[Discussioni] Fwd: [Patents] Netherland Retracts Vote for EU Council SW Patents Draft

[Alessandro Rubini]

> http://kwiki.ffii.org/?NlVote040701En

PRESS RELEASE FFII NL-- [ Europe / economy / ICT ]

01/07/04: Dutch Parliament forces Minister Brinkhorst to withdraw support
for software patents directive

Today, July 1st, the Dutch Parliament has decided to direct Minister
Brinkhorst and Secretary of State van Gennip (Economic Affairs) to withdraw
the Dutch vote in support of the Council of Ministers' text for the
Directive on Software Patents. This is the first time in the history of the
EU that such a course of action has been undertaken. 

The idea of allowing patents on software has been strongly criticized among
SMEs, scientists and consumer organisations. They inhibit investments in
Research and Development and contribute to higher prices. Commentators also
fear the rise of a "lawyers paradise" in Europe such as is found in the USA,
where programmers are constantly threatened by lawsuits. 

This act represents an incisive criticism of the European Council of
Ministers' attempts to introduce broad patentability of software. Minister
Brinkhorst, acting on behalf of the Netherlands, endorsed the Council's
current proposal, which not only reiterated the terms of the Council's
strongly criticized first proposal, but went even further, directly
rebuffing the clear stance assumed by the EU Parliament, which voted to add
numerous amendments which made clear how the category of logical algorithms
would be treated. 

The European Parliament's version asserted that patents would only be
allowed for industrial inventions (e.g. washing machines) and would not be
made possible for pure software. All these adaptations were removed in the
Council of Ministers' controversial version. 

Earlier, Brinkhorst described the Council proposal to the Dutch Parliament
as a compromise with the EP. In recent legislative debates, Van Gennip was
forced to admit that this was incorrect information, and attributed it to
"an error in the word processor." 

The Dutch Parliament rejected this explanation and today it rendered an
historic and groundbreaking decision, calling upon Minister Brinkhorst and
van Gennip to withdraw the Netherlands' supporting vote in the European
Council and convert it to an abstention. This measure is possible because at
the present moment there is only a "political agreement" and the "formal
vote" can only take place after the contested text has been translated into
the 20 European languages. An emergency brake move in the procedure such as
this has never been exercised before. 

With this decision, the Dutch Parliament demonstrates the active interest
her public holds in the debate over software patents, and her recognition
and appreciation for the adaptations introduced by the European Parliament. 

Dieter Van Uytvanck, spokesman of FFII Netherlands, stresses the importance
of this decision: 

     This political signal reaches much further than just the
     Netherlands. We hope that other European countries that also have
     their doubts about the proposal of the Council will also withdraw
     their support, so that the current proposal no longer has a
     majority. The historic precedent has been set now.

     Let this be a lesson to the lawmakers in Brussels: the European
     citizen watches you closely. It is much better to take this into
     account from the beginning than to get into trouble later.


Reports of earlier debates are available at: 

    http://kwiki.ffii.org/index.cgi?NlParlDebate0426En 
    http://kwiki.ffii.org/?NlGovLttrResp0422En