The Professional Contractors Group (PCG) has welcomed the European
Parliament�s rejection of the directive on computer-implemented
inventions, which would have made software patentable.
Representing thousands of IT freelancers in the UK, PCG now calls on
the UK presidency to withdraw the directive completely and on the
Commission to refrain from producing a new and unnecessary patenting
proposal.
PCG chairman Simon Juden said, �Independent software developers have
been granted a last-minute reprieve: without this vote, the basic tools
of their trade would now be owned and controlled by big companies.�
PCG is concerned, however, that a good decision has been reached for
the wrong reasons. �This rejection is for many complex reasons to do
with Europe�s difficulties after the recent referenda and the European
Parliament�s perceived need to assert itself. Without these
considerations, a bad directive would almost certainly have become
law,� Dr Juden added.
�Lobbying by large companies, and campaigning bodies funded by them,
attempted to confuse MEPs about the issue,� he continued.� It is
worrying for European democracy that, without the recent crisis, they
would have succeeded. The proponents of the directive claimed that they
represented the whole IT sector, including SMEs; that software patents
were prevented by the directive; and that software patents were
essential for SMEs and indeed the competitiveness of the whole EU.
These companies were serving their own interests, not Europe�s, and
would have used patents to exclude their smaller competitors from the
market, reducing the pace of innovation and inflating the price of
software in the process.�
PCG has been the only UK trade organisation to lobby actively
against software patents. PCG believes that software should not be
patentable in principle, that patents would exclude small businesses
from the market and that all businesses would have been disadvantaged
as the price of software would inevitably have risen as a result of
this monopolistic and deeply anti-competitive measure. Under the Lisbon
Strategy, the EU wants to become the most competitive knowledge-based
economy in the world: by excluding SMEs from developing software, the
essential infrastructure of the knowledge economy, it would have dealt
this goal a fatal blow. Today�s vote has avoided these disastrous
consequences.
PCG regrets that the EP�s first reading has not become law. Dr Juden
said, �It would have provided an excellent framework for hi-tech
patenting while keeping software outside the scope of patents. The next
step for patenting in the EU is not clear, but we feel that an
all-encompassing EU patent system which could be extended to software
has the potential to be every bit as dangerous as the directive that
has just been rejected. We will continue to monitor this issue closely.�
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