The vote on a highly controversial proposed European
Union law on software patents has again been postponed, a
parliament official said.
A presentation of the draft legislation on the "patentability of
computer-implemented inventions" by European Parliament member
Arlene McCarthy has been pushed back until the next plenary meeting
of the European Parliament during the week of 22 September,
according to a spokesman in the UK office of the European
Parliament.
The date and time for the presentation have yet to be arranged
and no specific reason was given for the delay, said McCarthy's
parliamentary assistant, Emma Bandey. "It is not unusual for
debates to be rescheduled," she added.
Efforts to standardise patents across Europe for
computer-implemented inventions, which include software, have
provoked protest from two polarised camps.
Open-source and free software groups contend that copyright laws
are enough to protect business innovations and want patents to be
outlawed, while large businesses, particularly those which already
own libraries of patents, are calling on the EU to establish
US-style patent laws allowing so-called business methods to be
patented.
The patents directive has already made its way through the
European Parliament and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the
Internal Market (JURI), which appointed McCarthy as "rapporteur",
the person responsible for guiding the proposal through the
European Parliament.
McCarthy issued her report in June, but the debate on the
directive was postponed until this month partly because of the
controversy surrounding the dossier.
Last week a group of economists sent an open letter to the
European Parliament, characterising the draft proposal as damaging
to technological innovation and Europe's software industry. That
was followed by online and in-person protests organised by the
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), urging the
EU to abandon the directive in its present form.
About 500 people, including some Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs), took part in a rally in Brussels while more
than 600 websites participated in the online protest, said Benjamin
Henrion, one of the protest organisers.
"We had the impression that the vote was postponed partly
because of our action and the letter from the group (of 12
economists)," he said.
Henrion hailed the delay as a chance to educate parliamentarians
on the complex technical issues surrounding patenting software.
"Three more weeks to explain software patents is a good thing
for us. Our polls show that when politicians understand the
technical issues and implications of software patent laws like
those in the US, they largely support our stance," he said.
But other MEPs believe the directive already has comprehensive
safeguards against the possibility of large companies patenting as
many technologies as possible in an effort to squeeze out
competition from small and medium-sized businesses.
In a letter published on the website of The Financial Times,
Malcolm Harbour MEP and Joachim Wuermeling MEP wrote that they and
"our centre-right colleagues from across the European Union
wholeheartedly support the pragmatic and measured approach" of the
current directive.
The MEPs conceded that "the EU must not go down the road taken
by the US in allowing patents for general software and business
methods," but wrote: "inconsistencies in the granting of software
patents across EU patent offices are already threatening to
undermine the EU's desired position. The new directive reverses
this undesirable trend and protects Europe's innovative software
industry."
Laura Rohde writes for IDG News Service