[ILUG] Patricia McKenna replies to Software Patents issue

[Frank Duignan]

Seems that all may not be lost this Monday, next battle in the autumn

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: Form Results
Date: 	Fri, 14 May 2004 17:38:24 +0200
From: 	Patricia Mckenna <pmckenna at europarl.eu.int>
To: 	<fduignan at esatclear.ie>



Dear Frank
 
Many thanks for your email. This issue was indeed dealt with, or so we 
thought, in September last and it is very unfortunate that it rears its 
head again. You can however rest assured that I will be releasing a 
statement about the matter next Monday.
 
The Greens/Efa in European Parliament do share your concerns. The 
"directive on the patentability of computer implemented inventions", 
better known als software patents directive, is indeed on the agenda of 
the Council Competitiveness on 17/18 May, and unfortunately it is a 
A-item. This means that this point will be adopted without debate... 
unless a country would oppose this of course.

The Greens/Efa deeply regret that the current text is very different 
from the text adopted by the European parliament last September : it 
allows full patentability of software and puts extremely low 
interopreability requirements (art6) and reintroduces programme claims 
(art 5) which equal to patent software as such.

The Greens/Efa in European parliament have been at the forefront of the 
struggle against software patents since the draft directive was sent to 
EP. We tabled amendments in the Culture committe, the Industry 
committee, the legal affairs committee and in plenary. Many of our 
amendments are integrated in the position of the Parliament.

We also organised several conferences against software patents with many 
software SMEs such as Opera, MySQL, Graphic Convertor etc.. You will 
find more details on http://www.greens-efa.org go to the icone software 
patents which is on the right side of the screen.

At this stage the Green/Efa MEPs can only deplore the situation with the 
Council which does not take the opinion of EP in account, although this 
is a codecision procedure, but we will meet again next autumn for the 
second reading of the directive where the Greens will certainly ask that 
Parliament keeps a clear position against software patents - or we will 
vote against the directive.
 
Best Wishes
 
Patricia McKenna MEP
 

Patricia McKenna MEP
Assistant: Pauleen Colligan
European Parliament
Rue Wiertz, 1047 Brussels,
Belgium
Tel:  +32 2 284 5140
Fax: +32 2 284 9140

 >>> <fduignan at esatclear.ie> 05/14/04 10:48 >>>
name: Frank Duignan
email: fduignan at esatclear.ie
redirect: http://www.pmckenna.com/home.html
Comments%252FQuery: (I previously sent this to your IOL account but
got no reply)
Dear Ms. McKenna,
I am writing with some concern regarding Ireland's stance on software 
patents.  It would
appear that the Irish presidency is ignoring the wishes of the European 
parliament in
regard to this issue by attempting to repeal all amendments it proposed 
last September.  A
meeting of ministers on 17-18 May next is expected to rubber stamp this 
exercise. "So what?" many
may ask.  The software patent legislation currently proposed suits 
larger companies and creates
a patent minefield for smaller ones.  If voted through all software 
innovation will require to be
vetted by legal/patent attorney opinion - a luxury not commonly 
available to smaller companies.
The companies that will reap the greatest benefit from this legal 
environment are mostly non European.
Why is Ireland doing this?  It would seem that the Irish presidency is 
more interested in supporting
US investment in Ireland than fostering native SME's - a short time view 
in my opinion. 
As my MEP I am requesting that you raise this matter in the media and 
with the Department of Enterprise
Trade and Employment (Intellectual property unit) or indeed with Mary 
Harney herself.  Further
information in regard to this may be found at http://swpat.ffii.org.
Regards,
Frank Duignan

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