"[...] A motion for a resolution, signed by 61 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), calls for a new first reading of the software patent directive. The motion has received particularly warm support from MEPs from Poland and other new member states. However, many veteran MEPs also welcome the initiative as a way out of a crisis, into which the Council is preceived to have plunged the directive project by failing to conduct a proper first reading. [...] The motion, initiated by Jerzy Buzek (Christian Democrats, former prime minister of Poland) and Adam Gierek (Socialists, Poland), sees two conditions fulfilled, each of which allows a return to first reading according to the procedural rules of the European Parliament.
The first reason is that since the previous first reading, the situation has substantially changed. Here the motion cites recent concerns about patent risks for public administrations and indemnification obligations imposed on service providers. Secondly, the Parliament itself changed by elections, in which 10 countries voted for the first time.
Among the signatories are many prominent MEPs, including a former Commissioner, several vice presidents of the EP, vice chairmen of several groups, members of the bureau of several groups and a multitude of (main and vice) chairmen and chairwomen of various committees (including the JURI Committee, which is responsible for this directive in the European Parliament). According to sources in the EP, many more MEPs wanted to sign the motion but could not be included due to time constraints. According to the Parliament's rules of procedure, the question of "renewed referral" (rule 55) must be decided immediately after a directive returns to the Parliament, and a return was to be expected any time during the last few months. [...]"
Why are those anti-patent campaigners attempting to re-start the legislative process? Haven't they got the maximum of their wishes during the first reading of the Commission's proposal in 2003?
I am inclined to think that the chief strategists on the anti-patent campaigner's side (having mooted such move since several weeks together with their political allies amongst the MEPs), namely Mr. Pilch and Mr. Müller, have recognised that in 2003 the anti-patent movement has overshot their mark by introducing a bunch of partially self-contradictory amendments into the result of said first reading. They might think that it was too easy for the EU Council to put aside many of the amendments adopted by the European Parliament during the first reading because of such flaws in the resulting text. Having a second chance to get from the Parliament another version of a very restrictive Draft Directive without such flaws might be one reason. And, if the EU Parliament gets a second chance to propose an amended text to the EU Council, there would necessarily be another political debate amongst the representatives of the EU Member States, effectively cancelling the political agreement as reached in May 2004.
The best way to escape the current turmoil might, however, be the EU Commission to simply withdraw the original proposal tabled in 2002. Then the game would be over, and the anti-patent activists would be effectively blocked destructing the patent system on EU level. Perhaps the present motion of the EU Parliamentarians might open such option. Then the matter could be left for ten years or so to the competent Courts in the various EU Member States and to the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO).
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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:
reports that: 
maximum of their wishes during the first reading of the Commission's proposal in 2003?
