Re: [Fsfe-uk] EU swpat - Ag and Fish attempt 2

[Alex Hudson]

On Sat, 2005-01-22 at 00:37 +0000, Philip Hands wrote:
> > What exactly does Agriculture and Fisheries have to do with software
> > patents?  Surely that council is responsible for agriculture and
> > fisheries?
> 
> I think that's rather the point.
> 
> The sneaky lawyers who want to get rich by parasitising our industry were 
> hoping that the dumb farmers wouldn't notice that this directive was being 
> shoved through their council.

I don't think that's quite the case - it doesn't really matter which
council group the item goes before, because as an A-item it would be
accepted without any discussion. The idea is that by this point it is
merely a formality - the discussion should have occurred previously. I
think it's just the way the Council works.

> Thankfully, last time they tried that the Polish minister was awake enough 
> to tell them where to shove their directive.  Clearly they intend to keep 
> on trying in the hope that eventually they'll get away with it.

Well, the Polish only asked for a delay to prepare a statement
(incidentally, it seems that there will be another delay, and that the
swpat item will actually be addressed on Jan. 31st). I don't think
anything underhanded was going on, beyond the fact that the original
discussion was flawed. 

I believe the Polish action is to enable the EP JURI ctte to ask that
the process be restarted, if indeed that is what they want to do (they
wouldn't have the chance otherwise). The Council really aren't going to
want to rediscuss their position, so it seems like the easiest way out
at the moment...

Cheers,

Alex.