Marc Verwilghen told the Belgian parliament that a decision on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions has been postponed until 2005, as the qualified majority in favor of the proposed directive no longer exists.
According to a transcript of Verwilghen’s statement, a vote by the EU Competitiveness Council on the proposed changes to EU technology patent laws will not now take place under the current Dutch presidency, which ends on December 31.
Verwilghen said changes to the weighting attributed to country votes means that the proposed directive no longer enjoys a supporting majority, leading to the delay.
Under the vote-weighting system in place when the directive was approved by political agreement in May 2004, there were 89 votes in favor of the directive, more than the required qualified majority of 88. Under weighting that came into place on November 1, there are 216 votes in favor, less than the new qualified majority requirement of 232.
According to anti-software patent campaign group NoSoftwarePatents.com, members of the European Parliament are now considering invoking rule 55 of its Rules of Procedure to restart the entire legislative process due to the change in circumstances.
Due to elections and the EU enlargement, a majority of today’s MEPs did not get to participate in the first reading last year. This would be an exit strategy for the Council and an opportunity for the parliamentarians and the governments of the new member states to fully participate in this from the start, said Florian Mueller, NoSoftwarePatents campaign manager.
The European Parliament has previously attempted to amend the proposed legislation to clarify what is defined as a patentable invention, only for the EU Council to remove the amendments as part of the May political agreement.
Campaigners have argued that without those amendments, the current proposed directive would allow for the widespread patenting of software, an argument that the Polish Government agreed with in November when it rejected the directive following meetings between officials and representatives of Microsoft, Novell, and Sun Microsystems that confirmed the proposed directive makes all software potentially patentable.
Because of numerous ambiguity and contradictions respecting the current directive project, Poland cannot support the text which was accepted in the vote of the Council on 18 May 2004, said the Polish Government in a statement as it changed its vote from abstention to rejection.
Meanwhile, other countries that initially voted for the proposal have had second thoughts. In July the Dutch parliament passed a resolution that its government change the position of the Netherlands from support to abstention, while in October all four groups in the German parliament spoke out against software patents and the proposed legislation.
Belgium had initially abstained from the May 18 informal vote, and Verwilghen confirmed that position this week. Italy and Austria also abstained, while Spain was the only country to immediately reject the directive.
