European Patent Directive rejected!!

[brashquido]

On Wednesday 6th July (less than 20 hours from now) the European Parliament will have its last chance to prevent the implementation of the software patents directive. This directive is a USA style patents system on software that if passed will result in European software developers not owning what they write. To be successful 367 of the 732 members must be present and vote for the right amendments, such as the Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments (http://europarl.ffii.org/amendments.en.html).

If you are a European citizen, you MUST act now, this is NOT a drill, and the corporations that have been pushing this directive for the last few years now have unprecedented support and are literally just hours away from having the entire European software industry by the neck. INCLUDING OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS!

Get involved NOW, as if this directive passes it will be next to impossible to get any of it reversed!! Every single vote counts!!

The Economic Majority Against Software Patents (http://www.economic-majority.com/)

No Software Patents (http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com)

Demonstration Strasbourg Tue 5th July @ 7:30 am + 6th July @ 7:30 am (http://noepatents.eu.org/index.php/StbDemo050604)

[Wilbert]

Good news. The proposed directive is rejected!

patentability of computer-implemented inventions - common position rejected
... according to the headlines in europarl.eu.int (http://www2.europarl.eu.int/sce/server/internet/stats/sce_stats_main_01.jsp)

I guess more news will be available shortly ... In case anyone is wondering. The Parliament voted first for a possible rejection before voting on any of the amendments. The latter is pointless now, since the proposal is rejected.

more news: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/06/eu_bins_swpat/

The European Parliament has voted by a massive majority to reject the software patents directive, formally known as the Directive on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions. The vote to scrap the bill was passed by a margin of 648 votes to 14, with 18 abstentions.

edit: updated the title of this thread.

[Doom9]

actually, they should've voted on the amendments first, but naturally big business and their bought representatives wouldn't have liked that so they supported killing the directive over having one that would've banned software patents.

We are nowhere in the clear on this one.. they'll come back and try again, probably in similar fashion as the MPAA tried to sneak in the broadcast flag after it got shut down in court.

[Wilbert]

actually, they should've voted on the amendments first, but naturally big business and their bought representatives wouldn't have liked that so they supported killing the directive over having one that would've banned software patents.
Well, that's true of course. But what if there was no majority in favour of the most important amendments (as i understand it, it would be a close call)? I don't think they will kill the directive after the amendments have been rejected. Besides, even if the amendments are accepted, the Commission still has the ability to withdraw the directive.

[Sirber]

sweet :D

[Inventive Software]

That's really good! Very sweet indeed. :D

[Alchy]

huzzah for the Europeans.

Does this not warrant front page attention?

[Doom9]

Does this not warrant front page attention?I'm no longer a student but a guy with a day job so I can only post news in the evenings...

[bond]

and now someone should say that the european democracy doesnt function! more of this could have been possible if the european constitution (which would have given even more decision power to the parliament) wouldnt have been rejected by the french and dutch people...

sorry for the "political" statement, but isnt the whole topic highly political...

[bourtzovlakas]

@bond
The european constitution issue is much more complex and expands in areas beyond simple perception...
...so please don't localize it in software patents...
Indeed, software patents is a very important issue, but there are more important things in stake...

I would also like to apologise for this "political" statement...

[masken]

Well it took 4 years to vote down a proposition noone wanted. Congrats ;)

This is good news for small to medium sized business especially, and personally, I think all businesses and individuals.

[shevegen]

"and now someone should say that the european democracy doesnt function"

I say it.
Also, the Constitution is much bigger than the software patent issue and its total bullshit to claim that a unified constitution is benefitting the voters in a big way (especially not the current constitution, and I have read more than enough parts to be able to predict what will be able to happen. We can discuss this in a separate thread.).
I believe you havent understood the current mechanism of voting.
People vote, but its nowhere that even one vote is exactly one vote. In smaller areas, there are bottle-neck effects. And then also, you have an entry barrier in that only a threshold percentage may enter parliament, or in other institutions.
And now comes the coolest thing:
- NOWHERE anywhere MUST the elected "leaders" do what the voters WANT.
So you can get elected, you can get money from big capital accumulation and "adjust" things to their favour, and if you are a nice guy you can make some of your voters happy and do something which they want (and in return you change something else).
The bottom line is that you, as a voter, are represented by someone else who is in no way held liable. Here, you can work for industry, become a politican, and then enter industry again. And while you are politican, you get paid a LOT, you get a retirement pension for few years of *cough* hard work (hard lies) and I dont even want to know what can happen when you are working in the industry again, and still have the ties to your "old buddies" who can decide on something ....

We can discuss alternative mechanisms, but the basic outline is - it sucks.
A partial solution could be to make laws that cant be changed and ONLY target very specific areas as these. I am fine if a politican gets paid more, but not if he can use this as leverage for better positions in the industry.
Anyway, I digress...

The USA are the worst example here of votes, and its amazing that their system has still not changed. The EU can dictate on positions for all its members to have and must comply to.
This can be good - then its good.
This can be bad - then its very bad.

Try to change something in the EU when you are living in a small country for
example. Who will by no doubt benefit from this?
Bureaucracy. I dont know who has had a long lawsuit but there already is too much bureaucracy going on. And this is costly.
The software patents would be one more area for lawyers - this sucks especially in the USA. Even generating movies to have this job look more interesting... its a lame job ;)

As far as I have understood it, nowhere anywhere did the commission say they would NOT accept a new, modified law, which means that in some years the same can happen. I believe the issue will be changed. A new patent will probably sound "less" dangerous to free ideas (ideas lead to new products, monopoly and patents can kill off new products), but other law changes can very much account for this.
The EU parliament rejecected it because they could not find a majority for any position (i think the pro-patent area needed about 30 more votes), this is how I understood it.
Its no surprise that the EU commission (which is one of the worst things in the EU) isnt still pushing it - the EU already is in some kind of bad state, and quite frankly I believe the whole EU should stay much smaller, it should stay cheap, it should solve problems like paying money to generate more food and then have this food transferred into nations in africa for very very low money (or even free, which does not help the starving people seriously - it just helps to make them become more dependent on foreign capital, which is deadly for their own industry to emerge), or even just rot in big depots.
Even throwing money into science isnt the ultimate solution. For one, most science will lead to ways which can produce new goods, which can be sold. For two, better technology can lead to less need of people who work. (This in itself is no real problem but with all the current model of how taxes are paid, this is soooooooooo crap in that it wants me to make just a stock market company and encourage everyone else to do the same, no matter if you get bankrupt lateron or not...)

Ok, I stop here now, this isnt leading anywhere, and after all if two people have different opinions its mostly that both still keep their different opinions.

Both may have valid arguments by the way :)



My bottom line is this:

- Its, for several reasons, very good that this utterly bullshitted named
"patentability of computer-implemented inventions" (which are no real inventions anyway) has been killed (for now...)

[Sharktooth]

Someone will flame me for this...
but IMHO democracy never worked and will never work.

[Wilbert]

The EU parliament rejecected it because they could not find a majority for any position (i think the pro-patent area needed about 30 more votes), this is how I understood it.
Not quite. The people who where for the patents (large part of liberals and of christians) were afraid there would be a majority in favour of the 21 amendments (those amendments would make pure software not patentable). So, that's why they voted against the directive. That vote took place before voting on any of the amendments. The people who were against the patents also voted against the directive, because they were not sure there would be a majority in favour of the amendments.

I have to warn a bit though :) The following political comment unrelated to patents will get a strike.