Time to work decide on submission of amendments to the software patent directive proposal is running out. FFII has proposed one set of amendments that stick as closely as possible to the original proposal while debugging and somewhat simplifying it. An alternative small set of amendments would "cut the crap" and rewrite the directive from scratch. We present and explain the two approaches.

• Time and Place
• Participants
• Annotated Links

Wed-Thu 2003/07/01-2 Strasbourg

1 09.00-09.30	entrance	Registration and entry with help of an MEP
1 11.30-12.00	entrance	Registration and entry with help of an MEP
1 14.00-16.00	EP N 2.1 (60 persons)	Public Session: FFII Amendment Proposals: Short presentations of key proposals and discussion
1 18.00-21.00	Maison des Associations	General Assembly of FFII
2 12.00	EP	private meeting in EP

Participants

Laura Creighton:

AB Strakt

Sweden

Alex Macfie:

FFII UK

United Kingdom

Hartmut Pilch:

ffii

Germany

Michael Wasmeier:

ffii

Germany

Holger Blasum:

ffii

Germany

Jürgen Siepmann:

ffii

Germany

Stefan Pollmeier:

ffii

Germany

...:

...

Annotated Links

JURI 2003/04-6 Amendments: Real and Fake Limits on Patentability Members of the European Parliament's Commission on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) submitted amendments to the European Commission's software patent directive proposal. While some MEPs are asking to bring the directive in line with Art 52 EPC so as to clearly restate that programs for computers are not patentable inventions, another group of MEPs is endorsing the EPO's recent practice of unlimited patentability, shrouded in more or less euphemistic wordings. Among the latter, some propose to make programs directly claimable, so as to ensure that software patents are not only granted but achieve maximal blocking effects. This latter group obtained a 2/3 majority, with some exceptions. We document in tabular form what was at stake, what various parties recommended, and what JURI finally voted for on 2003/06/17. EU Software Patent Directive Amendment Proposals The European Commission proposed on 2002-02-20 to consider computer programs as patentable inventions and make it very difficult not to grant a patent on an algorithm or a business method that is claimed with the typical features of a computer program (e.g. computer, i/o, memory etc). We have worked out a counter-proposal that upholds the freedom of computer-aided reasoning, calculating, organising and formulating and the copyright property-based property rights of software authors while supporting the patentability of technical inventions (problem solutions involving forces of nature) according to the differentiations that have been laid down in the European Patent Convention (EPC), the TRIPs treaty and the classical patent law literature. This counter-proposal is receiving support from numerous prominent players in the fields of software, economics, politics and law.