Re: [Fsfe-uk] McCarthy report withdrawn

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 02:42:49AM +0200, test wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 11:52, Robert (Jamie) Munro wrote:
> > > We need to get this back on the agenda. It is essential for a directive
> > > to go through and prevent any more stupid patents being granted. They
> 
> I think a directive could only be needed to get the case law in line again,
> be this could be better handled by the planned european patent court

The european patent court would be likely to rule based on precident.
(i.e. allow swpats)

The EPO is already handing out swpats.  As time passes, companies
investments in swpats is increasing.  The longer we wait, the more they
will have to lose, the harder they'll fight.

MEPs don't like voting No.  Directives are very expensive, they view
a No vote as a huge waste of resources (it's rare but possible).  They
want to vote Yes, but they want to fix the proposal with amendments.

> Second, on 'sent back for modification' - AFAIk it's not this way.
>
> The 1st reading in the pleary has been delayed again and not more, I think.

As far as I've been told, 1st reading has been delayed until JURI come
up with a better proposal.  The pre-June-17th JURI process will be
repeated.  The last proposal they produced created too much
contraversy, so they have to work on a better proposal. 

> I don't think it's very feasible to still try to influence
> JURI on the directive proposal with the reference COD/2002/0047
> (see 1st URL in this mail for it) because it's not JURI's turn now.
>
> JURI has played it's role until the report A5-0238/2003 was tabled:

>From what I know, it's all back to JURI again, but this does not
exclude non-JURI MEPs from tabling amendment.  A non-JURI Portuguese
MEP has tabled the FFII mini-proposal.  (it was Luis Queir or Jose
Ribeiro Castro)

> > crucial thing now will be to maintain the momentum and keep pushing the
> > boundary back as far towards what it should be as possible.
> 
> I'd say it's essential to convince as many individual MEPs as possible
[...]

BTW, MEPs are being inundated with mail about swpats.  This is good in a
way but we should try to reduce the volume and increase the quality
of our lobbying.  i.e. produce joint, peer-reviewed letters so that
they get a readable amount of mail from us.

> Bernhard

(Mr. Bernhard, do you know your name appears as "test" on this list?)