The draft Directive, often called the Software Patents Directive, is currently awaiting the approval of the Council of Ministers. Once this is granted, the draft Directive will be returned to the Parliament for a second reading – a procedure that allows a much shorter time scale for debate and requires larger majorities for amendments than that offered by a first reading.
Opponents of the draft, who fear that it will import a liberal regime of software and business method patenting into the EU, were heartened last month when the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a motion asking the Parliamentary President to tell the Commission that the current proposals need to be reviewed.
If granted, the request would have started the Parliamentary debate afresh.
However, the Commission is not bound to comply with the request and on Friday, in a letter addressed to Mr Fontelles, the European Parliamentary President, Mr Barroso, the Commission President, confirmed that he would be sticking to the usual procedures.
In fact the draft Directive has been with the Council of Ministers since last May, when European Trade Ministers rejected amendments made to the draft by the European Parliament.
Progress on the draft Directive has since stalled, following the accession of the new Member States, and political manoeuvring has kept the proposals off the Council agenda, where it was due to be included as an "A" item, being one that is voted through without discussion.
According to reports, the draft is now due to be included in the agenda for the meeting of the Competitiveness Council on 7th March.
"A wannabe Napoleon who heads the Commission and a Microsoft puppet that runs the DG (directorate general) in charge have decided to negate democracy," said Florian Mueller, manager of lobby group NoSoftwarePatents.com. "We call on the EU Council to demonstrate a more democratic attitude and to reopen negotiations of its Common Position at the forthcoming meeting."
Jonas Maebe, board member of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, said:
"Instead of grabbing the chance to take into account all new facts which have come to light since the origin of the current Directive text, namely the Green Paper from 1997, the Commission is alienating the EP to an extent that it may very well simply call a halt to this farce which is supposed to represent democracy."
