Softwarepatenten.be

De Nederlandse delegatie (o.l.v. minister Brinkhorst) deed vandaag een markante uitspraak op de openbare zitting van de Raad:

So I try to weigh up the pros and cons of this. I know that there is a potential for a problem, but at the end of the day we have decided we are in favour of the directive.

Op zijn minst merkwaardig: men ziet nu al problemen, maar aanvaardt toch de tekst. De duizenden bezorgde mensen die minister Brinkhorst en staatssecretaris van Gennip mailden worden gewoon terzijde geschoven.

De volledige tekst van de Nederlandse delegatie (zie ook bijhorende video-opname):

President, we support the proposal for a directive. The innovative climate is very important in Europe and it is important to be able to protect people against imitations. So harmonisation of legalisation is therefore very important here. Now the proposed directive classifies legal practice and latches on to world-wide conventions on intellectual property. So we feel that these patents must be available for all areas of technology.

Now I'm sure all of us, president, have received faxes from small software companies encouraging us to vote against. However, my view is that the directive does actually take account of the position of small software producers and the open source process through monitoring and the evaluation process included in the directive should be enough to upset any potentially deleterious side-effects of the regulation, of the directive, so that necessary measures can be taken.

So I try to weigh up the pros and cons of this. I know that there is a potential for a problem, but at the end of the day we have decided we are in favour of the directive.

Bron: audio-opnames van de openbare zitting door FFII. (V002, 26:50 e.v.)