Brussels, 18/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - Eva Lichtenberger, the Austrian Green commenting on the draft directive on computer assisted inventions said that the directive, “needed a new starting point: the situation is blocked at the Council, Parliament has to take things in hand”. The Greens/EFA group wrote to Giusseppe Gargani the president of the parliamentary committee on legal affairs to request new legislative procedures on the directive on software patents and it being included in the parliamentary committee's agenda for b19 January. Monica Frassoni from Italy, co-president of the group indicated in a press statement that the Greens would “do their best to put pressure on obtaining a launch of a new procedure as soon as possible. We hope that this new start will allow a reasonable solution to be achieved”.
The draft directive is particularly controversial. Its detractors believed that if it is adopted in its current form it would allow for the creation of software patents. This would benefit big businesses to the detriment of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and would cramp innovation in Europe. According to Eva Lichtenberger, “Ministers committed a serious mistake on18 My (2004) by completely ignoring the improvements adopted by Parliament in its first reading, and by proposing a directive that chiefly serves the interests of the multinationals”. In December 2004, the Council was unable to formally ratify the political agreement reached in May on this legislative proposal because Poland wanted more time to examine the text.