent means anti-american and anti-business, claiming that we're all evil communists, has dropped.
A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of the mistrust of the people against not democratically legitimated governments. And they can't ignore it.
Well, from my experience with parlamentarians, I can say that it can only get better. Right now, the EU is some kind of shadow organ that successfully avoids being controlled. The french government, for example, could never get into a situation where government members are threatened and brided by the EICTA or some similar company in their universe to vote for or against laws without having any attention drawn to the case.
The problem is that these people still think they can get away with it. The EU claims to be entirely open and to publish information on anything, which is true, by the way! But even the german Bundestag complained recently that they don't even have a chance to get information about what's going on at EU level, because there's just far too much information being spit out. As Wau Holland said, filtering is very important these days, and the people from FFII had to put an enormous amount of work just into getting information on this one matter filtered out of the whole bunch of noise. The EU surely doesn't mean to be evil with it, but as it's said, the road to hell is paved with good premises.
As the Spiegel wrote in nr. 24/2005, p. 114: we need an european Spiegel to watch the governmental organs, but it's hard since we don't even have a common language, or any kind of common base to build on.
The directive started out the same way directives use to do in the EU: someone wrote a directive for the "patentability of computer implemented inventions", which was lying around right next to the directive on fighting potatoe diseases in Spain. It was written by "experts" (namely the Business Software Alliance), and since the EU parliament doesn't have a scientific service to ask like most other governments do, it should have sneaked in without anyone noticing. Thanks to the FFII that it didn't, though.
If we can get this directive rejected, or even better, get Rocard's ammendments in, this is the ultimate proof that the EU parliament is a governmental organ that you can actually work with, and that it's possible to represent one's interests at EU level. That would be a great advance to civilizing the EU, not the opposite.
If, on the other hand, the directive gets accepted unammended or badly ammended, if we were unable to represent our interests, nobody can ever do. Then you're right.
Still filled with hope, thanks to lots of sane MEPs he met over the time,
Tonnerre
The EU commission has promised not to bring the issue back up, but like you I think we'll see it again in 2 years or something.
However, for that matter, time is 100% on our side. First of all, we already convinced a lot of people that cannot be convinced of the inverse because they have the facts. Then, a new parliament usually has an interest to "continue the prior work", so if we have two rejection of the directive in the parliament, it's very unlikely that a third parliament is going to accept full patentability, thereby ruining the work of two entire legislative generations.
The pro-patent parties like EPP and ALDE now want the directive dead because they're afraid of Rocard ammendment 21, and because they're aware like everyone else that a compromise directive on this matter would most likely be pure garbage which causes major harm to everyone. They're not evil pumpkins after all who want to control the world, they're just people who heard the wrong arguments. They want to do something good for the EU, and thus rejecting the directive is the best way out for them.
Of course, a properly ammended directive would be the best for us, but this aim is very unlikely at the time, so we should deal with what we can get: a majority for rejection.
However, local governments tend to dislike the directive, and are under direct control by the media.
The thing seamed like an easy deal for the EICTA because the EU isn't really controlled by anything. They're mostly not democratically legitimated (not even the parliament: some parlamentarians were elected by 300'000 EU citizens each, others only needed 40'000, etc.), and the EU has built some kind of wall of information as you know it from the war in Iraq: if they provide too much information, it gets terribly hard to find what you're looking for. I can tell you first hand...
The vote is in a little less than 9 hours. You can follow it live if you like. Wish us luck...
This is not true. Normally, the directive would go into conciliation and come back in better shape after a while as a compromise of the parliament and the council.
However, the EU commission promised through a letter today that they would comply entirely with the Parliament, that is, if the Parliament ammends the directive, they would accept the ammendments, and if the directive was to be rejected, they wouldn't touch the issue anymore.
Maybe they're afraid of ending up in the same way the EU council did: being accused of treason...
Please note that the statement that patents are not granted twice is wrong. Every big company who's involved with software patents owns e.g. at least three patents on webservers.
Actually, the wallets are on your side. The majority of small and medium-sized enterprises is against software patents, and even the few that subscribed to the http://www.ffii.org/ campaign already have more annual turnover than Microsoft, who is very vocal about software patents.
Also, the big companies are arguing mainly that the small ones want software patents (which the small ones deny, of course).
So it's also about saving a large part of the european economy.
This still doesn't hit the point. The point is that
1) 30'000 software patents have already been granted illegaly covering basic code that everyone who writes a program will most likely use.
2) The only actual winners of software patents are big companies that have thousands of them. The innovation cycles are too short for software, and also, software evolution happens incrementally. The only thing patents can do is harm.
3) As already outlined by the british parliament in the 1870s when patents were introduced, a patent is a government-granted monopoly. This is orthogonal to the liberalism people proclaim.
4) This directive has come around in illegal practice by ignoring many people that are legally allowed to have their opinion on this heard, such as the countries' parliaments.
I'm sure there are many more points of what's wrong with it. Read http://www.thundrix.ch/hacktivity/swpat.php to find out.
Not quite true. You're the people to get the MEPs elected, and you're the people that decide if the EU has a future. Tell them that and they will listen.
This is far too late, there are around 30'000 trivial patents that have already been granted by the EPO and that are about things like remote shell, webservers, progress bars, the if statement, the turing machine,...
Also, challenging a patents involves a cost of something like EUR 260.-, so it's not a thing to do for the free software foundation.
Salut,
It's a good thing that you want to fight for your rights by telling your local MEP how you feel about software patents.
However, you should know that MEPs don't care very much about ideology, or free products. They care about economic advantages, and about getting elected (this is why they'll listen to you). They'll be on your side if you tell them how companies will suffer if their inventions are subject to patent claims, and how this is going to affect their ability to do business. Also, they will care about increasing the acceptance of the EU, so you should tell them about the legal problems with the decision.
I'd recommend you to check out a little page I set up on this matter a few weeks ago, you find it on http://www.thundrix.ch/hacktivity/swpat.php
Thanks for your help! Hope it works!
Tonnerre
Slashdot Mirror
2003, 2005: that's actually 2-0
Tonnerre
The 30'000 software patents exist because the EPO re-defined the terms of the EPC until it suited their needs. However, you can be fairly sure that in the third reading, should there be one, there's not going to be a radical pro-patent position like we had in the first reading. The patent offices have no business in passing or rejecting directives. The EPO is currently undergoing restructuring, and the EP made it very clear that they want a controlling position over the EPO - which is exactly how it's supposed to be, by the way.
So unless a directive like the one we're going to see a vote on tomorrow is going to be passed legalizing the 30'000 software patents, they'll have a tough stand in any court, especially because there are precedence cases in which the judge referred to the EPC.
Let's just try our best with the Rocard ammendments or get the directive wiped out entirely. One thing we couldn't use less is paranoia.
Tonnerre
Well, I never heard the word "Linux" so often in a parliament as in the vote on software patents, except of course for the decision of the german parliament to move their servers to it, and the decision to convert the german embassies to Linux too. Nevertheless, it was impressive.
Tonnerre
Allowing software patents on national level is impossible because of the European Patent Convention.
Tonnerre
- It's not the EICTA that wants to reject the directive, but the EPP and ALDE - EU parlamentarians. Humans, not companies.
- A badly ammended directive is bad for both sides.
- The national governments are under better control by their electors and the media. It's almost impossible to get a law passed there without attracting attention.
- The European Patent Convention (Munich, 1974) already prohibits software patents so you cannot simply allow them on national level: the EPC would have to be ambolished for that, which would again only be feasible by the EU filing a directive.
If the directive gets rejected, we have a third chance, and an even better one than the first two.Tonnerre
The pro-patent MEPs and especially the lobbyists have lost a great deal of credibility in this second reading. The EU commission and especially the council of ministers has lost a significant amount of authority in trying to push this directive through without discussion and proper conciliation. They have put quite a lot of political risk trying to push this directive through. It's going to be very hard for them to try and push a third radical approach.
If we get this directive rejected in second reading, we have a much better leg to stand on in a second reading, given the EU commission breaks its promise not to bring it back up, also because we already had two parliaments reject it, and for a third generation of parlamentarians accepting the directive would mean ruining the work of the first two. Parliaments aren't fond of ruining their work.
Believe me, in a third reading we'd have a much better situation. The EU is currently losing a great deal of their power, especially because of the rejections of the constitution. The media is paying attention. The patent directive even made it into more broad media, and the amount of people claiming that anti-patent means anti-american and anti-business, claiming that we're all evil communists, has dropped.
A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of the mistrust of the people against not democratically legitimated governments. And they can't ignore it.
Tonnerre
Well, from my experience with parlamentarians, I can say that it can only get better. Right now, the EU is some kind of shadow organ that successfully avoids being controlled. The french government, for example, could never get into a situation where government members are threatened and brided by the EICTA or some similar company in their universe to vote for or against laws without having any attention drawn to the case.
The problem is that these people still think they can get away with it. The EU claims to be entirely open and to publish information on anything, which is true, by the way! But even the german Bundestag complained recently that they don't even have a chance to get information about what's going on at EU level, because there's just far too much information being spit out. As Wau Holland said, filtering is very important these days, and the people from FFII had to put an enormous amount of work just into getting information on this one matter filtered out of the whole bunch of noise. The EU surely doesn't mean to be evil with it, but as it's said, the road to hell is paved with good premises.
As the Spiegel wrote in nr. 24/2005, p. 114: we need an european Spiegel to watch the governmental organs, but it's hard since we don't even have a common language, or any kind of common base to build on.
The directive started out the same way directives use to do in the EU: someone wrote a directive for the "patentability of computer implemented inventions", which was lying around right next to the directive on fighting potatoe diseases in Spain. It was written by "experts" (namely the Business Software Alliance), and since the EU parliament doesn't have a scientific service to ask like most other governments do, it should have sneaked in without anyone noticing. Thanks to the FFII that it didn't, though.
If we can get this directive rejected, or even better, get Rocard's ammendments in, this is the ultimate proof that the EU parliament is a governmental organ that you can actually work with, and that it's possible to represent one's interests at EU level. That would be a great advance to civilizing the EU, not the opposite.
If, on the other hand, the directive gets accepted unammended or badly ammended, if we were unable to represent our interests, nobody can ever do. Then you're right.
Still filled with hope, thanks to lots of sane MEPs he met over the time,
Tonnerre
The EU commission has promised not to bring the issue back up, but like you I think we'll see it again in 2 years or something.
However, for that matter, time is 100% on our side. First of all, we already convinced a lot of people that cannot be convinced of the inverse because they have the facts. Then, a new parliament usually has an interest to "continue the prior work", so if we have two rejection of the directive in the parliament, it's very unlikely that a third parliament is going to accept full patentability, thereby ruining the work of two entire legislative generations.
The pro-patent parties like EPP and ALDE now want the directive dead because they're afraid of Rocard ammendment 21, and because they're aware like everyone else that a compromise directive on this matter would most likely be pure garbage which causes major harm to everyone. They're not evil pumpkins after all who want to control the world, they're just people who heard the wrong arguments. They want to do something good for the EU, and thus rejecting the directive is the best way out for them.
Of course, a properly ammended directive would be the best for us, but this aim is very unlikely at the time, so we should deal with what we can get: a majority for rejection.
Tonnerre
However, local governments tend to dislike the directive, and are under direct control by the media.
The thing seamed like an easy deal for the EICTA because the EU isn't really controlled by anything. They're mostly not democratically legitimated (not even the parliament: some parlamentarians were elected by 300'000 EU citizens each, others only needed 40'000, etc.), and the EU has built some kind of wall of information as you know it from the war in Iraq: if they provide too much information, it gets terribly hard to find what you're looking for. I can tell you first hand...
The vote is in a little less than 9 hours. You can follow it live if you like. Wish us luck...
Tonnerre
This is not true. Normally, the directive would go into conciliation and come back in better shape after a while as a compromise of the parliament and the council.
However, the EU commission promised through a letter today that they would comply entirely with the Parliament, that is, if the Parliament ammends the directive, they would accept the ammendments, and if the directive was to be rejected, they wouldn't touch the issue anymore.
Maybe they're afraid of ending up in the same way the EU council did: being accused of treason...
Tonnerre
If you have the ability to act, act. It is necessary right now in order to reject this policy.
You have 18 days left.
Tonnerre
Please note that the statement that patents are not granted twice is wrong. Every big company who's involved with software patents owns e.g. at least three patents on webservers.
Tonnerre
Actually, the wallets are on your side. The majority of small and medium-sized enterprises is against software patents, and even the few that subscribed to the http://www.ffii.org/ campaign already have more annual turnover than Microsoft, who is very vocal about software patents.
Also, the big companies are arguing mainly that the small ones want software patents (which the small ones deny, of course).
So it's also about saving a large part of the european economy.
Tonnerre
This still doesn't hit the point. The point is that 1) 30'000 software patents have already been granted illegaly covering basic code that everyone who writes a program will most likely use. 2) The only actual winners of software patents are big companies that have thousands of them. The innovation cycles are too short for software, and also, software evolution happens incrementally. The only thing patents can do is harm. 3) As already outlined by the british parliament in the 1870s when patents were introduced, a patent is a government-granted monopoly. This is orthogonal to the liberalism people proclaim. 4) This directive has come around in illegal practice by ignoring many people that are legally allowed to have their opinion on this heard, such as the countries' parliaments. I'm sure there are many more points of what's wrong with it. Read http://www.thundrix.ch/hacktivity/swpat.php to find out.
Not quite true. You're the people to get the MEPs elected, and you're the people that decide if the EU has a future. Tell them that and they will listen.
This is far too late, there are around 30'000 trivial patents that have already been granted by the EPO and that are about things like remote shell, webservers, progress bars, the if statement, the turing machine, ...
Also, challenging a patents involves a cost of something like EUR 260.-, so it's not a thing to do for the free software foundation.
Salut, It's a good thing that you want to fight for your rights by telling your local MEP how you feel about software patents. However, you should know that MEPs don't care very much about ideology, or free products. They care about economic advantages, and about getting elected (this is why they'll listen to you). They'll be on your side if you tell them how companies will suffer if their inventions are subject to patent claims, and how this is going to affect their ability to do business. Also, they will care about increasing the acceptance of the EU, so you should tell them about the legal problems with the decision. I'd recommend you to check out a little page I set up on this matter a few weeks ago, you find it on http://www.thundrix.ch/hacktivity/swpat.php Thanks for your help! Hope it works! Tonnerre