EU throws out controversial hi-tech patent directive

 

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Posted on 6 Jul 2005 at 13:30

The European Parliament has defeated a controversial hi-tech patent directive in a landslide vote.

The strength of feeling regarding the embryonic Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) Directive revealed itself when 648 MEPs out of 680 voted today to reject the proposal.

Opponents of the directive claimed the provisions in the directive would stifle innovation in Europe by allowing the patenting of pure software. This, they say, would make it difficult for small businesses to develop new software when faced with the prospect of treading carefully around the massive patent portfolios built up by tech giants. As such, they claim today's rejection as a massive victory.

'This is a great victory for those who have campaigned to ensure that European innovation and competitiveness is protected from monopolisation of software functionalities and business methods. It marks the end of an attempt by the European Commission and governmental patent officials to impose detrimental and legally questionable practices of the European Patent Office (EPO) on the member states,' says the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), which vehemently lobbied against the directive.

Yet it looked almost certain the directive was facing rejection one way or another. A set of 21 amendments to the draft was also under consideration today, which would have appeased many opponents, and on the surface at least they appeared to have gathered enough support to be voted in. And the likes of the FFII were urging MEPs to do just that rather than reject it.

But those pushing for adoption of the current text without any amendments threatened to assassinate the directive in any case, fearful that the amendments would gain approval.

At a press conference yesterday, the coordinator of the European People's Party group in the Legal Affairs Committee claimed to be putting together a majority of MEPs who will vote for a rejection of the current draft, even before any amendments are voted on.

But with the demise of CII, the problems the directive set out to address remain: that Europe is still without a harmonised patent system for technologies, and the European Patent Office and various national patent offices are likely to continue to issue patents that many find dubious. Given that new directives take years to come into effect - the one defeated today was first proposed in 2002 - it leaves Europe in a patent limbo for a long period. Indeed the Commission cannot now introduce a new proposal into Parliament on the Directive for another three years.

Nor is it certain that a future directive won't meet the same fate. Right from the start, the antipathy between the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers has been more than apparent, and today's rejection does nothing to patch up those differences.

'Conditions in Council and Commission are not mature for any constructive work on this,' commented Hartmut Pilch of the FFII.

When the EP first drew up its draft for the directive, it inserted certain caveats that would have hobbled attempts to patent pure logic in software. When it came to the Council of Minister's turn to offer their interpretation of that text, it simply removed many it did not find palatable. That draft was subsequently voted in by Ministers and adopted as a 'Common Position' in May 2004.

Yet with hard line campaigning from opponents and the accession of new member states to the EU, governments started to consider whether their Ministers were really representing their views any longer, and the Common Position lost the majority it was voted in on.