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Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Will the Draft Directive on Patentability of CII be Rejected in Parliament?

There are

increasing rumors saying that there is a reasonable chance that the European Parliament to-morrow will reject the entire Directive by a qualified majority of the MEPs.

[UPDATE] See also

here and

there.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner Mr. Charlie McCreevy

has indicated that he will cancel the entire Directive if the European Parliament should go too far:

"[...]A row over software patents is linked to bitter opposition over EU economic liberalisation and to broader anti-free market sentiment, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market has said.

MEPs debate the controversial Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) Directive on Tuesday ahead of a Wednesday vote in the European Parliament.

Charlie McCreevy told EUpolitix.com that debate on the directive has been influenced by broader political opposition to EU economic liberalisation – and anti-globalism.

In particular the CII proposals had become linked to the Services Directive – proposals blamed for the French EU constitution rejection in May.

'The theme, or the background music, to both of these particular directives you could see as part of, anti-globalisation, anti-Americanism, anti-big business protests – in lots of senses, anti-the opening up of markets,' he told this website.

'I think an awful lot of the debate in Europe in recent times has been influenced by this particular type of thinking, which I would accept is part of the opposition to the CII directive and part of the opposition also to the services directive.'

[...]

The commissioner will not allow the European Parliament to rewrite the CII – amendments will be voted on this Wednesday.

While welcoming a recent CII vote by the parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, McCreevy repeats that if MEPs make commission proposals legally unworkable or self defeating he will withdraw them.

'I’ve said all along is that what the original purpose of the directive was, was to codify the existing situation.'

'What I’ve said all along is we’re not going to allow a situation to develop whereby with amendments and changes we end up doing exactly the opposite of what this particular directive set out to do. That I have made clear,' he said.

'I have also made clear is that if the parliament was to reject the directive then I would not be putting another proposal on the table. That remains my position.'[...]"

Good to know that Mr. Charlie McCreevy will step in should the Parliament be misguided to destruct the patent system.

[Permalink]

The directive is rejected.

# posted by Archimedes : 06 July, 2005 13:09

It is not 'good to know' at all. The parliament is an elected body. If it amends the law to reflect the will of the people the fact that Charlie McCreevy can ignore that and simply overrule it is not 'good' at all.

The patent lawyers have lost this round. Next we come to work on the EPO and national governments. This argument is not over and we, the industry and civil society, will 'destruct' the corner of the patent system that has gone far beyond its intended sphere of control and brought the system into disrepute.

If you want to acheive patentability of software then there are going to have to be _major_ changes to the system first. To be honest I suspect it is too late for that and patentability of software can now never be achieved in Europe.

Perhaps this was the moment when the tide turned against the IP maximalists. We shall see.

# posted by Wookey : 06 July, 2005 13:36

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Patent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Will the Draft Directive on Patentability of CII be Rejected in Parliament?

VPP