Hi all, the directive was adopted (361 for, 135 against, 28 abstentions).
I'm not sure if this is good or bad, it's all down to the amendments. A summary was posted to slashdot in French, someone did a quick translation:
The European Parliament approves the patentability of the software STRASBOURG (Reuters) - the European Parliament approved Wednesday the draft Directive very disputed on the patentability of the software inventions, after having amended it to limit its field of application to the "true inventions" having a technical range. The text, presented in first reading, was approved by 364 votes, against 153 and 33 abstentions. It specifies the European Commission proposal, which establishes a distinction between the pure, famous software nonpatentable in European right, and the "inventions implemented by computer", which would become it, with the proviso of presenting a technical projection, likely to receive an industrial application. The text of origin was considered to be "fuzzy" and "ambiguous" by considerable members of Parliament who feared that it too largely does not open the way with the taking out of patents on the software, with the risk to constitute a brake with l"innovation in this key field of the economy. Eurodeputes added a paragraph specifying that a "invention implemented by computer (a software) is not regarded as contributing a technical share only because it implies the use of a computer". In light, so that a data-processing program is patentable, it is not enough that it is new, it is necessary still that it allows a technical innovation independently of its own execution. Another amendment specifies that the use of a patented technique is not regarded as a counterfeit if it is necessary to ensure the communication between various systems or data-processing networks. It acts for eurodeputes to prevent the monopoly which certain giants of the software could exert on the data-processing networks, Microsoft being named but probably not aimed. The European Parliament being a colegislator in this field which concerns the domestic market, the text must now be examined by the Council of Ministers, before returning in second reading to Strasbourg. The European police chief charged with the domestic market, Fritz Bolkestein, had warned eurodeputes, Tuesday at the time of the debate, on the "unacceptable" character of a certain number of amendments deposited.
ffii have a brief mention of it:
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/index.en.html
content-free, but give them a while.
Some of the posts on slashdot are from one of the guys that was in brussels for the vote, he gives a list of what amendments where in and what was out. The FFII seem to be relatively happy with it, and the committee behind the directive are thinking of pulling it as they feel its been highjacked by the likes of us:)
It also seems there will be a 'second reading' as the set of ammendments agreed to today is still somewhat contradictary.
All and all it doesnt look too bad.
Sean
Quoting Kevin O'Riordan kor@compsoc.com:
ffii have a brief mention of it:
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/index.en.htmlcontent-free, but give them a while.
-- People who respond to spams are presumably pretty dull witted, and have to be hit over the head with a lot of capital letters and exclamation points to get them to do anything. - Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/ffb.html) _______________________________________________ Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
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While the dust hasn't settled yet - this looks like a good outcome, but assuming that it is - the next hurdle will be getting it accepted by the EC. The following threat is of particular concern:
"If I may be blunt... the process of renegotiation of the European Patent Convention would not require any contribution from this Parliament," Bolkestein told the Parliament.
Basically Bolkestein, having learned what the democratic process has decided, is threatening to circumvent the EP altogether. How he can so blithely dismiss the outcome of this hard-fought battle is somewhat beyond me, sounds like many in the EU need to be reminded that they work for the people of the EU, not the other way around.
Anyway, the question now is where and to whom should we now direct our attention?
Ian.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 04:54:31PM +0100, sean@odonnell.nu wrote:
Some of the posts on slashdot are from one of the guys that was in brussels for the vote, he gives a list of what amendments where in and what was out. The FFII seem to be relatively happy with it, and the committee behind the directive are thinking of pulling it as they feel its been highjacked by the likes of us:)
It also seems there will be a 'second reading' as the set of ammendments agreed to today is still somewhat contradictary.
All and all it doesnt look too bad.
Sean
Quoting Kevin O'Riordan kor@compsoc.com:
ffii have a brief mention of it:
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/index.en.htmlcontent-free, but give them a while.
-- People who respond to spams are presumably pretty dull witted, and have to be hit over the head with a lot of capital letters and exclamation points to get them to do anything. - Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/ffb.html) _______________________________________________ Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
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I guess we need to read the eu reports from
http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/calendar?APP=PV2&LANGUE=EN
and
http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/calendar?APP=CRE&LANGUE=EN
when they are released tommorrow, find out exactly what is in and what is out, and then lobby our meps again for the second reading, if that goes through and we are happy with it we lobby the irish comissioner to accept it, if we dont like it we try and get him to reject it.After that i guess its a case of seeing what we can do as regards applying pressure on the patent convention negotiations and having epo patents that dont match the new critiera invalidated.
One thing i would be very interested to know is exactly how did irish meps vote on this yesterday, but i have'nt a clue where to get that info.
Sean
Quoting Ian Clarke ian@dodo.freenetproject.org:
While the dust hasn't settled yet - this looks like a good outcome, but assuming that it is - the next hurdle will be getting it accepted by the EC. The following threat is of particular concern:
"If I may be blunt... the process of renegotiation of the European Patent Convention would not require any contribution from this Parliament," Bolkestein told the Parliament.
Basically Bolkestein, having learned what the democratic process has decided, is threatening to circumvent the EP altogether. How he can so blithely dismiss the outcome of this hard-fought battle is somewhat beyond me, sounds like many in the EU need to be reminded that they work for the people of the EU, not the other way around.
Anyway, the question now is where and to whom should we now direct our attention?
Ian.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 04:54:31PM +0100, sean@odonnell.nu wrote:
Some of the posts on slashdot are from one of the guys that was in brussels for the vote, he gives a list of what amendments where in and what was out. The FFII seem to be relatively happy with it, and the
committee
behind the directive are thinking of pulling it as they feel its been
highjacked
by the likes of us:)
It also seems there will be a 'second reading' as the set of ammendments
agreed
to today is still somewhat contradictary.
All and all it doesnt look too bad.
Sean
Quoting Kevin O'Riordan kor@compsoc.com:
ffii have a brief mention of it:
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/index.en.htmlcontent-free, but give them a while.
-- People who respond to spams are presumably pretty dull witted, and have to be hit over the head with a lot of capital letters and exclamation points to get them to do anything. - Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/ffb.html) _______________________________________________ Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
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-- Ian Clarke ian@locut.us Coordinator, The Freenet Project http://freenetproject.org/ Weblog http://slashdot.org/~sanity/journal
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On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 07:24:17PM +0100, sean@odonnell.nu wrote:
[...]find out exactly what is in and what is out,
[...]One thing i would be very interested to know is exactly how did irish meps vote on this yesterday, but i have'nt a clue where to get that info.
The complete voting results are now at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/direct/documents/fr/vote/Resultats/Mercredi/Appel...
Gathering info from this 154 page doc is not a pleasure. Amendments are referenced by number so you'll need to crossreference it with the amendment texts at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/direct/application/fr/vote/contentAmend.asp?num=A...
I'm working on this at the moment.
Quoting Ian Clarke ian@dodo.freenetproject.org:
While the dust hasn't settled yet - this looks like a good outcome,
Yes. I hear the Article 2 amendments which define "technical", "technical field", "invention", and "industry" have been adopted. If this is true, we've won this round. (I'm verifying this now, I'll post when done.)
the next hurdle will be getting it accepted by the EC.
[...]Anyway, the question now is where and to whom should we now direct our attention?
"The Council" (Which I'm certain is short for Counsil of Ministers).
This is a committee of 15, one from each country. I haven't checked who the Irish Minister is yet.
Anyone that wants more info on the process can read: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/about/abc/abc_21.html
(halfway down the page, a diagram and text explanation of the "co-decision" procedure)
Attached is a copy of the Articles of the amended directive. Read Article 2 (a, b, c, & d) for a smile.
So now the proposal goes to the Council of Ministers. They can do three things:
a) They can accept the pre-amendment directive
If this happens, the procedure ends. No more voting, the (bad) directive gets adopted.
This would kill us. We have to make sure the Council don't do this. The Council is made up of one Minister from each country. The Minister is not a set position, the country chooses a relevent one for each meeting, so we don't know who are minister will be. Brian Crowley is the only Irish member of JURI. I reckon he has a good chance. He's very anti-swpat so it would be great if it's him.
b) They can accept the directive with all amendments
If this happens, the procedure ends. No more voting, the (good) directive gets adopted.
This is highly unlikely since after 78 amendments were adopted, the directive contradicts itself in places.
c) accept the directive with some amendments
If this happends, the semi-amended directive will return to the plenary for a "Second Reading". This is likely to happen but we must make sure it does happen. In the Second Reading, the plenary cannot suggest new amendments, it can only defend the ones it had already.
Q: Why does the Council of Ministers have so much power? A: To prevent large states out voting small states.
Ciaran O'Riordan
So maybe the best tactic right now is to lobby bertie, If we can get him onside, no doubt whoever is sent will be sent along with the right idea...
Quoting Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@member.fsf.org:
Attached is a copy of the Articles of the amended directive. Read Article 2 (a, b, c, & d) for a smile.
So now the proposal goes to the Council of Ministers. They can do three things:
a) They can accept the pre-amendment directive
If this happens, the procedure ends. No more voting, the (bad) directive gets adopted.
This would kill us. We have to make sure the Council don't do this. The Council is made up of one Minister from each country. The Minister is not a set position, the country chooses a relevent one for each meeting, so we don't know who are minister will be. Brian Crowley is the only Irish member of JURI. I reckon he has a good chance. He's very anti-swpat so it would be great if it's him.
b) They can accept the directive with all amendments
If this happens, the procedure ends. No more voting, the (good) directive gets adopted.
This is highly unlikely since after 78 amendments were adopted, the directive contradicts itself in places.
c) accept the directive with some amendments
If this happends, the semi-amended directive will return to the plenary for a "Second Reading". This is likely to happen but we must make sure it does happen. In the Second Reading, the plenary cannot suggest new amendments, it can only defend the ones it had already.
Q: Why does the Council of Ministers have so much power? A: To prevent large states out voting small states.
Ciaran O'Riordan
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Anyone know how to lobby Bertie effectively? Perhaps one of the helpful MEPs can introduce us to the right people?
Ian.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 09:03:34AM +0100, sean@odonnell.nu wrote:
So maybe the best tactic right now is to lobby bertie, If we can get him onside, no doubt whoever is sent will be sent along with the right idea...
Quoting Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@member.fsf.org:
Attached is a copy of the Articles of the amended directive. Read Article 2 (a, b, c, & d) for a smile.
So now the proposal goes to the Council of Ministers. They can do three things:
a) They can accept the pre-amendment directive
If this happens, the procedure ends. No more voting, the (bad) directive gets adopted.
This would kill us. We have to make sure the Council don't do this. The Council is made up of one Minister from each country. The Minister is not a set position, the country chooses a relevent one for each meeting, so we don't know who are minister will be. Brian Crowley is the only Irish member of JURI. I reckon he has a good chance. He's very anti-swpat so it would be great if it's him.
b) They can accept the directive with all amendments
If this happens, the procedure ends. No more voting, the (good) directive gets adopted.
This is highly unlikely since after 78 amendments were adopted, the directive contradicts itself in places.
c) accept the directive with some amendments
If this happends, the semi-amended directive will return to the plenary for a "Second Reading". This is likely to happen but we must make sure it does happen. In the Second Reading, the plenary cannot suggest new amendments, it can only defend the ones it had already.
Q: Why does the Council of Ministers have so much power? A: To prevent large states out voting small states.
Ciaran O'Riordan
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Berties Contact details
Home/Office Phone 01 8374129 Home/Office Fax 01 8368877 Leinster House Phone 01 6194020 Leinster House Fax 01 6764048 taoiseach@taoiseach.ie Department of An Taoiseach, Government Buildings, Merrion Street, Dublin 2
Also his constituency office
Ahern, Bertie 161 Lower Drumcondra Road, Dublin 9
Phone: (01) 6624888(Work), (01) 8374129
I've heard rumours that now and again he picks up the phone there himself...
Sean
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