[Gllug] EU patents

Adrian McMenamin Adrian.McMenamin at britainineurope.org.uk
Mon Jun 30 14:15:37 UTC 2003



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mick Farmer [mailto:mick at dcs.bbk.ac.uk]
> Sent: 30 June 2003 14:05
> To: gllug at linux.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [Gllug] EU patents 
> 
> 
> Dear GLLUGers,
> 
> The problem is that the eurocrats are not morons.  They are,
> in fact, quite clever and adept in the areas that matter to
> them, e.g. their salaries and their jobs.
> 
> Unfortunately, they are susceptible to lobbying (because
> this is the drivel they regurgitate all the time) and the US
> has been lobbying the EU extremely hard for the EU to come
> into line with the US on software patents.
> 
> Hopefully the UK will see the madness in all this and refuse
> to play Brussel Sprouts.
> 

Not as simple as all that - if it's adopted as a directive then that's it -
its the law. Even it is not transalted directly into UK law (as it is
supposed to be) it can still be justicible (as we say in the trade) at the
ECJ.

What is not clear to me is where this is at - the EP has to agree it, but so
do the council of ministers. If that hasn't happened yet then there can be
all sorts of lobbying done on Westminster-based pols (indeed all domestic EU
member state politicians) too - and nobody seems to have twigged that.

I endorse some of the points made in other posts though - a lot of screaming
about the evils of "the man" is going to get people nowhere. far better to
make the point that for any sort of domestic software industry to prosper we
need to have a light-touch regime. I think there will be a bigger audience
for those sorts of arguments than many realise.

The EU is moving in this direction because it thinks it will be good for EU
trade etc. Not because the EU is evil. Use your brain before you intervene.
Find examples of domestic software success and show how they are threatened.

If you want to be martyred as a free-software-hippie though, step right up.
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