European politicians representing parties including the UK's Liberal Democrats have been accused of acting against party policy in a recent vote over the software patent directive.
In a crucial vote at the JURI committee on Monday, MEPs from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) voted against a number of amendments to this directive. These amendments, which had been proposed by Michel Rocard (rapporteur for the JURI committee), would have limited the extent to which software could have been patented, according to campaigners.
Hartmut Pilch, the president of Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the Liberal Democrats have behaved in a "schizophrenic" manner over the patent directive. He said that German liberal MEP Alexander Alvaro's vote was in contradiction to the policy of his party -- Germany's Free Democratic Party (FDP), which opposes software patenting.
"Since 2000 the German party (the FDP) have confirmed over and over again that their official position is to prevent software patents and to support the line of Rocard," said Pilch.
David Chan, a developer at Clockwork Software Systems, said that he was unhappy that the UK's Liberal Democrat MEP, Diana Wallis, voted against the amendments. He pointed out that this appears to be in contradiction to the UK Liberal Democrat's policy on patents. The UK Liberal Democrat's IT policy states that it plans to "support continued widespread innovation in software by resisting the wider application of patents in this area."
"It is very disappointing that Diana Wallis pushed the ALDE group to support extremist patentability, because this is directly against Lib Dem party policy and she has been informed of [this] several times," said Chan. "There is no point in voting Lib Dem in European elections, if the elected MEPs feel they can blatently disregard policy when it suits them, and the party is powerless to rein them in," Chan added.
Debian developer Wookey was also unhappy at the Liberal Democrat's apparent change in policy.
"FFII UK will be writing to UK Conservative and Liberal MEPs to ask why the letters they send to constituents say they are against software patents yet they vote for them in committees and parliament," said Wookey.
ALDE's action is particularly frustrating for anti-patent campaigners as many of the amendments were rejected by a majority of only one vote.
Diana Wallis was unable to comment on the issue and a spokesperson for her office advised ZDNet UK to speak to Toine Manders, the spokesperson for ALDE.
Ottilia von Chrismar, the assistant to Toine Manders, denied that the liberals had changed their view on patents. She claimed that the amendments that ALDE voted against were "too vague" and would have created legal uncertainty.
In a statement defending their view on patents, ALDE said that its actions would help Europe to maintain competitiveness.
"I am convinced that with the vote in the Legal Affairs committee this week we have supported a line defending innovation with legal certainty that complements the efforts to attain the Lisbon goals of raising Europe's competitiveness, particularly with respect to the United States and China", said Manders in the statement.
Manders also claimed the directive is important to SMEs as well as large corporations.
"The directive has been portrayed as benefiting only major industrial conglomerates at the expense of the small software developer, but this is simply not true. A recent study by the Business Software Alliance indicates that SMEs account for 20% of all CII (Computer Implemented Inventions) patents granted since 1998 (and 2/3 in 2004) and 81% of them rely on patent protection for their businesses," concluded Manders
However, the study cited by Manders actually found that only 2,000 SMEs in Europe had been issued a patent, of which 81 percent hold only one patent. This is only a tiny proportion of the eleven million SMEs that exist in Europe, according to UEAPME, an organisation that represents the interests of these SMEs at EU level. The figure of two thirds of patents being granted to SMEs in 2004 is also incorrect -- in 2004 around 20 percent of patents were issued to SMEs, according to the study.
Von Chrismar said she was not aware that the figures quoted were incorrect.
UEAPME was critical of JURI for voting against many of Rocard's amendments.
"The failure to clearly remove software from the scope of the directive is a setback for small businesses throughout Europe. UEAPME is now calling on the European Parliament to reverse yesterday’s decision at plenary session next month and send a strong message that an EU software patent is not an option," said Hans-Werner Müller, the secretary general of UEAPME.
Talkback
I'll admit (anonymously) that I voted LibDem in the elections, and now which I had not. I liked the outcome but the Lib Dems are rubbish, they're so flaky when it comes to decisions.
What a bunch of lily-livered pansies
I would like to hear ASAP what the EU politicians will do now that once again it turns out that plenty of them are being seriously misinformed in ways that clearly effects the way they vote.
It's my understanding that such misinformation with such an intent on that level in the democratic process is considered a very serious offense.
So why do this EU politicians get on with their jobs as if nothing happens? Don't they care about getting completely and honestly informed about matters before determining how they will vote? And shouldn't they reconsider their vote if it turns out that it was based on misinformation?
Apparently the Liberal Democrats do have some IT related policies, they just don't know about them or choose to ignore them.
Looking through the policies on the page provided and through any archive of parliament questions you will see that no Liberal Democrat has asked any questions of any minister about anything in these policies.
These policies also don't appear on any official party website or even the affiliated Liberal Democrats Scientists and Engineers Association.
On contacting Norman Lamb who is presumbably the shadow minister in charge of this shambles, you wait 2 days for an acknowledgement from one of his assistants before he writes to you by post, presumbably second class, written using quill and ink. I wouldn't be surprised if some Liberal Democrat (and labour/tory) MPs would rather they still wore tights and ruffles in parliament given their aversion to any late 20th century technology (apart from certain over-zealous home secretaries, who should be banned from talking about IT until they have a basic grasp of it).
Well this shows that EU don't work. Solutiuon.
Abandon EU now. In evey way say no to this corrupt goverment that more and more like a country called China.
Uh yeah, how exactly would the EU be abandoned? Its an advanced trade organisation overseaing trillions of pounds worth of commerce.
Sure the UK could 'go it alone' but with around 2/3 are real trade being with EU countries then they could easily run us into the ground like trade organisations always run smaller competitors into the ground.
How do we "crash" the EU? Very simple. If the UK withdraws then the EU is finished. The €4bn hole we would kick in the EU budget would completely cripple the whole organisation. The CAP would have to go and there would be riots in France as the farmers lay siege to Paris. The doddering Italian economy is already on the verge of collapse even with Central Bank support. They are already worried that Italy may have to withdraw from the Euro.
It could all end so very easily. It is nowhere near as solid as it seems.
Errr, all that needs to be done to make the EU work is to kick out company (sponsored) lobbiest and politicians who listen to such people. The only problem is how to accomplish that and maintain that.
what an irresponsible, insensitive and unfortuante choice for an analagy used by Hartmut Pilch, the president of Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). To state "that Liberal Democrats have behaved in a "schizophrenic" manner over the patent directive" only reveals his ignorance of the disease and discounts the struggle it is to live life every day as a schizophrenic. To trivialize this with such a blatent misuse of language is to behave in the manner of a total jackass. And i'm sure i've insulted some jackasses out there by likening them to you.
The EP is out of order by even considering sw patents at this point. The EC could not have included the CIID as an A-item, as it claims. Due to objections by representatives of member states. The EP needs to send this back to the EC until such time as it can come through proper channels as is expected in a democracy.