FYI --arky
--- contributors-request@osnews.com wrote:
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 12:00:00 +0000 From: contributors-request@osnews.com Subject: Contributors digest, Vol 1 #62 - 1 msg To: contributors@osnews.com
Today's Topics:
- Latest news on European Softwarepatents (Arend
Lammertink)
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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 13:27:13 +0200 From: Arend Lammertink alam@home.nl To: contributors@osnews.com Subject: [OSNews Contrib] Latest news on European Softwarepatents
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Hi there,
I was part of a delegation that handed over a petition to the Dutch government on behalf of the FFII, against softwarepatents.
As a result of this, the decision taken by the Counsil of Ministers is once again under discussion and might even be overturned!
I have typed about half the story and would like to know if this would have any chance of being published.
Of course, I'm open to any suggestions and improvements (English is not my native language) and I still need to write the other half, which I think is quite interesting.
For example, the only company that was present at the emergency debate were our friends from Redmond. Since they also sponsor the Irish presidency, it is obvious they had something to gain here.
What do you think? Should I write the other half?
Kindest regards,
Arend Lammertink.
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The latest news on European Software Patents.
The battle about Software Patents in Europe seemed all but lost. The council of ministers voted for a directive that basically slapped the European Parliament in the face because they shamelessly put aside a democratic decision taken by said Parliament. And even though the Parliament still has a second reading where it has to go to a lot of trouble to repair the damage done by the Council, it is a serious matter that the Council of Ministers have shown they have no idea of the devastating consequences of their directive for the European SME's. What's more, they have shown twice in one week that they have no respect for the democratic opinion of the European Parliament, which in itself is absolutely unacceptable.
It turned out that the Dutch Eurocommisionar had played a big role in convincing our German neighbours to vote in favor of a "compromise" that basically puts the European Software industry on sell-off, since of 30.000 softwarepatents the EPO already gave out against the letter and spirit of the existing law, 75% belong to non-European multinationals and it is unclear what happens to the legal status of these patents. If he reads this, I want him to know that I am going to vote for the Parliament coming Thursday as I did last time and I, as a European citizen, want my vote to be respected.
_Seemed_ all but lost. But it ain't over yet. We've played our cards (and luck!) quite nicely here in The Netherlands (if I may say so myself) and at this moment the Dutch Parliament is seriously considering to revoke the vote Minister Brinkhorst gave at the Council. This has never happened before in the history of the European Union!
So, what's going on out there? Did we miss something?
Well, the ball started rolling because I knew a member of the Dutch Parliament, Annie Schrijer (
http://www.tweede-kamer.nl/leden_commissies_fracties/griffie_lfc/kamerdet636...
), who turned out to be vice-chairman of the Committee for Economic affairs in the Dutch Parliament. After the demonstration on friday the 14th of May at the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs, I talked to some of the representatives of the FFII and vrijschrift.org and I told them I knew Mrs. Schrijer and could be able to contact her. Since we thought it might help, I decided to call her.
Since she lives just a few kilometers from where I live, it could happen that I went over to her place the next saturday and was able to tell her the whole story. Fortunately she had had patent issues in her dossier before, so it didn't took long for her to understand exactly what was going on.
Even though she could not do much herself directly, she could tell me how I could try to hand over an urgent petition to the Dutch Parliament on tuesday May 18th, the day the Ministers were to vote in the Council. That always seems to "shake the bed" as she put it.
Well, I could not have imagened how right she was. First of all, we offered the petition to the right persons this time. Previously, we had offered it to the civil servants who wrote the letters on behalf of the Minister that later turned out to contain critical errors... Of course, these guys were not very interested in "shaking the bed". They were more interested in getting this over as quickly and quietly as possible.
But, there we were.
Tuesday, the 18th of May. Just 5 geeks disguised as businessmen standing eye to eye with the Commision for Economic Affairs of the Dutch Parliament :
http://www.harmwal.nl/img/20040518denhaagmaastricht/pict0007.jpg
What happens in such a case is that you are allowed to say your thing for about 5 minutes. After that, it's usually "thanks" and off you go.
This time, there was just a little tiny extra detail. Apparantly Annie had done her homework and she had noticed that there was an error in the letter the Minister (or better: his civil servants) had sent to the Parliament prior to the vote in the Council, explaining that there was "agreement" between the European Parliament and the Council, which had been understood by the Dutch Parliament as saying "dont't worry, everything is arranged and in order". By that time, it was already clear that the Dutch members of the European Parliament were not exactly speaking about an "agreement". Oops.
So, we had our hands on a classical case of "onjuiste informatie" ("incorrect information") to the Parliament by a responsible politician, not seldom resulting in the forced resignation of such a politician. Clearly this is something the opposition is always interested in. In the Netherlands, they have an important task in being the guarding dog of the Parliament. It just had to be wakened....
So, Annie whispered something into their ears that I was unable to hear. However, we would soon find out the guarding dog had been wakened. What happened was that a letter was sent to the Minister where he was asked to explain the situation. Unfortunately, we don't have a copy of this letter, but the answer of the Minister is available on the official website of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affars (in Dutch):
http://www.ez.nl/upload/docs/Kamerbrieven/PDF-Documenten/4033973-vtk.pdf
(Exercise for the reader: Who actually wrote it?)
Of course, we had some remarks (in Dutch), co-authored by mr.ir. R.B.Bakels [1]:
http://www.vrijschrift.nl/Members/arend/Brief_AO_EZ/becommentarieerde_brief_...
For those of you that don't understand Dutch, the letter, prepared in the Minister's name by his civil servants, contains just the standard arguments copycatted from the European Commission, but no answer to the question "was there or was there not an agreement between the European Parliament and the Council?".
What might be interesting at this point is to take a look at the transcriptions of the debate at the Council of Ministers:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/V002.ogg http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/V003.ogg
Especially the last part of the second transcription shows an interesting insight into democracy as practiced by the Council of Ministers.
(Note: even though the extension suggests they're ogg files, they're not. They are transcriptions of ogg files and in html format. The audio recordings are also available: http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/Transcription )
Anyway, the answer of the Minister was unsatisfying and therefore the Dutch Commission for Economic Affairs ordered a "spoed-debat" ("emergency debate") on the matter. They wanted to know if an error was made and also if they would be able to revoke the vote of the Minister, should they want to.
:-:-:
Short answer for now:
- Yes, there was an error
- Yes, all European countries can revoke their vote
if they want to
The Dutch Parliament will debate on the subject before the end of this month.
To be continued before publication ...
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[1] Mr.ir. R.B. Bakels. Connected to the Centre for Intellectual Propertyright of the University of Utrecht. Author of the "JURI 107" report about Softwarepatents for the European Parliament (together with prof. Hugenholtz). He is considered as one of the leading experts on the subject of Softwarepatents.
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