European Parlament urges Free Software support

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Brussels, 6 July 2006 - The European Parliament urges the Commission support a Free Software agenda in the Lisbon program. A motion from the industry committee (ITRE) under rapporteur Pilar del Castillo Vera was approved yesterday. The report addresses also the future of European patent policy. One year earlier the European Parliament finally rejected the European Software Patents directive which was strongly opposed by members of the free software community.

Key points from the resolution

17. Urges Member States to create an innovation-friendly market for citizens and businesses, ensuring better regulation, standards, public procurement and intellectual property rights; urges the Commission to provide information on the protection of the intellectual property rights;

18. Takes note of the Commissions' view that the EU must acquire a cost-effective, legally watertight and user-friendly system of intellectual property protection so as to attract technologically advanced companies; considers that the protection of intellectual property must not interfere with open access to public goods and public knowledge; urges the Commission to promote a socially inclusive knowledge-based society by supporting, for example, free and open source software and licensing concepts like the General Public License (GPL) and the Public Documentation Licence (PDL);

24. Notes the need for a Community patent and trademark, and for improved reciprocity between the European, United States' and Japanese patent systems; stresses that an integrated Community patent system based on democratic legal standards must be part of an innovation strategy, in which it is essential to ensure a balance between protection of industrial property, dissemination of technical knowledge and free and unrestricted competition; underlines that the purpose of the protection provided by a patent is the safeguarding of an invention and not the controlling of market sectors;

25. Asks the Council to end the stalemate over the proposed Community patent as far as the language regime is concerned;

Parliament resolution

• More research and innovation - investing for growth and employment (A6-0204/2006 - Rapporteur: Pilar del Castillo Vera) Committee on Industry, Research and Energy European Parliament resolution on implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: more research and innovation - investing for growth and employment: A common approach (2006/2005(INI))

Source: P6_TA-PROV(2006)0301

Analysis

• This is the first time that our European Parliament urges support for Free and Open Software. In the opinion of Parliament FOSS is a desiderate of "a socially inclusive knowledge-based society". The dominant voice of free software advocates often means that FFII is observed as a Free software lobby group or that the question is raised "Free software or software patents?". For an interpreter of Europarl diction a support for Free Software here also implies a critical view of software patenting.

• A phrase like "cost-effective, legally watertight and user-friendly system of intellectual property protection" raises current major concerns of our current patent pratice. Patents in particular bear high transaction and welfare costs for market players, and EPO deliberate case law interpretation of the European Patent Convention led to legal insecurity. This is esp. true in the field of software patents. The FFII put forward 10 Core Clarifications targeted to stop abusive EPO interpretation and to solve the software patents problem.

• EPO criticism can also be found in the call for "an integrated Community patent system based on democratic legal standards". The EU additionally provides a competition policy framework which conflicts with patent law objectives (Patents = protection against to much competition). The resolution addresses how the patent system could get balanced with other policy objectives such as fair competition: an 'integrated approach' which the EPO/EPC cannot offer. As the EU bodies represent a higher level of democratic standards, the resolution claims control over patent policy and thus rejects the current de facto self-governance of the European patent system.

• The resolution backs the Community patent effort. This has to be seen in the lights of the intense lobbying of patent institutions and patent professionals for the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) as an alternative. The EPLA would disminish parliament control over European patent policy and create EPO-controlled administrative courts and install a new language regime. See our EPLA analyis

• The European Parliament also addresses 'member states' i.e. Council. Efforts from the European Parliament like its amendments to the software patents directive faced strong institutional resistance from the council last year. Improvements are requested in the field of "regulation, standards, public procurement and intellectual property rights;" for the sake of an innovation-friendly market for both citizens and businesses.
• The European Parliament wants trilateral patent harmonisation which takes into account competition law objectives. As SPLT discussions are stalled at WIPO, trilateral talks go on behind the scenes. Japanese and US patent law is very much different from European patent law. So harmonisation is a longterm process which would hopefully lead to changes in the USPTO software and business method pratice which is under discussion in the US. In mid term the current state of the US patent system will cause the US to move closer to European regulation (first to file, no grace period etc.)