EU Member States

Through the EU Council, the member states of the EU influence the legislative process on a software patent directive.

The country that has so far pushed hardest for software patents is Ireland. During the Irish presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2004, the EU Council reached a "political agreement" on a software patent directive, under circumstances that were questionable. Ireland is a tax haven for the European subsidiaries of large U.S. corporations, such as Microsoft. Those American companies only have to pay very low tax rates (such as 10%) by establishing their European subsidiary in Ireland. The Irish economy is heavily dependent upon such companies, and it is a publicized fact that Microsoft was a sponsor of the Irish EU presidency.

Ireland's low tax rates for software companies are already a problem for the rest of Europe. Those countries in which the respective companies make most of their money get hardly any taxes. The way it works is that those companies declare their subsidiaries in other countries only as local marketing agencies. They only pay little more to those subsidiaries, for their "services", than they spend. The products themselves are shipped out of Ireland where the profits are consequently made. By additionally trying to put Europe under a software patent regime, Ireland pursues its short-term goals against the interests of the rest of Europe. That is selfish and shortsighted (because even Ireland should be interested in a competitive and innovative software industry). The problem is that many other countries don't understand it.

The influence of large corporations on the governments of various EU member states is generally very strong. In some countries, the government's stance on software patents is simply defined by a few large corporations. Finland and Sweden are such examples. There is also a tendency in France to pay more attention to the interests of large corporations than to small and medium-sized enterprises.

The software patent debate is particularly intense in Germany. In that country, the interests of large corporations like Siemens and Bosch collide with a strong "Mittelstand" (the German term for SMEs), a vibrant open-source community, and public administrations that have adopted open-source software on a large scale. The European Patent Office is also headquartered in Germany. The announcement by the city administration of Munich to temporarily freeze its Linux migration project has further intensified the software patent debate in Germany. The German government recommends to public administrations throughout the country to migrate to open source ("the sooner, the better"), yet it bears a lot of the responsibility for the political agreement on software patents that the EU Council announced on 18 May 2004.

Spain took the strongest position against software patents on 18 May 2004. While some more countries abstained and thereby didn't support the patentability of software in the EU Council, Spain sent out an even clearer message by being the only country that voted "No" to software patents.

Generally speaking, the situation is still very much in flux. There is hope that more and more countries will side with those that understand the negative implications of software patents to Europe. The best way for you to stay abreast of those political developments is to visit this website from time to time, and let us particularly recommend that you take a look at the discussion forums here. That's where you'll find the latest information. Also, the website of the FFII has a reputation for always having up-to-date news related to software patents.

Click here to read about the role of various political parties in the legislative process