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[DMCA-Activists] Fwd: [Patents] EU Parlament Accepts Petitions
From: |
Seth Johnson |
Subject: |
[DMCA-Activists] Fwd: [Patents] EU Parlament Accepts Petitions |
Date: |
Wed, 01 Oct 2003 14:43:47 -0000 |
(Forwarded from Patents list. Webpage text pasted below. Please let
all relevant parties know how much you appreciate their efforts. --
Seth)
-----Original Message-----
From: Hartmut Pilch <address@hidden>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 15:48:26 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Patents] EU Parlament Accepts Petitions
but only for handling by JURI, after interventions of JURI members and
European Commission, who asked the Petition Committee to discard the
petitions.
See
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/peti1001/
--
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance tel.
+49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation
http://swpat.ffii.org/
270,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents
http://noepatents.org/
----
Parliament Accepts Petitions Against Software Patents
2003/10/01
For immediate Release
At the Hearing of the Petition Committee in the Parliament yesterday
evening at 18:00, Anthony Howard, a former employee of the UK Patent
Office who is handling the Software Patent Directive Project for DG
Internal Market under Frits Bolkestein at the European Commission,
asked the Parliament to discard the two petitions against software
patents, signed by a quarter million european citizens, which were
presented to it. Very few MEPs attended the evening session, and among
those who attended were prominent software patentability advocates
from the Legal Affairs Commission (JURI) who vocally supported
Howard's call. However the Petition Committee did not follow their
requests. Acceptance of the petition will mean that the Legal Affairs
Commission, which voted against meaningful limits on patentability in
June 2003 and was overruled by the plenary vote on 24th of September,
will receive another opportunity to explain its position.
Details
Media Contacts
About the FFII -- www.ffii.org
About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org
Permanent URL of this Press Release
Annotated Links
Details
By coincidence, the Petition Committee debated yesterday the 2
petitions on software patentability, less than a week after the first
reading vote on the directive proposal. These 2 petitions are:
The Eurolinux petition signed by a quarter million European citizens
and software professionnals accessible at petition.eurolinux.org/
The petition signed by 33 leading European computer and software
scientists accessible at: www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2003/3/up4-
3Petition.pdf
The European Commission was first invited to formulate its
observations. The speaker was Anthony Howard, the person in charge of
drafting the directive proposal in the responsible unit of the
Internal Market DG. He was visibly uncomfortable, made no observations
on substance, and asked the committee to declare both petitions
ineligible because they were intervening in an ongoing legislative
process.
The representatives of petitioners were then given 5 minutes each to
express their viewpoints. Bernard Lang represented Eurolinux, and
Philippe Aigrain spoke for the scientists.
Both thanked the Parliament for its vote, and stressed the importance
of keeping its consistency and orientation in the next steps of the
legislative process.
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were then invited to debate.
Willi Rothley (PSE-DE) intervened in a remarkably aggressive tone. As
Bernard Lang had mentioned that petitioners had been proud of European
democracy at the occasion of the vote, and that he felt then in a kind
of festive mood, Mr. Rothley warned that after festive moods come
hangovers, and that the second reading might be very different. He
also asked the committee to declare the petitions ineligible. Mr.
Rothley is Vice-President of the JURI committee and not a member of
the Committee of Petitions, but all MEPs are invited to attend
meetings and express views on subjects of their interest.
Mrs. Janelly Fourtou (PPE-FR) supported Mr. Rothley's line. She also
asked for the petitions to be considered ineligible.
Jan Dhaene (Green, Belgium) and Marco Cappato (NI, Italy) spoke in
favour of the petitions, saying that not only were they eligible, but
the Committee of Petitions should debate them on substance, as
citizens and developers are likely to suffer from the abusive granting
of software patents by the EPO.
The meeting Chairman declared that, beyond any possible doubt, the
petitions were eligible, because the right to petition on a matter
currently under legislation is recognised by the Treaty. However he
also decided that, since the intention of petitioners was clearly to
intervene in pending legislation, the Petition Commitee should not
debate the petitions on substance, but simply transfer them to the
committee competent on substance, in this case JURI.
Media Contacts
mail:
media at ffii org
phone:
FFII Munich (German, English and French): 0049/89/18979927
Benjamin Henrion (French and English): 0032/498/292771 or
0032/10/454779
Jonas Maebe (Dutch and English): +32-485-36-96-45
Dieter Van Uytvanck (Dutch and English): +32-499-16-70-10
Erik Josefsson (Swedish and English): +46-707-696567
Alex Macfie (English): +44 7901 751753
Joaquim Carvalho (Portugues and English): +35-1-93-6169633
More Contacts to be supplied upon request
About the FFII -- www.ffii.org
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-
profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the
spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of
public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open
standards. More than 300 members, 500 companies and 40,000 supporters
have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy
questions in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in
data processing.
About the Eurolinux Alliance -- www.eurolinux.org
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on copyright, open standards, open competition and open source
software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux
develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses
for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or MS Windows.
Permanent URL of this Press Release
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/peti1001/index.en.html
Annotated Links
Europarl 2003-09-24: Amended Software Patent Directive
Consolidated version of the amended directive "on the patentability of
computer-implemented inventions" for which the European Parliament
voted on 2003-09-24.
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