Bolkestein PR on Council "Compromise"
--> Council 2004-05-18, Media Echo, Bolkestein, "maintenance of original proposal's balance"
As always, DG Internal Market uses the apparatus of the European Commission for systematically spreading lies in favor of its clientele of corporate and governmental patent lawyers.
- Brussels, 18th May 2004 Patents: Commission welcomes Council agreement on Directive on computer-implemented inventions The European Commission has welcomed the Competitiveness Council's political agreement on a 'common position' on the proposed Directive on computer-implemented inventions. The proposed Directive aims to boost innovation by ensuring that those who invest in developing genuinely new products that depend on computer implemented technology can, like those who develop other products, get a fair reward.
They get this through copyright and other mechanisms already. Idea monopolies only deprive them of the fruits of their work.
- It would achieve this without sealing off the software market to new initiatives and new inventions.
There is nothing in the text that achieves this.
- The Commission supports the text adopted by Council, which it believes restores the overall balance between the interests of the rights holders and other parties (competitors and consumers) struck by the original Commission proposal presented in February 2002 (see IP/02/277, MEMO/02/32).
The Commission has provided no evidence to support this belief.
- However, there are still differences between the positions of the Council and European Parliament
The cleavage has increased, not decreased. The word "still" is therefore a lie.
- and, under the procedure known as 'co-decision', both institutions must agree before the measure can become EU law. Once the Council has formally adopted the 'common position' without discussion at a forthcoming meeting, the text will be transmitted to the Parliament to begin its second reading after it has reconvened in September following the June 2004 elections.
The Parliament convenes for the first time in late July, and it is free to start with another first reading.
- Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said: "The Council's agreement is a big step towards getting this Directive adopted in a form which will provide a major contribution to European competitiveness and assist the proper functioning of the Internal Market.
Again nothing to support these claims, which go against a broad consensus of economists and software and technology experts, including the authors of studies ordered by the Commission and opinions by the EU consultative organs.
- We must reward investment in innovation if a real knowledge-based economy is to flourish in Europe. 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.
The Parliament's amendments also do not exclude any invention from "patent protection" simply because computer software is used.
- 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.
The Commission has done nothing to ensure this. On the contrary, DG Internal Market has since 1997 been committed to legalising monopolies on "computer-implemented" algorithms and business methods.
- This text achieves that balance and I very much hope the new European Parliament will be able to adopt it swiftly."
Bolkestein knows that the text has moved away from the Parliament.
- The proposed Directive seeks to harmonise the way in which national patent laws deal with computer-implemented inventions. Such inventions can already be patented by applying to either the European Patent Office (EPO) or the national patent offices of the Member States. However enforcement of patents is dealt with by national courts and, as the law may differ between Member States, the level of protection may, in practice, vary. This can represent a significant barrier to trade in patented products within the Internal Market.
The substantive patent law of the member states is the same throughout the EU. It consists in transcriptions of Art 52ff EPC into national laws.
- The balance of the Commission's original proposal is maintained in the text adopted by the Council. This is to provide legal clarity while avoiding any drift towards patents for business methods or computer programs which do not provide any technical contribution to the state of the art.
The Commission's original proposal had no balance, but it is even more tilted toward unlimited patentability and unfettered patent enforcement in two respects
- introduction of program claims (Art 5(2))
- explicit refusal of interoperability exemptions (Recital 17)
The proposal contains no limitation on patentability whatsoever, merely some bloated wordings that pretend to be intended to limit something while achieving the contrary effect.
The above section is for internal consumption only. It is designed to soothe DG Information Society about the loss of their only achievements in the negotiations of 2001/2002, see
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/cec0405/
- The text adopted by Council includes twenty one amendments proposed by the European Parliament at its first reading but there remain some important differences between the two institutions' positions.
It includes only cosmetic amendments from the Legal Affairs Committee, which came from the same source as those of the Commission and Council (i.e. the patent administrators) and which were left untouched by the Plenary simply because they have no effect, neither bad nor good.
- These differences mainly relate to exceptions from patentability for computer-implemented inventions. The Parliament wanted wide exclusions covering the use of patented technology for interoperability and data handling. However, the Commission and Council felt that these went beyond what was required to set the right balance between rewarding inventors for their efforts and allowing competitors to build on these inventions, and could ultimately harm EU competitiveness.
Again DG Internal Market did nothing to substantiate its "feeling", a patent lawyer gut feeling, which goes against the general knowledge of economists and professionals in the to-be-regulated fields.
- The European Parliament will now have to consider the 'common position' text in its second reading.
Or in another first reading.
- For further information, see:
For further propaganda, read:
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