European liberals undecided: UK action needed

[James Heald <j.heald@ucl.ac.uk>]

Ward Vandewege wrote:
> 
> On the contrary, the 'liberal' party that is supposed to particularly defend
> the interests of companies (and certainly SME's which make up a large part 
> of
> the corporate landscape in Flanders), has issued this statement by way of 
> the
> assistant of Willy De Clercq (member of the JURI subcommittee):
> 
>   http://openstandaarden.be/maillists/openstandaarden/3255.html
> 
> In a nutshell it says 'Mr. De Clercq is pro sw-pats, because he is in favour
> of a strong protection of intellectual property, out of principle'. The 
> short
> statement does not give me the impression that Mr. De Clercq fully
> understands all the issues at stake here - or maybe he doesn't care.


One line of De Clercq's letter that is particularly interesting from a
UK perspective is:

> De positiebepaling van de gehele liberale fractie in het Europees Parlement 
> zal > volgende week worden bekend gemaakt na de
> stemming van deze richtlijn in de juridische commissie op 21 mei 2003. 

translation (more or less): 

"The position of the Liberal bloc as a whole in the European Parliament
will be made known next week after the result of the vote in the JURI
committee on the 21st May".

The biggest national fraction in the European liberal group ELDR are the
UK Lib Dems, so this makes it even more urgent for those of us in the UK
to lobby the Lib Dems *now*.


Lib Dem MEPs are obviously worth contacting; so also is Richard Allan MP
(allanr at parliament.uk), who speaks for the Lib Dems on Information
Technology in the UK Parliament.  It is thought that his views are
probably close to those of Elly Plooij who wrote the ITRE opinion.


Further Information:

The issue was discussed in a debate at the recent party conference in
Torquay, which passed a resolution including the words:

"Conference in particular welcomes the Paper’s proposals to:
...
2. Reconcile the interests of the digital producer and the digital
consumer while maintaining a commitment to a well-regulated free market
by:
...
b) Supporting continued widespread innovation by resisting the wider
application of patents in this area".

(http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.agenda/section.conference/body.371)


The underlying policy document "Making IT work" expands on this (section
2.2, especially 2.2.6, page 8):

"But ... there are circumstances when protection systems [for
intellectual property] can have the contrary effect of stifling
creativity against the public interest.  We are especially concerned
about the use of patents in the area of computer software in this
respect.

"There are usually many ways to achieve the same objective using
computer 
code. The public benefits from the fact that different teams of 
programmers will work on solving problems and release their separate 
solutions as competitors in the market. The specific code each team has 
written is protected by copyright. Allowing a wide definition of 
inventiveness for patents in the field of software could lead to a 
reduction in this creative activity. This might be justifiable if there 
were evidence that the software industry as a whole were suffering 
because of an inability to secure revenue for research and development 
but there is no evidence that this is the case as the sector remains 
vibrant and growing."
 
(http://www.libdems.org.uk/documents/policies/Policy_Papers/MakingITWork.pdf)


In the light of this, Lib Dems should be urged to back the general
caution about software patents shown by the ITRE committee rather than
the enthusiasm of Arlene McCarthy.

This Wednesday at JURI they should be urged to support the ITRE
amendments, especially Am 11 (Itre) and Am 13 (Itre) defining the
non-patentability of computer programs as such, and the very important
Am 15 (Itre) on interoperability. 

They should also be recommended the closely compatible amendments of Am
11 (Cult) and Am 46 of Echerer et al.


Text of amendments:

Patentability:

    "Member states shall ensure that data processing is not considered
to be a field of technology in the sense of patent law, and that
innovations in the field of data processing are not inventions in the
sense of patent law, regardless of whether they are executed in the
human mind or by means of technical devices" [Am 46, Echerer et al]

    "The use of natural forces to control physical effects beyond the
digital representation of information belongs to a technical field. The
processing, handling and presentation of information do not belong to a
technical field."  [Am 11 (Cult)] 

    "... Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which
implement business, mathematical or other methods, which inventions do
not produce any technical effects beyond the manipulation and
representation of information within the computer-system or network,
shall not be patentable." [Am 11 (Itre)] 

    "Member states shall ensure that the production, handling,
processing, distribution and publication of information, in whatever
form, can never constitute direct or indirect infringement of a patent,
even when technical apparatus is used for that purpose." [Am 13 (Itre)] 


Interoperability:

    "Member States shall ensure that whenever the use of a patented
technique is needed for the sole purpose of ensuring conversion of the
conventions used in two different computer systems or network so as to
allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use
is not considered to be a patent infringement".  [Am 15 (Itre)]