● 12.11.12

●● The Nightmare Before Christmas: Unitary Patent Reportedly Approved

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:48 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Battle against European interests takes a “unitary” costume

The Battle of Trafalgar

Summary: Early reports suggest that the back door for software patents in Europe gets past another hurdle

ONE particular Web site says that “[the European p]arliament approves EU unitary patent rules,” but we are not sure just how irreversible that is. To quote the news site in question:

In three separate voting sessions, MEPs approved the so-called “EU patent package” (unitary patent, language regime and unified patent court).

Here is a less definite claim. As as reminder, this impacts software patents in Europe, so it is a very important matter which deserves more media attention. Those in charge are snubbing opposition, which only discredits any decision that is made.

We tried to find some clarifications in Twitter, but so far we have found none. A lot of MEPs are completely misguided and easily deceived/bamboozled by the propaganda.

MEP Chris Davies wrote that “MEPs just voted to introduce a common EU patent law, with translations into just 3 languages. Cuts costs hugely. Big boost for innovators.’

The FSFE’s Karsten Gerloff writes: “MEP Lichtenberger: Current proposal won’t create a European patent”

And also: “Lichtenberger: EPO often goes up to and beyond limits of patentable subject matter on life, software, other matters ”

Glyn Moody commented on one of Gerloff’s tweets: “MT @kgerloff MEP Karim: We need more patents on everything to compete w/ China, US #swpat >>show us the evidence, then”

One can see how deluded those people are. Monopolies have an adverse effect.

Maël Brunet writes: “Gallo credits nonsense on supposed correlation between innovation and number of patents filed”

The FFII’s mailing lists have had a bunch of posts today. One message from Elver says that today’s press release on the unitary-patent.eu website (by April) claims: “A possible recourse by a Member State before the ECJ could finally sack the entire text for its illegality: the opinion of the Advocate general alludes to the result of such action is far from being certain.”

The question is: “What is meant by this? Does it mean that if a member state asks the ECJ’s opinion, the ECJ could sack the whole thing? Or what’s going on here?”

“The fundamental problem is that this process is not open to any citizen,” says another poster.

Another FFII subscriber says: “Can you point me to the relevant part of the TFEU and how such a request would be made? Does it involve the parliament? And what would be some problem areas that should be looked at? We have some friends at the Ministry of Justice as well as the parliament, so if this is something the parliament can request as part of the ratification process (assuming there is a ratification process), then I think there’s a good chance we can get it done here in Estonia.”

Benjamin Henrion, the FFII’s president, says that “[a]ny Member State can do it. So a vote in a National Parliament would be a start.” MEPs tend to override local sovereignty, so no wonder hostile policies can be passed, clearly against the interests of citizens. █

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Permalink  Send this to a friend

----------

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.