The European Council adopted the software patent directive on Monday, despite requests from Denmark, Poland and Portugal to reject the directive.
An EU Council spokeswoman said on Monday morning that the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive had been adopted, but was unable to give more details.
According to Florian Mueller, an anti-patent campaigner who watched the public part of the meeting, a minister from Luxembourg said the directive is being adopted to ensure that the Council adheres to its processes and to avoid creating problems for other directives.
"We are adopting the position for institutional reasons so as not to create a precedent which might have a consequence of creating future delays in other processes," the minister said, according to Mueller.
Last week it was reported that Denmark would attempt to have the directive listed as a B-item, rather than an A-item, allowing the text to be renegotiated. The Luxembourg minister admitted that Denmark, Poland and Portugal would have preferred the directive to be listed as a B-item, according to Mueller.
The directive will now be passed to European Parliament, which can reject or amend the proposal, for a second reading.
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) accused the EU Council of ignoring the views of both the national parliaments that spoke out against the directive and the European Parliament, which demanded that the directive be restarted.
"This is a very sad day for democracy, and casts a very dark shadow over the European Constitution, which will give the Council even more power," said the FFII in a statement.
Mueller agreed that the Council's decision was "undemocratic". He said that getting the Parliament to reject or amend the proposal could be difficult
"The hurdle is very high as we need an absolute majority of every member of parliament, which means 367 MEPs for every amendment to the directive," said Mueller.
Hugo Lueders, the director of public policy at pro-patent organisation CompTIA, said he is pleased the Council has adopted the directive. He claims software patents are needed to ensure that the EU can keep to the goals set by the "Lisbon Agenda" --- that the EU will become the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010.
"We think this directive is overdue," said Lueders. "It's extremely urgent to proceed with the Lisbon Agenda, of which this directive is a key element."
Talkback
I do hope this is an error, and wishful thinking from the EC.
If it is true it is a very sad day for Europe and the World.
The people responsible for this are criminals, the fact that it is white collar crime doesn't make it any better.
Any hope we might have had for tech innovation has now gone. It is a sad day.
Watch yourself Microsoft! You have just unleashed the full fury of the open source community now. You are now living on borrowed time.
Nothing will stop what you have now begun.
We will win through what we know best, sharing all our knowledge & skill, to do what you could NEVER DO, COMPETE.
With one hand they fine Microsoft 0.5 billion pounds. with the other they give them the means to make 500 billion pounds.
And to think I *was* going to vote yes in the European constitution.
A mistake? Not just developers, any computer-using business would be hurt by this, especially in Europe.
U.S. portfolio companies have had years to pick up patents on obvious things like shopping carts, online purchases, or even decades-old open standards. Allowing sw patents in Europe would basically allow the U.S. to walk all over *any* European business.
Conversly, if Europe manages to kill sw patents, then the U.S. will be out of the ICT sector in short order.
Completly shamefull, an open attack on democracy.
This will have an effect on the Constitutional Treaty.
I cannot, and will not, vote for a Constitution that gives more power to a Concil and a Commission that doesn't represent me!
I've allways wished for a closer Union across Europe. But I won't support an undemocratic one.
I'll vote for a NO.
Not just the fury of opensource, the fury of the free world. We must stop this dictorship now! For freedom!
sad day. need a demonstration, our contempt and being blacklisted for any further elections.
OSS development is now going to be spearheaded in the third world.
€C=U$A=$hit => Software patents will be adopted
Software patents are long overdue. The reason the US has such a healthy software industry is in part due to the protection that patents afford companies who invest in software production. Creating software is a labour intensive (and therefore expensive) process and it is right that companies that invest in it can protect that investment during the life of a patent, just as a company investing in any other area of industry can gain the right to fully exploit the results of their work.
Software development is an iterative process with new developments being derived from previous ones. Allowing software processes to be patented means only big business will be able to develop software in the future. This will stifle innovation. This is a sad day for democracy, business and the consumer. Does the British government expect such practices to encourage people to vote for ratification of the EC constitution?
Mr. Ryan.
By the same logic; creating a book or writing a symphony is labour intensive too. Would you agree to have those patented ?
Software is protected by copyright. And that is more then enough protection. Software patents don't protect your investment, they stall innovation by blocking competition.
You want to be rewarded 1000-fold for your work. Where is the honesty in that ?
Well, you have to be prepared to reap what you sow. It won't be long before the advocates and judges will spend their time and your money on this nonsense, instead of real issues.
And you are partly responsible for that.
... but their work is fully protected by the copyright law. Patents don't protect their work, they protect and reserve ideas. Please, tell me one application that you use that has only one idea. If ideas likes one-click shopping, hyperlinks, progressbars and others can be patented, you can hardly speak of 'protecting innovation'.
The sheer ignorance of using US patent protection and the word "healthy" in the same sentence is repulsive. Seriously, I dont think anyone in the software industry with any insight would think this, which is why "DB Consulting" must be a lawyer firm.
>> "The reason the US has such a healthy software industry is in part due to the protection that patents afford companies who invest in software production."
In view of what the last few years has brought this seems is jaw-dropping. The ignorance does explain why this would get passed. A sad day for developmen and innovation indeed.
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My opinions are my own and do not have anything to do with my employer.
Let's not get overexcited - all this means is that the text proposed by the European Council will be passed over to the European Parliament for the next round of debate. The Directive is still very far from being adopted.
Mr Ryan...Its the fact that this ruling allows the patent holders to patent a number used in a specific way within a computer program...Its a bit like saying that we have a patent on middle C on a piano...
This will allow Microsoft and many other dominant IT companies to litterally kill off ***all*** other competitors that are starting out...Software patents will destroy Europe...This is an absolute disaster for all of Europe...The domino effect of this is a complete and utter dictatorship on information.
The whole of Europe was duped on something so massive as this...Its devistating!!!
We all know that big business and government are running hand-in-hand and simply ignoring everything and everyone to impose the will of lobbyists and businesses upon us all.
It's a worldwide phenomenon with self-serving politicians and self-rewarding business leaders trying to take as much as they can get before retiring early and leaving the world a far worse off place than they found it.
Now we have the giant of computing forgetting that their industry is built on the inventions of men from Babbage to Turing and so many others, who gave their discoveries and inventions to the world - these companies are patenting the most trivial of work. If any of the fields original pioneers had patented everything the did, there would be no IBMs or Microsofts to lobby - they would be tiny companies living of what they can make in between the licensing fees of a thousand patents.
It's a joke and the EU politicians make me sick. I can't wait for the revolution, where these idle fools are swinging from lamposts - especially Glenys Kinnock MEP, she won't be ignoring my concerns and sending out stock party line responses then!
Money beats democracy, hands down. Sad.
I think I'll quit. Maybe I'll retrain as lumberjack.
I'm a programmer, and have always thrived in being the underdog with good ideas - my lively hood is now gone.
Can anybody explain to me how it is possible that, after being rejected 2 times by 2 different institutions and procedures, this thing is STILL being forced upon us? It`s sad enough that the EU does not respect the public opinion, but now it shows it doesn`t respect it`s own procedures of legislation. Are we heading for a Banana republic now?
The council simply forces debate and discussion off the agenda, and this is indeed a sad day for democracy! Why decision on software patents happened to be on the agenda of Agriculture is anyone`s guess, but obviously ministers of Agriculture in the various membership states are *VERY* knowledgable on the matter. I suspect the EU Council has sold out to the US software lobby, because of other geopolitical and strategic reasons which are obscure and non-transparent, but perhaps well related to other backward issues of Agriculture.
We have one more hope. The Council has clearly shown that it power-hungry, and does not care about facts and content of a political debate. The Parliament can shoot down the text, AGAIN, or at least amends the crap out of it. Let`s hope the Parliament, the true representatives of the people, are offended enough to take on this matter and whistle back the Council`s attempt to force something the software industry itself is divided upon. Because, let`s be clear about this: software innovation in small companies will be dead meat if this directive goes through..
Ah yes, I can see it now...coding innovation going underground, with more police resource allocated to stamping out the terrible crime, that is anyone trying to come up with an original idea.
I mean come on.....how dare you be innovative.
Mr Ryan - You are a marketing director.
How long is it since you made your living as a programmer, if ever?
Please, in future do not get involved in any debates related to programming in Europe.
The majority of computer experts in Europe who are aware of this issue are opposed to this directive which would allow USA style software and business process patents. More and more are becoming aware, and the anger is growing.
I note that the CompTIA, quoted in the article, is a USA-based organisation. What a suprise they are in favor of software patents in Europe (it helps the USA's balance of payments, of course).
This is a disaster.
Not only software patents are a major obstacle to the software industry, but it also is a serious action against democracy.
I can't believe what the EC has done, reverting the original directive sent from the parliament, trying to pass it as a Agriculture and Fisheries item, having members of the council vote AGAINST national parliament wishes (dutch), pressure on representatives opposing the directive and now this?
Something's very wrong with the way things are done in the EC.
This is a sad day, both for democracy in the EU and for the IT industry and Computer sciences also.
Marketing directors live off the grabbing of ideas and emotions we all have and putting some kind of brand close to them and leveraging that brand's mediatic power to bombard us back with their own commercially bent view of our common ideas and emotions.
No wonder their wet dream is to put a seal on other people's brain so that they get paid for every further reappearance of any thought they worked on.
Software developers tend to have more respect of "prior art" (the work and lives of the ones who came before us, without whom we wouldn't be able to think and feel the way we do).
Marketing directors get yourselves a respectable job before you express opinions about other people's, especially when it requires real use of brain and produces real innovation, unlike yours.
Isn't it that the EU commission has chosen Microsoft and US software companies against European companies because they want to eradicate free software (and at last the possibility for end users to control their PC) ?
Because I can't see another reason, unless maybe that they all have been paid by SIr Bill.
Really, I don't understand how they can make such a big mistake !
Large organisations usually end up losing their customers because they get fat and boring - not anymore - they will now be able to use the law to stifle competion - so we had better prepare ourselves for life in a boring world.
What the hell are they thinkng?
I really, really wonder how can someone be so ignorant as to say that patents aim at helping innovation. Come on, please, cite ONE thing that doesn't rely on past ideas, existing practices, previous work...
Copyrighting code is already a bit abusive; there are times when 2 people will pop out 2 similare pages of code to do the same thing. It is, however, reasonable to think that no one will be able to pop out a full operating system, and expect someone else to create a verbatim copy.
What patents allow though, is that if someone has an idea, he can patent it eventhough he may be unable to develop it. If someone else has the same idea but can develop it, THEN, the first person would claim ownership of the idea, get his hands on the code, fine the developer and enjoy... Yes, someone else's production.
Someon said 'Sir Bill'?
When something so obviously undemocratic and corrupt as this happens it weakens and demeans
Europe. It makes me feel ill to think that the vested interests of a handful of obscenely wealthy businessmen have so easily been allowed to effectively wipe out the European software industry.
Now that the US and Europe are in the pockets of Bill Gates and a few others, it looks like China is now the only place with the freedom to innovate and develop new software.
I hope that others will join me in devoting a small part of their day, every day, to fighting this corruption. Even if you send one email or fax or letter every day to someone that matters, and enough people do the same, it could make a difference. Let's all get together and see what else we can do.
English? Then write to your MEP(s) at writetothem.com; see if you can drum up some political support - I know it seems like a lost cause but everything's worth a fight.
I'm dismayed at the cretinous behaviour of the European commission and council in allowing the software patent directive to be adopted in it's current form.
Where next for the opposition to the software patent directive?
Arguing democratic principle in a "western democracy" is laughable, especially in a corporate-led autocrasy such as the EU.
"The doom of our time is upon us"
Bad things happen when good people do nothing. Problem with this issue is that the average Joe Blow not working in the industry will not comprehend what implications this really has.
Imagine a plumber not being able to use a clockwise turn with his spanner to tighten a leaky pipe due to the "clockwise turn" being patented by a large international plumbing firm. Or what about a carpenter not being able to hammer in a nail as "hammering" had been patented by a large international carpentry firm. Make no mistake, when things as elementary as a progress bar can be patented, we ARE talking about this level of impact for small to medium business that are unable to afford to play the patent game. What's worse is that if this IS passed, any one piece of software may well cross over dozens of patented ideas.
Without any shadow of a doubt the ONLY people to benefit from patents are large corporations. Small to medium business and us as consumers are guaranteed to loose on two fronts. Those two fronts being innovation, in that the solutions we are offered will be increasingly constricted in what the can do, not by choice, but by economics. The second front is cost, in that any development company prepared to use patented ideas will inevitably pass that cost onto their customers.
With that I'll leave you with two words which I think I think aptly describe the behavior of corporations in regards to patents.
psychopath;
A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.
sociopath;
One who is affected with a personality disorder marked by antisocial behavior.
I have just listend to the Danish "Økonomiminister" (minister of economy) Bendt Bendtsen statement. He did not ask for a remowal of the software patent directive from the A-list. He just called for it to be optained on the B-list. And therefore has he acted against the majority of the Danish "Europaudvalg". He is _not_ allowed to do that. Therefore he now has to work the cancellation af the directive... The question is however who will force him to do that?
Listen: http://media.ffii.org/Council050307/Council050307-official-raw.mp3
Why not music patents?
Stop the music. I've just patented the concept of making music so any music instrument making a sound is in violation. But because I'm not the worse guy around I'll allow music as long as you honor my patent by means of a small fee each and every hour sound is produced by whatever musicial instrument you are within 10 feet of. Unless you purchase my patented Twoink (tm) rubber band which comes bundled with a license to make all the music you want with a single musical instrument. Special price today: 2 Twoinks for just $230.
My laywers and lobbiests are still busy trying to get a law adopted that'll declare human voice as a musical instrument as well. Until then you're allowed to speak. For now.
And about those artists and musicians. Those people are the burden of a sound economy based on music patents. It's a wonder we even have a musical industry. Such people should be working for me for a small fee because I have music patents and they don't.
Sigh.
The "Lisbon Agenda" is clearly without practical vision and meaning. Quote: "the EU will become the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010". Yeah right, how do you compete against thousands and thousands of software patents that last decades? Waive with your enormously expensive software patent (that somehow can't be dragged through court for years by laywers that try to dispute it) of your own?
Hey look everybody, I've got one too! Oh, but now I have dozen of laywers on my back disputing it. And my investers are walking away. Hmmm, better sack some of my employers because I'm sure I've a good thing going here and I'll need the money in order to make it to the end. Darn, now my competitor has signed a big deal with some big US company. Crap, my customers are walking away. Argh, there goes my business. Well, at least I still have my patent. My God, that US company is selling some dressed down version of my idea for twice as much and people are loving it! I have them now! But I don't have any money. Anybody interested in sponsering a legal fight against a huge US firm? Hello? It's an easy win. Really, I'm sure of it. Hello?
Hellooooooooo?
This is sad and bet you money that big software companies have been greasing palms to get this through any way they can, all for the glory of their wallets of course.
Any proponent of software patenting under the justification of "time and money spent" is a standing example for the definition of "pigopolist". Copyright protected software perfectly adequately (as it did for mentally, time consuming and, sometimes, monetarily heavy other literary works), patenting is only being pushed to a) preserve the income of existing majors (guarantee continuing profits), and b) to prevent competition within areas where any major software house percieves a threat (mainly by the Open Source community).
Software patenting is the scourge of development (ask any major US software company) that only benefits the non-productive (software-patent hording) operations and patent lawyers.
Promoting innovation? Claptrap!
This is, indeed, a sad day for Europe and a sad day for the democratic process within Europe.
Like some other posters, I now feel not only obliged to vote against any adoption of the EU constitution but will be actively supporting anti-ec parties - my livelihood demands it.
Outrage!!
Mr Martin Ryan, before claiming the US and Japan have a "healty" software industry, please take a look at all the lawsuits involving software patants, this being one of the latest:
http://www.pat-rights.com/nsD03_01_2005_T1235.htm
more on this is on slashdot :
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/03/08/0157259.shtml?tid=155&tid=3
These things pop up on a daily basis right now, do we realy want this in Europe?????? I guess somebody does, and they do NOT underastand what this is all about, because no person who REALY understands what this is all about would even consider putting this on the agenda.
Until yesterday I was inclined to vote in favour for the European constitution in the upcoming Dutch referendum. Today, realising the foolishness of my naive confidence in European democracy, I am sure to vote against it and to convince as many people as possible to do likewise!
Hey.. at least you'll get a chance to vote on the new constitution. As a Swedish citizen, I have no say in the matter (since no referendum will be held in Sweden).
To all of you who get the opportunity - please, to ensure a competitive, non-statist EU, vote NO to the constitution !
Very good decision.This will help the genuine, hardworking programmers and software companies who have been in the forefront of all innovations till date to clearly and proudly stand out from the crowd of unruly loud mouthed copycats. Oh yes the open source community has a lot to lose simply because they are overloaded or rather, fully loaded with unabashed plagiarism and unashamed thefts.
To clueless Anonymous Programmer.
This will not help the genuine hardworking programmers because they don't have 50K lying around to aquire a software patent and they certainly don't have 500K lying around to keep the laywers of their back.
Try making a program that, per example, doesn't use one-click buttons, has help buttons or can be navigated by means of a mouse. Because software patents at that "innovative" level have already been granted.
I'm not sure how much IP you've patented in your own name but I think it won't be enough to convince, say, Microsoft to sign a mutual IP agreement with you. So as long as you promise not to use their IP they won't use your IP. Unless ofcourse you've downloaded and installed one of their security patches because then the EULA (End User License Agreement) you agreed to states that you agreed not to sue them in case they might infringe on your IP. One-way deal? Gee, didn't see that coming, I'm sure. Ofcourse, you'll always have the choice to not install the security patch.
As for the Open Source community. They gave you BIND, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Mozilla, SendMail, OpenOffice, Samba, rsync and tons more. If you want to see that killed then I'm sure you want to see the Internet killed as well.
But perhaps it is for the better. Without Open Source the big commercial companies don't have much left to copycat from so we all will be left to paying premium prices for what their own programmers can think of and their sales managers will allow to leak out into the markets.
Yes, surely that is what the great minds of the "Lisbon Act" had in mind when they spoke of the year 2010.
Can you picture future support forums? Which developer will be stupid enough to post programming examples there to help his fellow developer? Can you picture your future ISP monthly subscription price? They'll only use fully commercial priced "solutions" and guess who's getting the bill for that. Can you picture your future salary as a programmer? Without software patents backing you up all you'll be is a legal liability for your company so go find a job (along with thousands of others) at one of the few companies left that do have enough patents backing them up. Can you picture the innovation speed of future commercial programs? Without better priced alternatives "stealing" paying customers away from them why would commercial companies spend more then the absolute minimum on their R&D (Research and Development) because you will swallow anything they put in front of you and do anything for it because that's how hungry they will make you.
And no, the above won't happen next year but gradually. If anything, the greedy are not stupid.
Here's economics 101 for you: no satisfied customer will give you their house for a bit of happenies but a starving one will for no more then some leftover lunch you spit on.
Oh, and don't try to become a laywer because that job market will be flooded soon enough as well. I'm sure the world will be a better place with more laywers running around on the planet surface rather then on the bottom of an ocean. All that's left to do is to find some patent officers granting patents for certain concepts of legal practices. That'll finish off the last line of defense and turn the court rooms into a playing ground for big business completely.
Welcome to your new afterlife.
Mr Anonymous Programmer: "unabashed plagiarism" is already protected against by global copyright laws. If you can point to a single piece of open source software that infringes someone else's copyrights then by all means bring this to that project's attention *right now*.
And as for "unashamed thefts", don't you remember how Apple sued Microsoft for "stealing" the Macintosh's look-and-feel to put into Windows 95? Or how about Microsoft stealing Stac Technology's disk-compression code in 1998?
I have to say that I really wonder what's happening with the EC, and that's more than a 'sad' piece of news for me...
For me, it's simply unpossible that such a threat would come to Europe. I would do anything legal to fight against it.
BUT my present question is: would a 'no' to the constitution treaty help by any way...?
This is ill news indeed...
And to think I admired the EU position about the Micro$oft monopoly.
Realy sad.
I hope this isn't adopted, because this not only means that us Linux users and developers are going to go underground, but it means that costs will rise, computer companies will shut down, people will be made redundant, and we'll all be plagued with spam and hackers. And what are some of these patents going to be over? Scrollbar arrows and cursors. Apart from that, who patents a WYSIWYG web editor, Microsoft, Macromedia or IBM? The answer - the one with the most money. This is a set back for Europe.
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