Poland continues fight over EU patent directive

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 4 Mar 2005 at 12:38

Poland has issued a call to arms against the steady progress of the EU directive on computer-implemented inventions.

Despite the European Commission turning down requests from both the European Parliament and JURI, the EU Committee on Legal Affairs Commission, Poland is still pressing for change.

However, they will be leading from the back. The Polish minister for science and information Kleiber has said that it would support the demoting of the draft directive to a B item - meaning that provisions of the directive can be argued out and changed - but that it wouldn't initiate a request.

Poland has previously been outspoken against the directive, making last minute requests that it be removed from EU meetings which would have ratified the current controversial draft, which no longer has a majority support.

But it now calls on the likes of Germany and Denmark to take the initiative. The Dutch government has also said it would support an effort to have the directive listed as a B-item, but like Poland, wouldn't initiate the discussion.

Jonas Maebe, FFII board member, said: 'There no longer is any excuse not to reopen discussions. Even in the European Parliament, both opponents and proponents of software patents are in favour of interrupting the current procedure. The former because they don't like the current Council text, the latter because they are afraid the Commission's restart refusal will only strengthen the opposition. I am really wondering who or what is the actual driving force behind the current crash course of both the Council and the Commission.'