Thank you Ciaran, you said it for me, can we get back to FSF issues which is why people subscribe and get involved. Where's the latest on how we can protect free software from patents ? Buried in the middle of three day's ago's mammoth 'digest' edition ? New focused thread please... Mel
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On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 09:30:13AM +0100, mmcweeney@oceanfree.net wrote: [...]
Where's the latest on how we can protect free software from patents?
I'm up to my neck in other work at the moment so here's a terse forward of my side of a conversation I was having with someone from AFFS:
Possible date for Council of Ministers meeting: =============================================== "On 10 Nov, software patents are possibly on the agenda for a meeting of governmental patent experts from EU member states in the European Council" http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/epet0929/index.en.html
Make-up of Coucil of Ministers: =============================== "The question of how to limit patentability is handled in the "Council Working Party on Intellectual Property and Patents"" http://swpat.ffii.org/players/consilium/index.en.html
The co-decision procedure and where we are: =========================================== Okay, I've checked this by the europarl site, my book, and the comments of the commission. Here's the deal as I now understand it:
We had the EPs first reading. Next comes the Councils first reading. The Council can accept the EP version or make changes. If they make changes, the new proposal is called the "common position" and it goes for a second reading by the EP. The EP can: a) Accept the common position by majority vote: proposal adopted b) Not take a decision: proposal adopted c) Reject the common position by majority vote: proposal rejected. d) Propose amendments to the common position: 2nd reading by Council
If the Coucils common position overturns the non-patentability of software, we must push the EP to go for (d). No new amendments can be tabled, it can just re-propose previously proposed amendments.
If this happens, the common position plus re-propsed amendments go for a second reading by the Council. The Commision gives an "opinion" (positive or negative). At Council 2nd reading, it can:
a) Accept the EP amended proposal by majority vote if the Commission's opinion was positive b) Accept the EP amended proposal by unamimity if the Commissions opinion was negative c) reject the EP amendments, a "conciliation committee" is then convened
The Commission have already said that they would not support the proposal with the amendments that were adopted, so we can pretty much assume a negative opinion from the commission.
So (a) won't happen and (b) is a long shot (unanimity of 15 states).
In the case of (c), a conciliation committee (Council plus an equal number of MEPs) is formed. They try to come up with a joint text. If they do, the Council and the EP have to approve it for it to be adopted, otherwise the proposal is rejected and procedure ends. So, assuming (c) happens, if we are to win, we will probably have to lobby the conciliation committee to make a good joint text.
That's the deal, but there are further problems. At the Sept 23rd debate, Bolkestein speaking for the commission said that: "if we fail in our efforts to achieve a harmonisation of patent law relating to computer-implemented inventions in the European Union, we may well be confronted with a renegotiation of the European Patent Convention. And if I may be blunt, President, the process of renegotiation of the European Patent Convention would not require any contribution from this parliament." http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/deba/index.en.html#bol...
I'm not sure how real his threat is.
The europarl description of co-decision is here: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/about/abc/abc_21.html