The Spanish government reaffirms its opposition to software patents This Wednesday there was an interpellation on the Spanish Senate about the software patent directive in which the Spanish State made firm its intention on voting no to any broadening of the patentable field. There is an audio recording[3] (thanks to Bernhard Kaindl who encoded it from the internet video broadcast of the Senate). We also look forward to the transcription on the Chamber session diary[4]. On the interpellation, the senator Jordi Guillot Miravet[5], president of the Information and Knowledge Society Commission of the Senate (Entesa Catalana de Progrès, Iniciativa per Catalunya - Verds), explained the antecedents, congratulated the negative vote of the Spanish delegation on the Council in May, and explained briefly but completely the awful consequences of allowing to patent software and the reasons why they are so. The ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, José Montilla Aguilar[6] (PSC) declared that there was no plan to patent software (and we add that no one recognise the intention, but that does not stop the attempt). He justified the need of a directive because although the laws are coincident not to allow computer programs as inventions, the administrative practices of the different patent offices in Europe and the court decisions vary and it is necessary to harmonize them. Next, he explained the modifications introduced by the Council of May about the proposal of the Irish presidency (giving them perhaps too much credit since they don't bring any effective limit and reflex only the practice of the European Patent Office[1]). Nevertheless, he next explained (that is the important and correct thing to do) that even including the modifications the version of the May agreement[7] is neither clear enough nor offering enough guaranties. He criticised that the text of the Council collects little and weak amendments made by the European Parliament[8], he claimed the most wide social consensus for a so wide change and gave credit to the European Parliament for reflecting it. He quoted free sotware initiatives in Andalucia, Extremadura and Valencia in order to give examples that free software has to be preserved. The minister explained that the Spanish negative vote and the abstentions of Belgium, Austria and Italy does not reach the blocking minority, and that unless an state changes its position the agreement will be formalized and will pass to second reading in the European Parliament. He also said that it was possible that some state communicates officially to COREPER[2] a change in position and that in this case the agreement would return to the Council working group. He did not comment, however, perhaps because of the lack of official communication to COREPER, yet, neither that the Polish government (who abstained in May but it was counted as a yes, and with the new rules of the Nice Treaty[10] it has now enough votes to bloc the decision (27+27+29+12+10>90)) announced the decision that they cannot accept the May agreement[9], neither that the Dutch parliament[11] and all politic groups in Germany[12] asked for the change of their states vote (which voted "yes"). In any case (either it is blocked on the Council either it passes to second lecture to the European Parliament), the minister Montilla made firm the Spanish government compromise of trying to avoid that the directive broadens the field of patentable innovations to things currently off it (and, consequently, he made firm the Spanish opposition to software patents). Minister and senator agreed (and the rest of groups on the senate did not make use of their statutory reply turn, so perhaps we could suppose they agree by assent) on: - the current law does not allow to patent software. Computer programs are covered by copyright. - the problems we face now started with the divergent practices of Patent Offices and the jurisprudence under uniform laws. - the European Parliament succeeded in many amendments in order to restrict the patentability to technical inventions, and excluding software from patents. - the text approved by the Council does not offer enough guaranties in order to avoid software patents. The Spanish delegation acted well opposing it and has to continue to do so until it incorporates the European Parliament opinion. - software patents are harmful to the software business and information society, it is necessary to heed the concerns expressed by a wide sector of civil society. The position is in line with last week declarations by Oriol Ferran[13] from the Secretary of Telecommunications and Information Society of the Department of Universities, Research and Information Society of the Catalan government. Caliu celebrates these positions, congratulates the initiative and argumentation of senator Guillot and joins him in asking the Spanish government to intensify the work in order to increase consensus between the European partners against software patents. We would have wanted to hear the concrete criteria that Spanish government will require (definition of "technique" as a controlled use of nature forces, freedom of publication, etc.) but perhaps it would have been very long. It'd've been also exciting to hear that the Spanish government will ask to vote again the directive on the Council before adopting the common position in this first reading, but he neither rejected this possibility (maybe waiting for the official announcement of what was already announced on the press). It would be an action with little precedent, but completely justified by the seriousness of the consequences of the directive[15], the hardly orthodox voting in May[14] and the lack of qualified majority nowadays[10]. Nevertheless, the Spanish government has taken the most coherent position among the EU governments in favour of computer progress, competitivity of our economy, Information Society and freedom of developers and users. We congratulate it and wish it great success and energy on the future handling of the directive. Xavi Drudis Ferran xdrudis@tinet.org Campaign against software patents of Caliu Association of users of gnu/linux en Catalan language Caliu http://patents.caliu.info References [1] Note of Caliu about the modifications on the Council of May http://patents.caliu.info/nota20040518.html [2] COREPER = COmitee of PERmanent REpresentatives , an organ of the Council formed by diplomat functionaries of the states working permanently in Brussels in order to prepare the agreements that governments vote on the meetings of the Council of Ministers. Look at http://patents.caliu.info/codecisio.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COREPER http://www.msa.lt/doc/council_guides_vol_2.pdf [3] audio of the interpellation on the Senate http://www.ffii.org/~bkaindl/Media/Spain/S000040_023_01_029.ogg [4] Senate sessions minutes http://www.senado.es/legis8/plenos/index.html [5] senator Jordi Guillot Miravet http://www.senado.es/legis8/senadores/166_index.html [6] minister José Montilla Aguilar http://www.min.es/grupos/grupo_ministro.htm [7] version of the council of May 18 of the directive http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/04/st09/st09713.en04.pdf [8] version of the directive by the European Parliament http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/pv2?PRG=DOCPV&APP=PV2&DATE=240903&DATEF=030924&TPV=PROV&TYPEF=TITRE&POS=1&SDOCTA=2&TXTLST=2&Type_Doc=ANNEX&PrgPrev=PRG@TITRE|APP@PV2|TYPEF@TITRE|YEAR@03|Find@*inventions|FILE@BIBLIO03|PLAGE@1&LANGUE=EN [9] announce of the Poland opposition http://kwiki.ffii.org/PolandDoesNotSupportCouncilVersionEn http://kwiki.ffii.org/Poland041105En http://kwiki.ffii.org/Poland041104En [10] change of votes on the Council http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=97 (press release) http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/docs/041101qm.pdf (overview and analysis) Juridical report explaining that the agreement in May is not definitive and can be corrected before it is adopted officially http://fajardolopez.com/?opcionsuperior=Informaciones&opcion=index [11] change of position in Netherlands http://kwiki.ffii.org/?NlVote040701En http://kwiki.ffii.org/?SwpatnlEn [12] change of position in Germany http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39170869,00.htm [13] declarations made by Oriol Ferran last week http://www.lafarga.org/node/view/195 [14] On the voting in May, Poland abstained and it was counted as a "yes", a yes was extracted from Denmark in a ridiculous dialog with the presidency, the commissary Bolkestein presented insignificant changes as if it had any effects about what was allowed to patent and several states voted against what they had declared previously to the public opinion. Particularly, the Dutch parliament accused its government of misinformation and the government claimed problems with the text processor, and the Hungarian government excused with a fax machine that wasn't working properly. http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/cons0406/repr/index.en.html [15] General information about software patents http://patents.caliu.info http://swpat.ffii.org http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com http://www.researchoninnovation.org http://www.ffii.org.uk/ http://proinnova.hispalinux.es/ http://www.eurolinux.org