[WSIS CS-Plenary] FW: [CSL]: EU parliament demands patent restart

[Gurstein, Michael]

This is the article (in English) that Bill M. was pointing to...
 
MG

-----Original Message-----
From: Interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society
[mailto:CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of J Armitage
Sent: February 3, 2005 12:58 PM
To: CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: [CSL]: EU parliament demands patent restart



This story was printed from ZDNet UK, located at
<http://news.zdnet.co.uk/> http://news.zdnet.co.uk/ 



Story URL:
<http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39186538,00.htm>
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39186538,00.htm 



EU parliament demands patent restart
 <mailto:mailroomuk at zdnet.com> Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
February 03, 2005, 11:20 GMT 

The battle to prevent software patents being introduced in Europe
received a major boost on Wednesday afternoon when the Legal Affairs
Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament (EP) demanded for the
Computer Implemented Inventions Directive (CIID) to be rewritten. 

A European Parliament spokesman confirmed on Thursday that the President
of the European Parliament will asked the European Commission (EC) to
take the patent directive back to the drawing board. 

Piia-Noora Kauppi, a Finnish MEP who was present at the JURI meeting,
said this decision had considerable support from the members of the
Legal Affairs Committee. 

"The decision was reached with an overwhelming majority of the
Committee, and with the support of all major political groups," said
Kauppi.

Opponents of the directive fear that it will herald the widespread
patenting of software in Europe -- a claim rejected by supporters of the
directive. 

Florian Mueller, the campaign manager of an anti-patent Web site
<http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/> , said it is great news for
anti-patent campaigners, but warned that the battle is not yet over. 

"It's a fantastic turning point because in all likelihood we've now
succeeded in doing away with last year's Council text," said Mueller.
"The FFII and other anti-patent campaigners now have a chance to
organise ourselves even better for the future. That's what our opponents
are doing -- they're not going to give up." 

The EP spokesman said the EC is not obliged to agree to the EP's request
for a restart, but is likely to adhere to the will of the parliament.
But an EC spokesman said that the Commission has not yet decided
anything and will "keep its options open" and "see what happens with the
EU Council". 

Mueller said the EU Council is unlikely to ratify the controversial
directive in the immediate future as their decision could be overturned
by the restart motion proposed by the EP. 

"They will probably wait for a month or two until the dust has settled
on the restart," said Mueller.

 



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