Our MEP's and Software Patents

L1011

Over the past week, I've sent personal emails to all MEPs, north and south. Going to track the responses here.

Mary-Lou McDonald (Sinn Fein)

27 hours to respond, during the week (Tuesday/Wednesday). Email not personal, written by a PR flack. Says she will vote no to patents

Mareid McGuinness (SF)

Also 27 hours, reply arrived 1 minute after McDonalds. Short email, possibly personal, seems to not have a clue but says she will be investigating patents as she's been receiving huge correspondance on them

Jim Allister (DUP)

15 hours, on a Saturday. Extremely short and probably personal if very formal email, voting no to patents.

Anybody who's not responded by Friday will be getting a letter - except the UUP guy, as I can't get a Norn Iron postmark on it...

dangerman

good job man.

L1011

OK, two more so far today

Pronsias De Rossa, Labour - 5 days to respond

Long email, signed by an advisor. Implies, but does not say, that De Rossa will vote no. This is the feeling I got when I personally talked to Pat Rabbitte on the issue in February, so nothing unexpected there.

Jim Higgins, Fine Gael - 3 days to respond (which contained a weekend)

Signed by an assistant. Will be voting no.

L1011

Marian Harkin, Independent. 4 days

I have absolustely NO idea what the email I got means. Its flack-written, signed by an assistant. Basically seems to suggest that she'll take whatever her alliance in the parliments opinion of the issue is...

So thats 5/1/0 for Voting no/no idea/yes....

scojones

Here's the two replies I recieved last week. I recieved no reply from neachtain :mad:

REPLY FROM HARKIN

Dear Mr. xxxx,

Thank you for writing to Marian Harkin regarding this pertinent issue. As you know, following Monday's decision by the Competitiveness Council to adopt a 'common position' on the first reading of the software patents proposal, the European Parliament requested a statement to be made by the commissioner responsible - Mr. Charlie McCreevy to the EP Plenary yesterday in Strasbourg. An account by the EP's press service of the subsequent debate is available below while Commissioner McCreevy's statement is available at:

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/05/151&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

As it stands, the EP still has the opportunity to table amendments which were not taken up in the Council's common position, which the EP has yet to see, or to reject the common position entirely. If the EP decides to amend and Council still refuses to accept its amendments, a conciliation committee of MEPs and national civil servants will meet to reach a compromise. If none is found, the proposal falls. Most importantly the Ministers do not take the final decision on this issue - they must work with the EP.

It would appear that there are many MEPs against the patenting of software inventions and Marian will work closely with her group - the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats to examine all issues on the debate and to ensure that the voice of the EP, and thereby of citizens is heard.

The EP's first reading position can be downloaded from
http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?L=EN&OBJID=79550&MODE=SIP&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N&LEVEL=2

Kind regards,

Sinéad Meehan

REPLY FROM HIGGINS

Dear xxxx,

Mr. Higgins has asked me to thank you for your email on the subject of
software patents - one of a number of such emails he has received over
the last few weeks.

You will no doubt be pleased to know that Mr. Higgins shares your
concerns regarding the Draft Directive and supports the position of a
great many users, people from within the IT sector and small software
companies throughout Ireland - that is, to oppose the Directive by
voting against it when it next comes before the European Parliament.

Kind regards,

Mark Taylor

Assistant to Senator Jim Higgins MEP

L1011

OK, no replies from:

Eoin Ryan, Fianna Fail
Gay Mitchell, Fine Gael
Liam Aylward, Fianna Fail
Avril Doyle, Fine Gael
Sean O'Neactain, Fianna Fail
Brian Crowley, Fianna Fail
Simon Coveney, Fine Geal
Kathy Sinnott, Independent
Bairbre DeBrun, Sinn Fein
Jim Nicholson, UUP

Note that NOT ONE FF MEP responded. 2 FG one's did, as did the one Labour...

All bar Nicholson are getting letters if no response by Tuesday morning, as theres no way in hell that a UUP MEP would write back to someone with an Irish language first name, Irish surname and Kildare adress...