Scrap patent law at your peril, warns Microsoft chief

By Anna Mclauchlin

Date: 03/02/05

Europe's software makers would be the biggest losers if the European Commission withdrew the EU directive on the patentability of computer-related inventions, Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates told MEPs at a Brussels meeting on Tuesday (1 February).

If anything, he said, failure to adopt the new law would line his pockets because Microsoft would face less competition from its European rivals like Nokia and SAP who are arguably stronger in their individual specialities.

And it would probably mean less investment by Microsoft in its three European research centres because of the legal uncertainty associated with new software. But Europe's businesses would be hard hit because they would not be able to protect their inventions, he said.

Simon Gentry from the Campaign for Creativity backed Gates' view. "Smaller companies will also be exposed because if they put something on the market there is nothing to stop bigger firms stealing it for free," he said.

But Gates also joked that the best way for Microsoft to scupper the law would be to support it. One MEP present at the meeting expressed scepticism about his attitude. "He said that it doesn't really affect Microsoft, but if you look at all the patent applications across Europe most of them are from Microsoft."

The directive is currently stuck in the EU legislative process as policymakers wrangle over whether allowing software producers to patent their inventions would harm smaller innovators.

Poland has already twice stymied the approval of the Council of Ministers' common position agreed in May 2004 on the grounds that it wants to protect its small businesses.

l Late last night (2 February) MEPs voted to ask their President, Josep Borrell, to make a request to the European Commission to return the directive to first reading.

MEPs in the legal affairs committee voted 19 for and one against the motion, with one abstention. The motion will now be addressed in writing to Borrell, who is not obliged to take up the committee's request.

The Parliament's rapporteur for the directive, French Socialist Michel Rocard, abstained from the vote because, he said, it was not the proper procedure to follow. "It is the substance of the Parliament's view that matters," he said, "and the Parliament will hold fast to its position, be it in first or second reading."

At a Brussels meeting on 1 February 2005 Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, warned against a failure to adopt the new EU directive on the patentability of computer-related inventions. On 2 February MEPs in the Legal Affairs Committee voted to ask their President, Josep Borrell, to make a request to the European Commission to return the directive to first reading. The directive has stalled in the legislative process after Poland blocked its adoption twice in the Council on the grounds that it wants to protect its small businesses.

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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