EU Parliament votes today on new IP laws
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Will downloaders go to jail? The European Parliament's committee for legal affairs meets today to vote on proposals for criminal penalties to be imposed on those who infringe intellectual property (IP) rights.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - With the support of German lawmakers, incumbent telecommunications operator Deutsche TelekomÂ is racing into a head-on clash with the European Commission over a decision to keep rival operators off its new high-speed broadband network. The upper house of the German parliament approved a revised telecommunications law on Friday. The law will allow partially state-owned Deutsche Telekom to ban competitors from using its VDSL (Very high bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line) network to sell services. The decision flies in the face of Commission legislation that mandates member states to force telecommunications companies with dominant positions -- in most cases former state-owned monopolies -- into opening their network infrastructure to rival operators on favorable terms. While Deutsche Telekom eventually opened its local-loop infrastructure under pressure from Brussels, the operator has fought attempts to allow competition on its new network. It argues that the VDSL network represents a new market for combined triple-play telephony, high-speed Internet and TV services, and new markets are protected under European Union law; in addition, it needs to protect its â¬3 billion ($3.9 billion) investment in the super high-speed network. German lawmakers have become slightly sympathetic to Deutsche Telekom, which has been bleeding fixed-line customers by the millions and consequentlyÂ forced to lower operating costs, largely through job cuts. Since its privatization, the operator has reduced its workforce from more than 250,000 at the peak to around 180,000 today. Over the years, Deutsche Telekom and the German government have clashed with Brussels on issues including the divestment of the operator's cable TV network and local-loop unbundling. In repeated warnings over the past several months, the Commission has said it will take whatever action is necessary to make Germany observe E.U. law. The issue could land in the European Court of Justice, which is responsible for handling E.U. treaty infringements. Court decisions can take years, however. Rival fixed-line operators, including ArcorÂ & Co., which is owned by the Vodafone Group, have made it clear they don't want the former monopoly telephone operator to be given any advantages to dominate another market as it has with the market for telephone service.
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(InfoWorld) - Political naivety and national protectionism were blamed for quashing the latest attempt to forge a single patent regime for the European Union, according to members of Europe's business community.On Monday, national governments shelved a compromise solution tabled by the European Commission that would have allowed the creation of a single patent court. The decision sparked an angry response from the European Commission, the Union's executive body, as well as from trade groups including UNICE, which represents Europe's biggest firms."It is unacceptable for the E.U. to be lagging behind its competitors in the patents field," said Jerome Chauvin, UNICE's head of legal affairs in a telephone interview. "It's frustrating to see the member states of the E.U. putting the same excuses on the table each time."There have been numerous attempts to break the political deadlock in the debate on Europe's patent regime over the past 30 years. This time around the frustration is deeper because innovation and competitiveness are now supposed to be top political priorities, and no one disagrees that fixing the patent system is essential for improving Europe's ability to compete.As Europe continues to squabble over what languages a single European patent should be translated into, and whether or not a pan-European patent court would be better or worse than the 25 national patent courts in the member states, China is plowing massive investment into research and development and will this year outspend Japan, the world's second biggest investor in R&D, according to a report released this week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)."In Europe politics is at odds with economic reality," said Francisco Mingorance, a European affairs expert with the trade group, the Business Software Alliance."All the indicators show that the E.U. could be made a better place if it solved the problem with its patent regime. The problem is that the message doesn't appear to register with entrenched politicians," he added.France and Spain were the main opponents of the Commission's plan to make the Union a signatory to the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), a plan by the European Patent Office (EPO) to create one patent court to handle all patent litigation in the 31 member countries of the EPO.The French government opposes the move because the EPLA would be outside of E.U. jurisdiction and would therefore pose constitutional problems. It wants the E.U. to stick to its more ambitious, and difficult, aim of creating a single patent for all countries in the E.U..In September it came up with an alternative to the EPLA plan that involved creating a single patent court under E.U. law, thus avoiding signing up to a non-E.U. agreement.Other countries including Spain supported the French objection for differing reasons, including claims that the existing, fragmented system is cheaper for their local companies that mostly operate inside their home country.Finland, currently holder of the six-month rotating presidency of the E.U., has been criticized for pushing for an agreement before preparing member states. "This time 'round the mess was made by the Finnish presidency," Mingorance said.In their eagerness to claim credit for pushing the patents debate forward, the Finnish government "caught the Commission off guard and it failed to prepare other countries for the debate. They seem to have upset everybody," he added.Consequently on Monday, each national government turned up at the meeting in Brussels with their original fixed positions regarding patents still in place. "The Finns didn't expect France and Spain to object. You could call it political naivety," Mingorance said.Charlie McCreevy, the commissioner who has spent most of this year trying to break the patent deadlock, described the decision taken on Monday by government ministers as a setback, and France's alternative solution to patent litigation as ill-timed."The French proposal came in September. I'm not knocking new ideas and this one's interesting, but it's a pity I didn't hear about it before I started the consultation," he said in an interview Thursday at an intellectual property conference.A year ago McCreevy said he would make one final effort to solve the problem of the E.U.'s fragmented patent regime, launching a consultation with industry, academia and the legal profession. The consultation ended in July with a hearing in Brussels at which the idea of signing up to the EPLA agreement was debated thoroughly.The commissioner said that after the meeting of national government ministers on Monday he is "pessimistic" of making any meaningful progress in reforming the E.U.'s patent regime."I'm pessimistic because this EPLA idea was a genuine piece of lateral thinking to move the situation forward. I won't continue beating my head against a stone wall because it's not good for my head," he said.During his speech to roughly 500 lawyers and businessmen and women, he urged companies to lobby their national governments, to try to persuade them to compromise their long-standing entrenched positions regarding patents in Europe.He held out a small hope of moving forward in the first half of next year, when Germany takes over leadership of the E.U. "We'll revisit this under the German presidency and give people time to think," he said.
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European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy set out his plan for a single approach to patents across the European Union on Thursday, ahead of an Oct. 12 vote on the matter in the European Parliament, winning plaudits from some erstwhile opponents.
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The European Parliament is to vote on legislation to control the use of toxic chemicals in industry.
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The EU agrees on new rules for TV and on-demand internet video, allowing more advertising.
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Caring, sharing police databases The European Parliament has fashioned a wreath of caveats it hopes will brighten up legislative measures designed to raise biometric borders and erect a network of biometric controls for police across the continent.â¦
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The European Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a ban on trade in products containing cat or dog fur following calls to outlaw a practice many consider unethical and animal rights advocates call barbaric.
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BRUSSELS, Jan 13 (IPS) - The European Parliament voted in favour of a new  constitution Wednesday, but the most difficult part of selling  the controversial document is still to come.
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Polls open this morning in the Netherlands as the Dutch vote for a new parliament.Comment
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The Patents (Third) Amendment Bill, which might be tabled in Parliament during the coming winter session, is a Bill which will pave the way for a new patent law.
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MEPs have voted to approve the new European Commission team. The result was 449 votes in favour to 149 votes against with 82 abstentions.
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Governments of EU nations and lawmakers agreed on new legislation to control the use of chemicals in industry after years of haggling over how to balance health and environmental concerns against fears that excessive red tape would stifle business.
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International body in charge of doling out IP addresses is set to give out new IPv6 addresses.
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By Geoff Meade; John Duckers  New laws on the testing of thousands of chemicals in daily use will be approved by Euro-MPs today - heralding the European Union's biggest-ever single piece of legislation.
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The European Union is talking again with industry leaders about the across-the-board fees in copyright law.
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BRUSSELS, Belgium -- IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said Monday.