"[...] According to several independent governmental sources, the software patent agreement of 18th of May will be adopted as an uncontroversial item (A-item) by the Agriculture (or Environment or Fishery) Council on Monday or Tuesday next week. Neither the Mertens group yesterday nor the diplomats at Coreper today raised any objections. Several countries made unilateral statements in which they distance themselves from the proposal and point to the European Parliament as the bearer of their hopes. [...]"
"[...] European Union (E.U.) governments have rubber-stamped rules governing the patentability of inventions implemented by computers, known as the software patents directive, standing by an agreement they reached in May, according to an E.U. spokesman.
A meeting of ambassadors to the E.U. on Wednesday evening agreed to formally endorse a deal reached by member state governments in May of this year. The decision will come as a blow to opponents of the new legislation among the open source software community who argue that the rules would allow the patenting of software. For approval, the legislation still must be referred back to the European Parliament (EP), which includes many supporters of open source software. [...]"
The ambassadors gathered in COREPER can't rubber-stamp anything. However, they can pave the way for rubber-stamping by deciding to put that matter as an "A" item on the agenda of the next available EU Council meeting. This is what they actually have done.
See also Document 14574/04 of the General Secretariat addressing COREPER, asking the latter to recommend the EU Council to adopt, as an "A" item on the agenda for a forthcoming meeting, the common position as in 11979/04 and the statement of reasons as in 11979/04 ADD 1, and enter in its Minutes the statements contained in the Addendum to this Note. And, moreover, there is also a further Document 14574/04 ADD 1 COR 1(en) exhibiting an interesting statement of the Dutch EU Council Presidency:
"3. Statement by the Netherlands
(Revised translation in English provided by the Netherlands delegation)
The Kingdom of the Netherlands states that it considers the harmonisation directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions to be of high importance. On 18 May, the Netherlands, part of a qualified majority of member states, politically agreed with the text of a common position in first reading. The Dutch Parliament stated as its position that the political agreement offers insufficient guarantees to prevent proliferation regarding software patenting. This concern will be taken into account by the Netherlands in the further consideration of the directive in second reading.
The directive aims to harmonise the rules within the European Union on the patenting of computer-implemented inventions and to offer clarity on which inventions are patentable and which are not. In this light, the Netherlands wishes to confirm explicitly that the directive text now under consideration aims to exclude non-technical and non-inventive inventions and business methods as well as pure software, from patentability. This is because patenting of this nature will not make a positive contribution to the ability to innovate. Recently, a lot of public and political debate has arisen on the proposed directive and the patenting of computer-implemented inventions in general. On further consideration of this directive in second reading, the Netherlands will confirm as it premises that the rules on and the implementation practice of the patentability for computer-implemented inventions are sufficiently clear and that the aforementioned undesirable forms of patenting are prevented. Therefore, the Netherlands will in second reading only be able to agree with a directive text that does not disturb the balance between patentability and non-patentability."
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Dipl.-Phys. Axel H Horns is Patentanwalt (German Patent Attorney),
European Patent Attorney as well as European Trade Mark Attorney. In particular, he is Member of:
FFII e.V. reports:
