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BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004EUROPARL voted on Directive on Measures and Procedures to ensure the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.Today the European Parliament has voted in favour of the COREPER compromise proposal for a Directive on Measures and Procedures to ensure the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights which is available with Document 6376/04. Despite explicit critics manifested in a number of different amendment proposals finally the COREPER version came through. Most probably the Council will accept the result as it stands, and it will enter into force in some forseeable time.
The result of all that does not look like a profound and sound piece of legislation. The Draft text suffers from its hasty transformation from a tool against large commercial product piracy to an instrument for enforcing Intellectual Property on a universal scale. It is, however, a relief that some insane clauses for criminalising non-commercial Intellectual Property violations mooted during the proceedings are not included in the final result. Paul Meller reports:
"[...] The version of the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive agreed by the European parliamentarians does away with a controversial proposal to slap criminal sanctions on private individuals who exchange music files over the Internet. [...]"It is sad to see that obviously the European Parliament seems to be somewhat overstrained with complex Intellectual Property regulatory issues. After having passed  bizarre amendments to the Draft Directive on patentability of computer-implemented inventions the MEPs today have in a similar field taken another decision which is at least questionable. Perhaps some MEPs might have preferred not to dare casting another vote which might be seen as being against Intellectual Property. However, I would have preferred the other way round, namely accepting the Directive on patentability of computer-implemented inventions more or less in the original form (if such Directive is considered necessary of helpful at all) and seriously modifying the other Directive today voted in the plenum. Much will now depend in the flexibility of national governments and parliaments when casting the soon-to-be Directive into national law.
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