Anyway, the answer of the Minister was unsatisfying and therefore the Dutch Commission for Economic Affairs ordered a "spoed-debat" ("emergency debate") on the matter. They wanted to know if an error was made and also if they would be able to revoke the vote of the Minister, should they want to. The debate was held at Thursday May 3d in The Hague, so once again we traveled to the Dutch Parliament. This time, there were about 10 of us.
The debate was very interesting to follow from the public bench, where there were also some representatives from the press, the Secretary for Technology Affairs of VNO/NCW (the main Dutch employers organisation) and a representative of Microsoft (a non-European software company). One important note that can be made is that the Minister was not present, because the Secretary of State, Mrs. Karien van Gennip (Christian Democrates), who was normally responsible for this dossier, had just returned from maternity leave. So, the Secretary of State was the one who had to answer the difficult questions.
Speakers
First, several speakers for the different fractions in the Parliament were allowed to speak and there was also a guest speaker: Mrs. Johanna Boogerd, from the liberal fraction in the European Parliament who knew exactly what was going on.
Mr. Martijn van Dam (PvdA, Dutch Labour) was very well informed and asked about the "compromise" the Minister was talking about in his letter. He noted that the exclusion of "computer programs as such" from patentability did not exclude "computer programs executed by a computer". He also was not amused that crucial amendments by the European Parliament were put aside and demanded that the Minister would revoke his vote.
Mrs. Boogerd and Mrs. Francine Giskes (Democrats) noted something strange in the statements of the Minister. He doesn't want softwarepatents, but complained that the amendments of the Parliament would kill softwarepatents.
Mrs. Arda Gerkens (Socialists), who also spoke on behalf of Mr. Kees Vendrik (Greens), was astonished that the amendments of the European Parliament were simply put aside. She asked some questions about the procedure and what was going to happen. She also informed the Secretary of State of a document she had received, showing there was no legal problem in revoking the Dutch vote.
The Fajardo Lopez report
The document she was referring to was a preliminary report made by several Spanish experts on European procedural law, under the coordination of Dr. Luis Fajardo Lopez. This report had been made on request of the FFII and their preliminary conclusion was "The questions seems to be a political matter, not a legal one. There are legal ways to change the position adopted on May the 18th meeting".
A nice detail to note here was that the Minister and the Ministry of Economic Affairs had only a few days before said the vote of the Minister was "final" and could not be revoked.
Open their heads
Mr. Jos Hessels (Christian Democrats) reminded the Secretary of State about a statement the Minister had made a few days before in a leading Dutch newspaper that he wished he could "open the heads of the members of the Dutch Parliament in order to put some knowledge about the European Union in there". It seemed the Minister could use some extra knowledge himself, too. The Secretary of State admitted the "harsh words apply to ourselves".
Further, Mr. Hessels said he didn't want to know all the details, because it sounded like "abracadabra" to him, but he did feel everybody seemed to agree on the goals that they were trying to reach. Since nobody seemed to have any problems with the version of the European Parliament, he wanted to know what was wrong with it according to the Secretary of State and where the "pain" actually was. In a way, this was a brilliant question to ask, because there's nothing wrong with the version of the European Parliament contrary to the version of the Council.
Mrs. Fadime Orgu (liberals) also asked why the amendments of the European Parliament were removed and stated that it was important to put an end to the current practices of the European Patent Office. Note: the EPO already issued over 30.000 softwarepatents against the letter and the spirit of the current law, of which 75% are in the hands of non-European multinationals. Even staff at the EPO itself admits that "productivity demands mean the standard of European patents is not what it should be".
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 1/4"
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 2/4"
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 3/4"
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 4/4"
