"[...] The European Conference of Presidents (CoP) has given its blessing to a parliamentary request to restart the legislative process on the Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) directive. Parliament now has the green light to ask the Commission to send the legislation back to the drawing board. [...]"
This is not yet surprising; it was to be expected (Although there might have been some crackling thrill in the CoP session this morning). And what now? TheRegister continues:
"[...] The next step is for the Commission to consider this restart request. If it grants the request, the bill goes back to the beginning. If it does not, the common position agreed last May will be accepted, and the bill will progress to its second reading. [...]"
The EU Council has not yet taken any decision concerning the formal adoption of the Draft Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. Perhaps this might happen next week, or perhaps not, I now do not catch on to make any predictions. If the EU Council should eventually approve the Draft then we probably would have a sound institutional crisis in the EU.
"[...] The conference was attended by Brussels correspondents of various newspapers, including New York Times and International Herald Tribune, as well as by correspondents from news agencies.
Speeches were given by Jerzy Buzek (MEP, Polish prime minister 1997-2001, co-initiator of the restart motion), Arda Gerkens, Alain Lipietz (French Green MEP interested in intellectual property questions), Florian Müller (nosoftwarepatents.com) and Erik Josefsson of FFII.
Jerzy Buzek announced that he was very happy with the fact that the Conference of Presidents had unanimously decided to submit the request for a restart of the directive to the European Commission. He is convinced the best way for the new European Parliament to quickly wrap up this troublesome directive, is by starting its work based on the outcome of the first reading of the previous EP. This way, they can profit from all the work which has already been performed, and thus hopefully wrap up quickly. He proposed a time frame of about 12 months.
Arda Gerkens explained how after being misinformed, the Dutch Parliament approved a motion asking the government to no longer support the Council's 18 May 2004 text. She noted how the government creatively interpreted this motion reducing it to a powerless statement, and thanked the Polish government for repeatedly delaying the approval of the A-item in the Council.
These delays enabled the Dutch Parliament to have a second chance at positively influencing the process, which it did by approving a second motion last week, which asks the government to prevent an adoption of the directive as an A-item at the Council until the Commission has replied to the European Parliament's restart request.
Alain Lipietz explained how the Greens have opposed this directive from the start. He also noted that while they supported many of the amendments approved by the European Parliament in its previous first reading, several loose ends still have to be tied up, such as for example the title and article 1. For that reason, they voted against the amended directive in first reading, and for the same reason they are also supportive of a new first reading: they want to be able to perfect the directive text.
Asked about what he thought about whether the Commission would honour the restart, he replied he thought they would. The Commission has the option to submit the same text as last time, a new text, ignore the request or reject it. Lipietz did not really care whether they Commission would choose the first or second option, since the EP can amend either text as it likes in a new first reading. If the Commission were to either ignore or reject the EP's restart request, he thought the most probable outcome would be a massive rejection of the directive in second reading.
Erik Josefsson from FFII hoped that the restart would finally result in a discussion based on substance, as opposed to discussions about esoteric further technical effects. He asked companies who have lobbied in favour of software patents to give clear examples of individual patents they want to keep, in order to be able to benchmark legislative proposals and amendments. Vague discussions about "MRI scanners" and "mobile phones" do not contribute to getting clear legislative goals.
The conference was also attended by two US lobbyists in favour of software patents who spread their press release and bravely argued their case in the discussion, provoking refutals mainly from Müller and Josefsson. Coming from a US background, they did note they thought the whole obfuscation of the debate using the misleading term "computer-implemented inventions" was unfortunate. [...]"
"[...] Europe’s competition ministers will on March 7 decide the fate of controversial EU software patent proposals.
The council of ministers must rule on a request from the European Parliament to withdraw the troubled 'Computer Implemented Inventions Directive'.
MEPs have contested the software patent law on three occasions ending with a unanimous vote rejecting the directive in the parliament’s ‘conference of presidents’.
The parliament is unable to demand that the European Commission redrafts the legislation but can under EU treaty law demand that MEPs are re-consulted.
European Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has refused to re-think the rules and insists that Europe’s national governments must decide. [...]"
A frontal institutional crash seems to be unavoidable.
Feel free to contact PA Axel H Horns via e-mail
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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:
From TheRegister:
