[Fsfe-ie] Tuesday's Council vote in doubt?

[Ian Clarke]

Conor Daly wrote:
> On Fri, May 21, 2004 at 12:10:33PM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
> Ian Clarke thought:
>>parliament to retract their vote, and if this succeeds, the qualified 
>>majority could still fail.
>>
>>Could it be true that Tuesday's battle is not yet lost?  Does anyone 
>>have more information on this?
> 
> Is this a good thing or not?  My understanding is that, if it fails, the
> status quo stands, while if it succeeds, the second reading at the EP has
> a chance to redo the amendments and solidly forbid swpats for good.  Of
> course, it could get abandoned after the EP second reading too...

I don't really know, perhaps if it fails then the EC has to go and think 
about it some more (which would be good, given that Tuesday's vote only 
went through because it was so rushed and delegates barely seemed to 
understand what they were voting for).

> The status quo AIUI is that computer software patents are not allowed but
> that it still requires fighting existing wrongly granted ones so that we
> are currently in the position of having swpats...

AFAIK the current situation is that many software patents have been 
granted, but because they are against the letter and spirit of current 
EU law, they aren't worth the paper they are written on (ie. it isn't 
whether the patent has been granted that really matters, but whether it 
is enforcible).  This is untidy but better than patents being explicitly 
permissible.

Ian.