[Discussioni] SWPAT: qualche ulteriore piccola soddisfazione

[Stefano Maffulli]

Dalle trascrizioni degli interventi in europarlamento:
http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?L=EN&PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+CRE
+20050705+ITEM-006+DOC+XML+V0//EN&LEVEL=4&NAV=S#def1



Alexander Stubb (PPE-DE). – Mr President, three years ago, if someone
had asked anyone in this Chamber whether they knew what a
computer-implemented invention was, most people would have said ‘not
really’. You all saw the demonstrators outside today. Some of them were
a little aggressive. One of them jumped right in front of our car and a
computer-implemented invention called ABS brakes probably saved his
life.

This has been an ongoing story. There have been many very interesting
turns in the plot. First of all, there is a dramatic first reading in
the European Parliament. Secondly, our position is totally rejected in
the Council. Thirdly, the Commission refuses to go back to the first
reading. Fourthly, we have a dubious common position from the Council
and now, fifthly, we stand at the end of the second reading. I am afraid
this piece of legislation is going to be rejected tomorrow, as Mr
Wuermeling said.

I do not know whether that is good or bad, but I know two things and I
have two messages. One message is to the ‘David’ group, in other words
the Open Source and SMEs. This would not have been such a bad thing
after all, had we worked it through. It would not have prevented the
Open Source from going on. As a Finn, I can say it would not have
prevented Linux being invented and developed. To Goliath, or the bigger
companies, I say ‘get your act together’. Your lobbying was miserably
bad. The Open Source folk beat you hands down, by 100 to zero. 

The question then is what does this mean institutionally?
Institutionally, I have a message for the Commission and Council. The
European Parliament is a co-legislator. You should take it seriously.
When you see this proposal being rejected tomorrow morning, you should
go back to the drawing board and come up with a new piece of
legislation. Europe needs some form of patentability on
computer-implemented inventions, but tomorrow we are not going to get
it.