Computer patent law lives again despite Polish re-think

By Anna McLauchlin and David Cronin

Date: 10/02/05

A fresh attempt to adopt the controversial EU law on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions will be made this month.

The proposed law has been put back on the agenda of the Council of Ministers after Poland submitted a declaration explaining its reservations about the text. Warsaw has twice delayed adoption of a common position, claiming that it needed more time to study the proposal.

A Polish diplomat said that the declaration refers to the country's concerns about the implications of the proposal on small and medium-sized firms. "It will be difficult for them if this directive comes into force in its current form," he explained. "We would like to change the text but we have also underlined our will to find a compromise."

Now that the declaration has been received, no obstacle to ministers formally backing the draft remains. The Council reached a political agreement on the proposal in May last year and the adoption of a common position would normally follow as a formality.

The proposal is on the agenda of the finance ministers' Council on 17 February, but may yet be moved since on the same day the European Parliament is scheduled to ask the Commission to send the legislation back for a first reading, effectively re-starting discussion of the text.

An EU official said: "The Council does not want to go into a fight with Parliament over it, so it is just possible that we will postpone the vote, to allow the Parliament's conference of presidents to express themselves on this."

European Commission sources said that the EU executive had no intention of restarting the legislative procedure. So if the Council delayed its vote it would be "a courtesy gesture to the Parliament" not to adopt the common position before it had made its request to the Commission. A Council source said that if another reading were to take place, the draft directive would no longer have the necessary support.

"If this directive comes back to the Council, we know there would be a blocking minority and it would not pass in the form it is now because the Poles changed their mind and because there are other states that have doubts," he said. Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia and the Netherlands are said to have doubts about the Council's draft. And on Tuesday (8 February), the Spanish Senate asked the government to continue to vote against the proposal.

Article reports on a fresh attempt to adopt the controversial EU law on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in February 2005. The proposed law was put back on the agenda of the Council of Ministers after Poland submitted a declaration explaining its reservations about the text. Warsaw had twice delayed adoption of a common position, claiming that it needed more time to study the proposal.

• Primary Source

European Commission: DG Internal Market: Industrial Property: Patentability of computer-implemented inventions http://ec.europa.eu/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/comp/

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