[Sussex] Europe send patents back to square one.

[Steve Dobson]

On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 11:37:19AM -0000, Paul Graydon wrote:
> Earlier Geoffrey Teale wrote:
> > Our friends in JURI (part of the European Parliament) have voted in favour
> > of invoking Rule 55 of the Rules of Parliament.
> > 
> > That means that the software patents directive has to go back to square one,
> > be rewritten and resubmitted on its own (i.e. not tacked on to bills about
> > fishing!) for parliamentary review.
> 
> > The long and short of which is that we are safe again for at least the
> > foreseeable future.
> 
> Hmmm... Its kinda good and kinda bad though, really.  It just means they're
> delaying it rather than dismissing it entirely.
> Here goes for the long wait..
> 

I don't see this as just a delay, but a rather big battle won (for our
side).  The whole thing has to go before the European Parliament which
is made up of our MEPs and also anti-SWPat.  This givens us (the average
Joe) a better say in squashing the bill.

I'm sure that M$ (and others - see Sun's announcement of their 1600 and the
CDDL) want as much control of EU-land as they have in the USA.  With its
new members the EU market maybe worth more the the US one.  The US
market, while rich, is now saturated in terms of IT.  The market is now
a replacement market; which is not as lucrative as a growing market.
While the UK, France, Germany, ... have just as much IT saturation the
new members (like Poland) do not.  Therefore it is possible that EU is
a bigger revenue possibility for M$ than their home market.

I also question if a M$ IP attack on Linux will now have the same effect.
Can M$ hold back an IP attack on Linux given the rate they are loosing
market share (server room and now desktop) to Linux?  If an US IP attack
is seen then the EP may be more reluctant to put any SWPat bill through.
If M$ win a SWPat case in the US we, here in the EU, need do nothing.
While US companies will have to license M$ IP or stop using Linux.  That
is going to have a impact on the US economy.  It will also have an
impact on EU companies doing business with the US, but that is not the
largest slice of our overseas trading.

Steve