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Netherlands and Software Patents

In 2001 the Dutch Parliament formed a workgroup with major representatives from the software business world, including FENIT.nl and VOSN.nl, which worked out a set of recommendations for preventing software patents and won the support of the Dutch Parliament. However the "patent policy experts" in the dutch Ministry of Economics ignored this paper and pushed for unlimited patentability in the Council. In the European Parliament, the Dutch right-wing liberal party of Frits Bolkestein was one of the driving forces of unlimited patentability but did not prevail.

(VOSN en Software Patenten : De VOSN maakt zich grote zorgen over de plannen om in Europa patenten op software toe te staan. Patenten (ook wel octrooien genoemd) op software hebben in de USA reeds een vernietigend effect op de IT sector, met name het MKB, en gebruikers en makers van open source software behoren tot de eersten die hier last van zouden krijgen)
Frits Bolkestein and Software Patents: Internal Market Commissioner of the European Commission since 2000, leader of dutch right-wing liberal party VVD, known mainly by interventions in favor of the world's second largest pharmaceutical company, of whose supervisory board he is a member, and by various policies in favor of big business. Ever since he took office, Bolkestein firmly committed himself to the agenda for legalisation of software patents in Europe and pushed this agenda through an unwilling European Commission. Bolkestein saw himself forced to pay lipservice to the goals of his opponents and sell his directive as a means to achieve those goals. When it became apparent that this strategy did not work, Bolkestein threatened the Parliament with removal of its competence of decision. The Parliament was neither deceived nor intimidated. A month later, Bolkestein's directorate lobbied the national ministers to ignore the Parliament's will and drive the directive project against the wall. When asked for justification, officials of the directorate often point to "the Commissioner" who allegedly is insisting on this.