taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Patents: FFII are reporting that ‘the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) has decided with a large majority to ask the Commission for a renewed referral of the software patents directive. With only two or three votes against and one abstention, the resolution had overwhelming support from the committee, and all-party backing.’

Michel Rocard MEP gave a very strong speech at the meeting with the Commissioner. Apart from noting several “inelegancies” by the Commission, such as not taking into account any of the Parliament’s substantive amendments in its recommendation to the Council, he also took issue with the Dutch and German governments ignoring their respective parliaments, the Irish Presidency’s sponsorship by Microsoft and the attempted ratifications of the political (dis)agreement at several fishery Council meetings.

He mentioned that at a meeting with the Polish government, the industry players confirmed that the Council text allowed pure software patents, and wondered how the Commission could continue claiming the reverse. He was also curious about how the Commission’s perfectly tautological definition of the concept “technical” could help in any way to distinguish between what is patentable and what is not. Despite his own abstention when voting on the restart later that day, the fact that almost everyone else supported it is probably his personal achievement.

The Commissioner made clear that “any agreement will need to strike a fair balance between different interests”, and that “a constructive dialogue between the Council and Parliament will be vital for an agreement”. He does have the option to deny a new first reading. But given the strength of feeling in the Parliament and the concerns of so many member states in the Council, the Parliament request looks like the best way to achieve a clean way forward for this Directive that everyone has been looking for.

This is good news for the anti-swpat side. Nul points for the Irish Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, who ‘had in the morning assured the JURI Committee that the Council would finally adopt its beleaguered Common Position text. He announced that “the Luxembourg Presidency has now received written assurances concerning the re-instatement of this issue as an A point at a forthcoming Council”. Given that A points are to be adopted without discussion, this left no possibilities for renewed negotiations in the Council’.

Tags: abstention, agreement, commission, committee, council, everyone, meeting, parliament, patents, software, way

Patents: The Irish EU Presidency keeps on rolling.

FFII notes that ‘this Wednesday, the Irish Presidency managed to secure a qualified majority for a counter-proposal to the software patents directive, with only a few countries - including Belgium and Germany - showing resistance. (This ‘compromise’ is the most pro-patent text yet,) discarding all the amendments from the European which would limit patentability. Instead the lax language of the original Commission proposal is to be reinstated in its entirety, with direct patentability of program text fragments added as icing on the cake.’

‘The proposal is now scheduled to be confirmed without discussion at a meeting of ministers on 17-18 May, unless one of the Member States changes its vote. In a remarkable sign of unity in times of imminent elections, members of the European Parliament from all groups across the political spectrum are condemning this blatant disrespect for democracy in Europe.’

Some quotes from MEPs about this behaviour:

• Daniel Cohn-Bendit, chairman of the Greens/EFA Group: ‘The national patent officials in the Council do not want “harmonisation” or “clarification”. They merely want to secure the interests of the patent establishment. If they don’t get what they want, they simply bury the directive project and try to find other ways to get around the existing law.’
• Anne Van Lancker, a Belgian MEP of the Socialist group: ‘the current Council proposal was written behind closed doors by patent office administrators.’
• Piia-Noora Kauppi, Finnish MEP of the European People’s Party: ‘the Council is not taking the will of Europe’s elected legislators into account.’
• Pernille Frahm, Danish member and Vice-Chairwoman of the GUE/NGL group: ‘The patent administrators in the Commission and Council are abusing the legislative process of the EU.’
• Bent Hindrup Andersen (MEP, DK, EDD): ‘The approach of the Commission and Council in this directive is shocking. They are making full use of all the possibilities of evading democracy that the current Community Law provides.’
• Johanna Boogerd-Quaak (MEP, NL, ELDR): ‘the Irish Presidency has buckled under the interests of American Companies. A handful of big American Companies may actually profit from software patents, but it is a very bad deal for innovation in European SMEs. Additionally, the Council is showing contempt for parliamentary democracy. We must make sure that after the elections there will again be a majority in the European Parliament that is willing to show its teeth.’

Amazingly, the Council proposal documents aren’t even being released to the public, ‘due to the sensitive nature of the negotiations and the absence of an overriding public interest’; the FFII got hold of them via a leak.

There’s still a chance that this can be reversed; this still needs to be confirmed at the Competitiveness Council of Ministers on 17-18 May. This isn’t a dead cert just yet. As a result, FFII are proposing more demonstrations and another ‘net strike’.

It’s unclear whether writing to anyone will make a difference, at least for people in Ireland, however; everything I’ve read seems to indicate that our representatives on the EU Competitivity Council are not on our side.

Specifically, the only names I can find regarding this Council are Mary Harney, pro-business, anti-regulation right-wing leader of the Progressive Democrats and ‘President-in-Office’ of this committee; and the staff of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment’s Intellectual Property Unit.

(Of course, Harney at least can always be voted out at the next elections, and I’d strongly suggest anyone working in the field bear that in mind if this gets passed!)

Tags: commission, council, directive, group, irish, mep, patent, patentability, patents, presidency, proposal

eVoting: Success! The use of e-voting systems for the June elections in Ireland has been abandoned, after a severely critical report from the Commission on Electronic Voting. Take a look at the report here. Some bits:

• They particularly do not like the continual revision of the software, noting the ‘large number of new versions of the software since the original … review’ and ‘the fact that new versions of the software continue to be issued in the run-up to the June elections’.
• ‘as the software version proposed for use at the forthcoming elections is not as yet finalised, it is impossible for anyone to certify its accuracy’. (my emphasis)
• They were not given access to ‘the full source code’.
• They found a bug! ‘certain of the tests performed at the request of the Commission identified an error in the count software which could lead to incorrect distributions of surpluses’.
• ‘experts retained by the Commission found it very easy to bypass electronic security measures and gain complete control of the hardened PC, overwrite the software, and thereby in theory to gain complete control over the count in a given constituency’.
• And they raised the pre-arranged-transfer-pattern hack: ‘publication of ballot results in full is a valuable aid in checking the accuracy of the results but this can in theory reveal deliberate voter signatures of low-preference votes which could allow voters to identify themselves in a context of corruption or intimidation’.

The use of VVAT, and changes to the counting procedures to remove randomisation, was outside the terms of reference, unfortunately, so it’s not totally over yet. But I can’t see the government getting away with re-introducing e-voting without VVAT now.

Finally, the opposition political parties are calling on the Minister to resign.

I’ve got to say — nice work to all the concerned citizens who’ve achieved this, despite the government’s continual stonewalling and secrecy.

Tags: accuracy, commission, control, count, evoting, june, report, software, theory, use, vvat

FTC to Hold Three Day Public Spam Workshop. ‘The Federal Trade Commission will host a three-day ‘Spam Forum’ Wednesday, April 30 through Friday, May 2, to address the proliferation of unsolicited commercial e-mail and to explore the technical, legal, and financial issues associated with it. The forum will be held at the Federal Trade Commission, 601 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. It will be open to the public and preregistration is not required.

A Federal Register notice to be issued shortly says, ‘To explore the impact that spam has on consumers’ use of e-mail, e-mail marketing and the Internet industry, the Commission will convene a public forum. E-mail marketers, anti-spammers, Internet Service Providers (ISP), ISP abuse department personnel, spam filter operators, other e-mail technology professionals, consumers, consumer groups, and law enforcement officials are especially encouraged to participate.”

Tags: commission, day, federal, forum, ftc, internet, isp, public, spam, trade