Press release: Victory for democratic influence on software patents

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

DENMARK will ask for software patents directive to become B-item in European Council of Ministers
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Press release:


Victory for democratic influence on software patents.

The Danish Parliament (by the EU Committee) has decided to change the
mandate of the Danish 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 directive 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 Committee in Folketinget.dk as part of a delegation also
counting Peter Ussing from PROSA.dk and Peter Mogensen from
Digitalforbruger.dk

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Best

Anne Østergaard

IT-Politisk Forening

(00 45 35 42 88 73)
-- 
Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>