Poland did it again. For the second time they blocked the attempt to silently adopt EU Council's agreement on software patents, this time in the Fisheries Council of 24 January 2005. The government of Poland had already requested the item to be deleted from the agenda of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 21 December 2004.
On the Friday preceding the Fishery minister's meeting the Polish European Committee of the Council of Ministers, presumedly acting on the initiative of the country's Ministry for Science and Technology, requested not to include the Directive on the Patentability of computer-implemented inventions on the agenda of that Council meeting, because "the work on the final position of Poland on the issue has not yet been completed". A statement published on the Polish Office of the Committee for European Integration, as translated by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, goes on to announce that "if the Luxembourg Presidency includes the draft of the aforementioned Directive in the agenda, Poland will request its withdrawal and postponement until the end of the necessary analyses being conducted by Poland". These analyses concern the possibly disastrous impact of the patentability of software on Poland's emerging computer industries.
The Council's difficulties in finding an agreement on the Patents Directive give new impetus to an initiative by 61 MEPs to re-start the European Parliament's legislative process on the Directive. The initiative, based on Rule 55 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, also has the support of most of the MEPS who have been fighting software patents for the last three years. They argue that the Council has not sufficiently taken the Parliament's position into account, which amounts in essence to a new draft. The election of a new Parliament in the meantime would alone be sufficient to justify a new first reading, if the Parliament's Conference of Presidents considers it desirable. A new first reading would give the Parliament more rights. They can table amendments covering a wider area of topics. The four-month time limitation in second reading would not apply and votes of Parliament members who are not present would not be counted as being pro-Council, as is the case in second reading. Last but not least, MEPs from the new Member States would get a chance to cast their vote without the limitations implied by the rules on second reading.
FFII: Patents taken off Fishery Agenda at Poland's Request Once More
http://kwiki.ffii.org/Fish050124En
Out-law.com: Poland stalls Patent Directive again
http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=polandstallspatent11066544...
FFII: Lobbying Guide for a re-newed referral to the European Parliament
http://kwiki.ffii.org/RestartGuide0501En
(Contribution by Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU Affairs Director)