Council clashes with Parliament on software patents

Speaking to EurActiv before the vote, the Parliament's rapporteur on the dossier, MEP Arlene MC Carthy (PES, UK), said Member States were bending too easily under industry pressure. "The Parliament's vote was clear - we do not want software per se to be patented. We want strict interpretations and criteria for genuine inventions. The Council Common Position is not the final word. The new Parliament will have a second reading and I expect there to be some tough talking and negotiations". 

The Commission says the text adopted by Council maintains the the balance of the initial proposal which it says aimed at "providing legal clarity while avoiding any drift towards patents for business methods or computer programmes that do not contribute to the state of the art". Reacting to the Council vote, Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said: "It is nothing more than basic common sense to make sure that inventions are not excluded from patent protection simply because they use computer software. But the Commission has always been committed to making sure that patents in this field, as in any other, cannot be used to squeeze out legitimate competition or to prevent others getting fair access to technology and ideas. This text achieves that balance and I very much hope the new European Parliament will be able to adopt it swiftly."

The European Industry Association for Information Systems, Communication Technologies and Consumer Electronics (EICTA) shifted the pressure on the new Parliament, calling on MEPs "to support Europe's digital technology industry as the Council has done today, and drop the more extreme and economically damaging amendments that the outgoing Parliament adopted in September 2003".

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says Germany behaved like the "Trojan Horse of Bolkestein in the Council" by convincing smaller countries to change their minds on a text they were initially opposed to. Responding to EurActiv, FFII claimed that the Council's version of the text was inefficient at ensuring the interoperability exceptions that Parliament had been fighting for. The organisation is now busy organising national campaigns to make software patents an issue for the next European elections in June. "All new MEPs will be briefed on the issue", FFII indicated, saying they had lost a battle but not the war.