Short version - *DRAFT 5 (not final)*

FFII PRESS RELEASE 2004/07/02 (Europe / economy / ICT)

Dutch Parliament urges Minister to retract support of fake compromise

On July 1st, the Dutch Parliament adopted a motion to urge Minister Brinkhorst and Karien van Gennip, Minister for Foreign Trade, to refrain from supporting the Irish presidency's proposal to the Council of the European Union for a Directive regarding "computer-implemented inventions" (software patents).

The discussed proposal would not prevent the European practice from drifting even more towards the US patent regime (European practice is already pretty much the same as in the US) and the inital proposal from the European Commission has been criticised strongly by SMEs, economists and consumer organisations. These points have been taken into account by the European Parliament, but not by the Council.

Brinkhorst mispresented this proposal to the Dutch Parliament as "compromise" with the European Parliament, however this counterproposal not only completely ignores the result of the European Parliament's 1st reading on September 24 2003, but also moves further away from it than the critisised proposal from the European Commission.

In recent debates in the Dutch Parliament, Karien van Gennip had to admit that the Dutch parliament has been misinformed, and had no other excuse than to attribute the incorrectness to "an error in the word processor."

The Dutch Parliament took the same stance as the public holds in the debate over software patents. Dieter Van Uytvanck, spokesman of the FFII Netherlands, stresses the importance of this decision:

Reports of the earlier debates which the text refers to are available at:

• http://kwiki.ffii.org/NlParlDebate0426En
• http://kwiki.ffii.org/NlGovLttrResp0422En

FFII Press Contacts:

Wiebe van der Worp
wiebe@vrijschrift.org
tel. +31 6 28 195 808

Ir. Arend Lammertink
alam@home.nl
tel. +31 6 5425 6426

Dieter Van Uytvanck
dieter@vrijschrift.nl
tel. +32 499 16 70 10

Links:

• slashdot.org: Dutch Parliament Reverses Software Patent Vote
• http://www.pressetext.ch/pte.mc?pte=040702028 (simplifies, it's the parliament, not the government)
• http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040702085542832 (very short main article)
• pcpro.uk: Support for software patents faltering in Europe
• The Inquirer: Dutch Parliament causes EU software patents crisis

Translation of the motion by FFII Netherlands:

The gathered parliament, after hearing the discussion

• noting that there has been reached a political agreement in the Competitiveness Council of the 17th and 18th May 2004 about a proposal for a directive regarding patentability of software,

• noting that the minister of Economic Affairs on behalf of the Netherlands has expressed his support for this proposal,

• noting that the proposal differs on essential points from the text that has been accepted earlier by the European Parliament,

• considering, that the minister of Economic Affairs has informed the Parliament incorrectly about the nature of the scheduled proposal shortly before the Council meeting, and that the parliament was not able due to this to fulfill it's control task,

• considering, that the directive about patentability of software must lead to harmonisation of the rules within the EU in order to prevent excesses with regards to the patentability of software,

• expresses it's opinion that the political agreement as reached during the Competitiveness Council of May 17 and 18 2004 does not give enough garanties to prevent excesses with regards to the patentability of software,

• urges the government to spread this opinion of the Parliament amongst the other member states,

• urges the government to act according to this views at the further handling of the Council's proposal and from now on abstain from giving support to the current Council's proposal.

The following parties supported this motion (with their Numer of seats):

CDA	44	Christian democrats
PvdA	42	social democrats
SP	9	left-wing, GUE/NGL
GL	8	green party
LPF	8	popular party
D66	6	left-wing liberals
CU	3	christian, EDD
SGP	2	christian, EDD

Against (only 1 party, to which Bolkestein belongs):

VVD

28

right wing liberals