Question 42596 — intellectual property

Summary

Mr. Philippe Latombe alerts the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery to the way in which large American software companies are circumventing the non-patentability of software in Europe. On July 6, 2015, after more than two years of preparatory debates, the European Parliament confirmed the European law in force by refusing that software (or computer program) enters the field of patentability, this overwhelmingly majority of 648 votes, against 14 votes in favor and 18 abstentions. Despite this clear decision, the major American software companies, led by Microsoft, have never thrown in the towel. Since the door to a European agreement was closed to them, they attacked national chapter by national chapter. If certain Member States such as France but also Italy, Spain or Poland resisted this intensive lobbying, others shown to be more receptive to American arguments. This is particularly the case of the United Kingdom, under American supervision on the economic level, as the recent affair of the Australian submarines has once again brought to light. This is also, unfortunately, the case of Germany, which houses the European Patent Court in Munich, a court which is both judge and party on this issue since most of its operating budget comes from patents granted or refused. It is to these two member countries (before 2020) that we owe yet another attempt to bring software into the field of patentability, a project that Brexit will abort. Shamelessly, the European Commission then tried to arrange the signing of a trade agreement outside the Union treaties, a maneuver which had the essential merit of denying the European Parliament a right of review and opinion on the text. On Wednesday 27 October 2021, the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) met in Luxembourg to discuss how to amend the Provisional Implementation Treaty (PPA) to override the UK prerequisite, which is still necessary for its entry into force, according to Article 3.1. The French delegation has already given its agreement for the organization of a signing ceremony of this statement on the sidelines of a Coreper meeting in Brussels. We therefore find ourselves today in the completely unacceptable situation where, due to the maneuvers of the European Commission, none of the French assemblies are able to appreciate exactly which parts of digital sovereignty are which France is preparing to renounce. This renunciation will have very serious consequences, if not lethal, on the French software sector and European. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of “software patents” already issued by the US USPTO, as well as those that have been illegally issued by the European Patent Office (EPO), are in the hands of US companies. They are already using it to extort innovation in the United States of America, and wish to extend this control to Europe, making it even more subjugated. The extremely high amount of defense costs and remedies that have been established (on average 20,000 euros, or 20 to 40 times higher than those in force in the different Member States), will boost innovative SMEs. Even in the event of a legal victory, no software start-up will survive this type of offensive; they will be bought at a low price by their attackers, as has been happening in the United States of America for 40 years and has allowed situations of abusive monopoly such as than those in which Microsoft and Apple are located. How can we, on the one hand, claim to promote France's digital sovereignty, as the President of the Republic declared to the French during his last speech, and tolerate such practices? Why were the French assemblies never informed, when there should have been a debate within them before giving any mandate to negotiation for the signing of this declaration in Council? Can the Government clarify the exact content of this declaration? Is the latter compatible with the Vienna Convention on the Interpretation of Treaties (VCLT) and who has carried out a legal verification of it? He would like to have details on this subject.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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