EP Civil Liberties Committee criminalises business conflicts

PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / ICT ]

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EP Civil Liberties Committee criminalises business conflicts
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Brussels, 14 December 2006 -- At the Monday 11 December late vote on the
"IPR Enforcement Directive" (IPRED2, 2005/0127 (COD)), the European
Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee (LIBE)
failed to exclude common business conflicts from the directive. And
while the committee did remove patents from the scope, it left in
infringements on substantially unexamined design rights and unexamined
utility model rights. The end result was approved with a vote of 22 to 17.

The text as adopted by the Committee does not limit offences to 1:1
piracy and counterfeiting but includes all commercial scale
infringements, and even disagreements over the extent of protection of
intellectual property rights. It also leaves the scope open, which means
that any other right, including patents, can afterwards still be easily
added by the Commission.

Two weeks ago the EP Industry Committee (ITRE) limited the scope to
wilful trademark infringement and copyright piracy. The FFII is
concerned about LIBE's proposal to expand the scope of the directive
again. FFII analyst Ante Wessels: "Businesses can be prosecuted on
extremely shaky grounds. By the time bogus 'rights' titles have been
invalidated in court the harm will be done. Weak rights will gain a
great threat potential."

"Criminal law needs precise definitions of the offenses and a precise
scope. The 'to be sure, let's include everything' approach the LIBE
committee took is fundamentally wrong", he adds.


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Background Information
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In the legislative procedure, the EP's Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) is
next to present its report and will probably vote by the end-January.
JURI members will vote on all amendments approved by the ITRE and LIBE
Committees, but they have also tabled additional amendments themselves.
The amendments they vote through will be automatically tabled for the
plenary vote.

The EP's plenary will finalise the text shortly thereafter, after which
it's the Council's turn to handle the directive in its first reading.


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Links
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* FFII analysis of LIBE amendments and voting results
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/LIBE_Tabled_Amendments

* FFII analysis of JURI amendments (work in progress, document with all
  amendments linked in second paragraph)
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/JURI_Tabled_Amendments

* FFII analyses of ITRE, LIBE and JURI amendments, general IPRED2
information
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2

* Permanent link to this press release
http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/EP_Civil_Liberties_committee_criminalises_business_conflicts


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Contact Information
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Ante Wessels
FFII analyst
+31-6-100 99 063
ante at ffii.org
(Dutch/English)

Jonas Maebe
FFII analyst
jmaebe at ffii.org
(Dutch/English)

Benjamin Henrion
FFII Brussels
+32-2-414 84 03 (fixed)
+32-484-56 61 09 (mobile)
bhenrion at ffii.org
(French/English)


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About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org
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The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the
public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards.
More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have
entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions
concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.





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