Denmark: SW Patent Directive as B-Item Only on Monday

[Knut Yrvin]

IT-Politisk Forening i Danmark: 

Victory for democratic influence on software patents.

The Danish Parliament (by the EU counsel) has decided to change the
mandate of the government to ensure that on the next meeting in the
EU-council the software patent directive will be discussed as a B-item
instead of passing as an A-item without any discussion.

Other parliaments have passed resolutions opposing the software patent
directive. But Denmark is the first country to call for a B-item and
thereby reopening the discussion. If just The Netherlands, Germany,
Poland, and Spain backs the Danish request, there will not be a
qualified majority in favor of passing the direction without
discussion.

"This is a victory for the democratic process in the European
Union. Both in Denmark and the rest of Europe there have been a
tremendous interest in this issue. IT-Political Association is
ecstatic now that there is a very good chance that the all the
citizens in Europe will have a chance to participate in the discussion
of the directive," Ole Tange, board member in IT-Political Association
says. "We do not view this as a failure for the proponents of the
directive; if their arguments are valid they would still have been
valid after a democratic discussion. Though so far we have not seen
valid arguments."

Niels Elgaard Larsen, Anne Østergaard, and Ole Tange from IT-pol.dk
spoke to the EU counsel as part of a delegation also counting Peter
Ussing from prosa.dk and Peter Mogensen from Digitalforbruger.dk

Kilder: 
http://itpol.dk/bpunkt2005
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050304154900524

- Knut