[ANSOL-geral]FFII Press Release: European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush
Vote on Software Patent Directive
Rui Miguel Seabra
rms arroba 1407.org
Fri Jun 27 09:47:02 2003
--=-5QTcnhBn1PXV0RO+OIIc
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: PILCH Hartmut <phm arroba a2e.de>
To: news arroba ffii.org
Cc: patents arroba aful.org
Subject: [ffii] European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Softwar=
e Patent Directive
Date: 27 Jun 2003 08:39:03 +0200
FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
_________________________________________________________________
European Parliament Rejects Attempt to Rush Vote on Software Patent
Directive
Brussels 2003/06/26
For immediate Release
The European Parliament has postponed the vote on the software patent
directive back to the original date of 1st of September, thereby
rejecting initially successful efforts of its rapporteur Arlene
McCarthy (UK Labour MEP of Manchester who acted as a rapporteur for
the directive in the parliament) and her supporters to rush to vote on
June 30th, a mere twelve days after publication of the highly
controversial report and tend days after the unexpected change of
schedule.
Background
Members of Parliament from all parties had complained that it was
impossible to react adequately within a timeframe of 10 days.
Until Wednesday, leaders of the two largest blocks, the socialists
(PSE) and conservatives (PPE), seemed determined to follow the
recommentations of their "patent experts" and go ahead with the vote
quickly. They explained that there was no reason to wait, because all
possible amendment proposals had already been submitted to the
committees and translated to all languages, and there was no need for
new amendments. This view however became increasingly difficult to
uphold, as more and more MEPs in all parties became aware of the
schedule change and pointed out that they wanted to prepare new
amendments. Within the socialist group, a large opposition group,
possibly the majority, gathered around Michel Rocard (FR), Luis
Berenguer (ES), Evelyn Gebhardt (DE), Olga Zrihen (BE) and other MEPs
who had played a prominent role in resisting software patentability.
On Wednesday the climate change became apparent. More and more MEPs
rumored that the schedule would not be upheld. Even [11]Arlene
McCarthy was quoted as saying that it might be too tight. A spokesman
from the [12]General Directorate for the Internal Market of the
European Commission, which has been pushing for the directive together
with Arlene McCarthy and other allies in the Parliaments Commitee for
Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI), meanwhile told
journalists: "Arlene McCarthy has tried hard to have the vote
conducted on June 30th, but as things now stand, this looks rather
unlikely."
On Thursday morning, at the meeting of the secretary generals, the
representatives of all political groups voted for postponment. Their
vote was confirmed by the conference of presidents (i.e. head of
transnational party groups) during their session at 3 p.m. At 8 p.m.
the decision was made public on the Parliament's [13]schedule webpage.
Many software professionals have been contacting their MEPs in recent
days. A letter by [14]Tim Jackson, operations manager for Internet
Assist Ltd in Chelmsford, UK, reflects the mood :
Almost all involved in software in Europe, bar a select few large
corporations, and law firms who make money from litigation and
legal complexities, are opposed to software patenting. There is a
huge groundswell of opinion amongst the real software engineers
(who understand the complex process and history of software
development) which favours strong and unambiguous prohibition of
patents on software. Copyright is the right tool to protect
software, not patents. By using grossly misleading and emotive
language such as "giving software innovators the protection they
deserve" the proponents are trying to give the appearance that
software developers and businesses are crying out for "protection"
by patents, when quite the opposite is true - we (and society at
large) actually want and need protection from software patents!
[...] If any of you intend to vote in favour of the proposed
Directive, may I ask you to be so kind as to explain to myself your
reasons for concluding that this is in the interests of Europe? The
eyes of many IT-literate constituents are on you, and you will
undoubtedly permanently lose many of our votes (certainly including
mine) should you choose to support this assault on our livelihoods
and interests.
This groundswell of public sentiment, together with a concerted
lobbying effort by a group of 2000 software companies coordinated by
FFII/Eurolinux, has undoubtedly helped to raise awareness among MEPs.
As FFII president Hartmut Pilch remarked,
With the big pressures in European institutions it might seem that
only deep pocket companies lobbies would be taken into account, but
our experience shows that public opinion, grass-roots efforts and a
little coordination and organisation can still push the interests
of the majority, at least for so evident cases.
The conference which we organised with the Greens/EFA in May and
the steadily mounting pressure of public opinion have clearly
created a sense of urgency among the promoters of software
patentability in the Legal Affairs Commission. Now, thanks to the
postponement, we have three more session weeks for raising
awareness.=20
The Commission for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was
justly labelled a "legislative sausage machine" by its vice
president Willy Rothley shortly before its misguided vote on
software patents. This sausage machine has been turning out a
seemingly never-ending series of poorly-crafted and
shoddily-reasoned special-interest legislation for many years.
Now perhaps for the first time the sausage machine is meeting a
public resistance which could bring it to a rest. We may
cautiously hope that we are part of a process of change for the
better in the culture of lawmaking in Europe.
Media Contacts
mail:
media at ffii org
phone:
Hartmut Pilch +49-89-18979927
More Contacts to be supplied upon request
About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source
software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux
develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses
for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.
About the FFII -- www.ffii.org
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a
non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the
spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of
public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open
standards. More than 200 members, 180 companies and 12000 individual
supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public
policy questions in the area of software property law.
Permanent URL of this Press Release
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/index.en.html
Annotated Links
-> [15]PSE pushes Parliament to rush vote on McCarthy software
patentability directive
Due to requests from the Socialist Group (PSE) of JURI
rapporteur Arlene McCarthy, the European Parliament protracted
the planned vote on software patentabilty from September 1 to
July 1, just 13 days after McCarthy won the vote in the Legal
Affairs Committee (JURI).
-> [16]Vote in 8 days: 2000 IT bosses urge European Parliament to say
NO to software patents
A "Petition for a Free Europe without Software Patents" has
gained more than 150000 signatures. Among the supporters are
more than 2000 company owners and chief executives and 25000
developpers and engineers from all sectors of the European
information and telecommunication industries, as well as more
than 2000 scientists and 180 lawyers. Companies like Siemens,
IBM, Alcatel and Nokia lead the list of those whose researchers
and developpers want to protect programming freedom and
copyright property against what they see as a "patent
landgrab". Currently the patent policy of many of these
companies is still dominated by their patent departments. These
have intensively lobbied the European Parliament to support a
proposal to allow patentability of "computer-implemented
inventions" (recent patent newspeak term which usually refers
to software in the context of patent claims, i.e. algorithms
and business methods framed in terms of generic computing
equipment), which the rapporteur, UK Labour MEP Arlene
McCarthy, backed by "patent experts" from the socialist and
conservative blocks, is trying to rush through the European
Parliament on June 30, just 13 days after she had won the vote
in the Legal Affairs Committe (JURI).
-> [17]JURI votes for Fake Limits on Patentability
The European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs and the
Internal Market (JURI) voted on tuesday morning about a list of
proposed amendments to the planned software patent directive.
It was the third and last in a series of committee votes, whose
results will be presented to the plenary in early september.
The other two commissions (CULT, ITRE) had opted to more or
less clearly exclude software patents. The JURI rapporteur
Arlene McCarthy MEP (UK socialist) also claimed to be aiming
for a "restrictive harmonisation of the status quo" and
"exclusion of software as such, algorithms and business methods
from patentability". Yet McCarthy presented a voting list to
fellow MEPs which, upon closer look, turns ideas like "Amazon
One-Click Shopping" into patentable inventions. McCarthy and
her followers rejected all amendment proposals that try to
define central terms such as "technical" or "invention", while
supporting some proposals which reinforce the patentability of
software, e.g. by making publication of software a direct
patent infringment, by stating that "computer-implemented
inventions by their very nature belong to a field of
technology", or by inserting new economic rationales
("self-evident" need for Europeans to rely on "patent
protection" in view of "the present trend for traditional
manufacturing industry to shift their operations to low-cost
economies outside the European Union") into the recitals. Most
of McCarthy's proposals found a conservative-socialist 2/3
majority (20 of 30 MEPs), whereas most of the proposals from
the other committees (CULT =3D Culture, ITRE =3D Industry) were
rejected. Study reports commissioned by the Parliament and
other EU institutions were disregarded or misquoted, as some of
their authors point out (see below). A few socialists and
conservatives voted together with Greens and Left in favor of
real limits on patentability (such as the CULT opinion, based
on traditional definitions, that "data processing is not a
field of technology" and that technical invention is about "use
of controllable forces of nature"), but they were overruled by
the two largest blocks. Most MEPs simply followed the voting
lists of their "patent experts", such as Arlene McCarthy (UK)
for the Socialists (PSE) and shadow rapporteur Dr. Joachim
W=C3=BCrmeling (DE) for the Conservatives (EPP). Both McCarthy an=
d
W=C3=BCrmeling have closely followed the advice of the directive
proponents from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the
European Commission's Industrial Property Unit (CEC-Indprop,
represented by former UK Patent Office employee Anthony Howard)
and declined all offers of dialog with software professionals
and academia ever since they were nominated rapporteurs in May
2002.
-> [18]FFII: Software Patents in Europe
For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has,
contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted
more than 20000 patents on what the law calls "programs for
computers" and what the European Patent Office (EPO) started to
call "computer-implemented inventions" in 2000: software in a
context of patent claims, i.e. rules of organisation and
calculation framed in terms of generic computing equipment. Now
Europe's patent community is pressing to impose the EPO' recent
practise by writing a new law. Europe's programmers and
citizens are facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic
documentation, starting from a short overview and the latest
news.
_________________________________________________________________
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/index.en.html
[19]=C2=A9 2003/06/27 [20]Workgroup
Verweise
1. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/swnplen030626.en.txt
2. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/todo/index.en.html
3. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/swnplen030626.en.pdf
4. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/index.en.html
5. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/#bakgr
6. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/#media
7. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/#eurolinux
8. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/#ffii
9. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/#url
10. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0626/#links
11. http://swpat.ffii.org/players/amccarthy/index.en.html
12. http://swpat.ffii.org/players/cec/index.en.html
13. http://www3.europarl.eu.int/ap-cgi/chargeur.pl?APP=3DIRIS+PRG=3DREPRI=
EF+FILE=3DREPRIEF+SESSION=3DJUL|03+DAY=3D1+SES=3DALL+LG=3DFR+BACK=3DNONE
14. http://www.timj.co.uk/digiculture/patents/
15. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0620/index.en.html
16. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/epet0622/index.en.html
17. http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0617/index.en.html
18. http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html
19. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
20. http://swpat.ffii.org/group/index.en.html
_______________________________________________
News mailing list
(un)subscribe via http://petition.ffii.org/
News arroba ffii.org
http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news
--=20
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?
Please AVOID sending me WORD, EXCEL or POWERPOINT attachments.
See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
--=-5QTcnhBn1PXV0RO+OIIc
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc
Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)
iD8DBQA+/BJio+C50no0+t4RAiaKAKCP02Ve8bJ9rO46MnES5Vu5NillugCfYoB4
mQT5VUMXbtRFgzrzcOQWl/o=
=Qcxr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--=-5QTcnhBn1PXV0RO+OIIc--