[Gllug] Re: EU Software Patent Legislation

[Chris Bell]

Hello,
   I have received another reply as follows:

Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 16:25:56 +0200
From: Ian Twinn <itwinn at europarl.eu.int>
Subject: Re: EU Software Patent Legislation (urgent)
To: chrisbell at overview.demon.co.uk


Dear Mr Bell,

Thank you for your email regarding the European Union Directive on the
patentability of computer-implemented inventions (software patents).  

The European Commission published the draft Directive in February of last
year as it become increasingly clear that European law on patenting software
needed to be clarified.  The aim of the Directive is to set out and defend
the status quo in Europe following changes to the patent system in the USA
and also planned for Japan.  

There is a clear intention across the EU Member States to see that Europe
does not follow the USA and Japan in allowing widespread patent availability
for software and business methods.  Copyright will remain the principal
method of protecting intellectual property in these cases.  

Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament supported the general line that
the Commission took.  This builds on and clarifies the existing patent law
across the European Union and makes it clear that only software which forms
part of a technological process will be patentable.  This will allow patents
to be provided for genuine technical inventions and stimulate European
economic development in areas of economic strength eg mobile telephony,
digital television and computer controlled machine tools.  Such an approach
would be compatible with national patent laws in the Member States and
international treaties including TRIPS.

The Directive originally proposed by the Commission set a fair test for
software (deciding whether it has a technical effect) before authorising a
patent.  Under their proposal, any technical invention in a field outside
software could have been patented and it did not make sense for technical
inventions, which happened to use computers to be excludd from the system. 

Conservatives supported the Commission's proposal because we believe that
codification of the existing position would also have avoided raising
complicated issues concerning the validity of existing patents across Europe
or allowing current unpatentable technologies to claim new patents.  This
would have allowed European businesses the chance to develop ideas with
certainty as to their legal position.  It would also have reduced the
pressure from companies holding permissive American software patents that
wished to gain an extension of their patent rights in Europe.  We did,
however, support a number of amendments to clarify the text and ensure that
generic software patents were specifically excluded.

The European Parliament voted on the Commission's proposal at the end of
last year.  It approved the principle of a clarifying directive by a
substantial majority, thus moving the proposal to its next stage of
negotiations between the EU Member Governments (Council) and the European
Commission.  The political objectives of providing the EU with a patent
regime that explicitly excluded software and business processing was clearly
established.  

However the Parliament also approved a wide range of amendments to the
proposal, with the laudable intention of ensuring that patents would only be
available for inventions incorporating software as part of a technical
contribution.  However many of these amendments would render the Directive
completely unworkable and greatly restrict the scope of the original
proposal.  It is important to recognise that this Directive is intended to
clarify the existing EU patents regime, and is not, of itself a
free-standing piece of legislation.  

Many of the amendments would intoduce new concepts into the law covering all
patents and also extend patent restrictions to new ranges of products where
innovations can quite justifiably, be protected at the moment.

The Directive has now moved to the Council where the Governments of th
Member States are amending it.  Their negotiations are confidential but they
are expected to propose a text close to the position which the European
Commission bought forward originally and similar to the pragmatic approach
which Conservatives support.  We will continue to press the Commission and
Council to produce a revised proposal that will achieve its political
objectives, be fully compatible with existing patent law, and provide a
clearly understood regime for inventions.  In the next Parliament, we will
not hesitate to propose further amendments that will safeguard Europe's
approach to generic software patents.

I hope that this is of help to you. 



Ian Twinn MEP




-- 
Chris Bell

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