Europarl to press ahead quickly with swpat decision, thanks to PSE

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

According to

        
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/oeil/oeil_ViewDNL.ProcedureView?lang=2&procid=5974

the plenary debate and with it probably the vote in the European
Parliament about the proposed software patentability directive as amended
by JURI

        http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0617/

will take place in 10 days

Until yesterday the parliament's presidents had scheduled this for
beginning of september.

Arlene McCarthy (PSE) and with had however pressed for fast
decisionmaking.  Michel Rocard, also from PSE, had cautioned that this was
a highly controversial issue, as reflected in the fact that JURI had
discarded all the amendment proposals for which Rocard's cultural
commission (CULT) had voted in January, taking a completely opposite
approach.

However on this issue the socialists from most countries followed
McCarthy.  Of course we do not know whether they also share McCarthy's
interest in immediately proceding to vote without much debate.

It is clear however that the likelihood of this is not low and that only a
few days remain for submitting counter-proposals.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
145,000 votes 400 firms against software patents     http://noepatents.org/