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JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments
Monday, June 20 2005 @ 01:17 PM EDT

FFII has the following terse report, which I'm sure will be supplemented eventually, and it looks like it's still a ballgame:

JURI vote on amendments to Rocard report on software patents directive

Brussels, June 20th, 2005 -- The Legal Affairs Committee today voted on amendments to the Rocard report on the software patents directive and approved a number of amendments. A last minute manoeuvre by Klaus-Heiner Lehne MEP to move the vote to Tuesday, because then more MEPs in favour of unlimited patentability would be present, failed. The situation was quite hectic, with several last minute compromise amendments making the rounds.

Date and time

Brussels, PHS, P5B001
15h00
Report

“field of technology” has been defined as "a field of applied natural science".

Many proponents of unlimited patentability had been lobbying for defining it as "applied exact science", as that would also include mathematics, business methods etc. This amendment makes sure that we can exclude software patents without running afoul of TRIPs.

For background, you can try this site or Out-Law.com's coverage. And if you wish to read Michel Rocard's draft report [PDF, 28 pages], you can, if you can read French, which I know many of you can.

UPDATE:

The FFII page has now been updated, with a more detailed list of what happened.


  


JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments | 48 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Silly question, but:
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 01:26 PM EDT
Is this good or bad?

[ Reply to This | # ]

JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 01:30 PM EDT
Money makes the world go 'round..
The world go 'round..
The world go 'round..

[ Reply to This | # ]

JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments
Authored by: Groklaw Lurker on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 01:39 PM EDT
Progress by inches is still progress. I am grateful for the determination and
enthusiasm of our European community members in helping to defeat the spread of
the utterly rediculous American patent system.

Kudos to all of you!



---
(GL) Groklaw Lurker
End the tyranny, abolish software patents.

[ Reply to This | # ]

JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 01:41 PM EDT
The page has been updated. There's a disappointment in the FFII camp right now.
The vote should have been tomorrow instead and it not clear whether that was a
case of foul play.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic Thread
Authored by: jailbait on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 02:31 PM EDT
Please place off topic posts here.

-----------------
Steve Stites

[ Reply to This | # ]

JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments
Authored by: Bas Burger on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 02:40 PM EDT
I guess this will become a long and hard struggle...

Meanwhile, how about a appropriate link... Choose your favorite mad ruler.

Have fun!

Bas.

---
DIRECTUS ELATUS PERTINAX

[ Reply to This | # ]

Press release
Authored by: Chris Lingard on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 03:01 PM EDT

Here is the link

The controversial directive on the patentability of computerised inventions has reached second reading. On Monday 20 June, the EP Legal Affairs Committee decided, when it approved the report by Michel ROCARD (PES, FR), that a patent on a computerised invention should protect the software but only when the software is necessary for the functioning of the invention. The report was adopted by 16 votes to 10 with no abstentions.

MEPs agreed that computerised inventions, such as washing machines, cellular phones or ABS car breaking systems, should enjoy protection under patent law. Yet, they wanted to make clear that the patent protection would extend to the computer program only when software elements are used in the context of realising the computer-implemented invention.

(More details on Tuesday)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Patent Absurdity
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 03:50 PM EDT
The Patent Absurdity (by RMS) link in Groklaw's News Picks is perhaps the best
patent problem analogy I've seen. It's a must read...

Larry N.

[ Reply to This | # ]

JURI Vote on EU SW Patent Directive Amendments
Authored by: eskild on Monday, June 20 2005 @ 04:04 PM EDT
'... business methods ...' ???????????

An exact science ?

Since when?

---
Eskild
Denmark

[ Reply to This | # ]

Europe is flawed.
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 21 2005 @ 02:22 AM EDT
And that I say as a FORMER european citizen. Not that I have fled the sinking
ship allready, I Just can´t identify myself with this redtape wrestling match
that is brussels ( or staatsburg or brussels again ).

The lobby culture isn't going to stop. It's to easy for lobbyists to get in and
manipulate the MEPs.
While the news the public recieves are fights about money and trivial threaties
the REAL work is going on on the background.

Only thing the EU lacks now is a mideval justice system and some newly appointed
hangman.

I'm tired of fighting a uphillbattle,that if won, will confront us with a forest
of bludy hills of deceat,lies and bad politics ( could just leave out politics
there ).

They can stick it, and the first &^%#$ that waves a piece of &#%^$# EU
legislation at me, i'll punch in the &^%#$ face.

Retep Vosnul.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I am not sure to understand
Authored by: Francois on Tuesday, June 21 2005 @ 04:54 AM EDT

The Financial Times summarize yesterday's vote by "Big technology groups such as Nokia, Siemens and Philips scored a significant victory" while among the voted amendments, I see (according to the FFII's summary)

Definition of "field of technology"

A field of technology is a field of applied natural science

Many proponents of unlimited patentability had been lobbying for defining it as "applied exact science", as that would also include mathematics, business methods etc. This amendment makes sure that we can exclude software patents without running afoul of TRIPs.

How could somebody patent things such as MP3 encoding scheme with such a definition of "field of technology" ?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Read this and tell me software patents are any good
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 21 2005 @ 10:37 AM EDT
Nice to have a story come up so fast to illustrate all that's bad about software
patents:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1143

Small company sues Apple claiming iTunes violates its patent.

It may look like it's the small guy trying to defend himself from the large
company that's trying to "steal" his ideas, but it's a lame patent and
the iTunes interface is just a well-done re-hash of many established ideas that
nobody ever patented.

Take a look at this:

"Specifically, Contois documented 19 interface aspects of the iTunes
software that it claims are in direct violation of Contois' patent. These areas
include iTunes' menu selection process to allow the user to select music to be
played, the ability of the software to transfer music tracks to a portable music
player, and search capabilities such as sorting music tracks by their genre,
artist and album attributes."

Now tell me, EU, that you can't wait for these broad patents (and all the
lawsuits) to reach your shores.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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