discussion paper from 15 Mar 2004, so this predates the poltical agreement from 18 May:
http://www.sam.sdu.dk/economics/edp-pdf/kaiser_roende.pdf
prepared by Ulrich Kaiser and Thomas Ronde
Anonymous comments:
The reasoning is a little bit weak from methodological point of view but it is worth a read. A scientific literature based approach and clueless authors with some innovative ideas.
Some contributions of the authors are very silly, e.g. page 15 "Division of labour between copyright and patents where only the very novel inventions are protected by patent laws and all other inventions are protected by copyrights.
- There is no "very novel" and just "novel", either something can be novel or not, maybe, "inventive step" was meant.
However they try to discuss the issue unbiased and provide the usual result. - patents less likely beneficial for dk than the US But the argument is here a "free ride": "since dk lacks a significant sw industry"
They quote many players including Lutterbeck, Horns and Smets-solanes.
Futher comments:
Looking up the Names of the two Economists which wrote the discussion paper and one finds a newer version of it:
http://www.cebr.dk/publications%20submenu/discussion%20papers/2004/dp%202004-05.aspx
One interesting point: The page says the discussion paper has 28 pages, but it has 22 pages - meanwhile: http://www.cebr.dk/upload/dp2004-05_03.pdf
The March 2004 version has has 26 pages whis this one has 22 pages.
As the pdf from the cebr.dk web site looks newer (start page with a nice design, more polished, some details and to professional looking drawings removed).
On a quick look, some of the mistakes which are pointed out above are still included in the cebr.dk URL above.
"This is especially true *in the beginning when it is very hard to determine how novel an invention is* because the prior art is not well-documented."
"how novel" -> Either something it is novel or not, that is decided and can be challenged, but there is no degree of novelity. Either it's there or not.
Also, it seems the writers didn't understand that the EPO already granted some 30.000 software patents so the issue if prior art is not at the beginning if the adoption of the directive but continously - for other reasons.
And here is another gem:
"After delaying the vote, the European Parliament amended the proposal in a way that even sharp critics found agreeable. The new proposal, containing no less than 124 amendments to the original text, was examined by the EU Council of Ministers, which put a Working Party in charge of reexamining the dossier."
124 was the total number of amendments which have been tabled, but if I'm right "only" some 88 (I can check the exact number if needed...) have been voted in the end (e.g. some amendments where identical, some have been merged and/or split) and of these, about 64 were adopted in 1st reading.
