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Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

ffii.org

41–50 of 283 posts

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#41
post #30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact I think EU should take few steps back: the perfect state was before Lisbon treaty, when EU was basically just a free trade zone. Since Lisbon they try to make it a single country, with unified policy on international affairs, military, etc, which doesn't make sense.

Of all the things the EU does, unified international policy makes the most sense to me - only way to avoid getting picked off one by one. It's the attempt at unifying countries internal policies that I don't see the point of.

It would make sense, but different countries have way too different historical experience, cultural ties and business interests.

Hottest examples - Russia/Belarus/Ukraine, Greece/Turkey, Nordstream, the whole migrants-in-Mediteranean thing and so on.

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries break international law all the time [1]. Doesn't make it right of course, but funny how in the UK's case it suddently makes headlines (no surprise really from the usual remainer-suspects). [1] https://www.insideover.com/politics/un-accuses-eu-of-violati...

It's not that funny, you must not understand how transformative the Good Friday Agreement was for Ireland and the UK, even if the typical Brit has no idea. It is a far broader reaching concern than software patents in Germany.

I was refering more to the link I posted rather than software patents in Germany (actually I think software patents do have far reaching consequences).

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#43
post #16

The law itself makes sense in my opinion, but the way it was introduced makes the self declaration as being democratic a cheap farce. I doubt the EU will survive in its current state. 10 years ago that would have made me sad. There are enthusiasts, but not enough to make it work.

The enthusiasts need to temper their dreams and expectations - EU is doing fine, and doesn't need to always become more powerful or more integrated. Especially not now, when citizens don't want it.

> EU is doing fine

If it is, why isn't it cracking down more seriously on, say, GDPR violations already? Is giving companies multiple years to adjust still not enough? Or does a serious enforcement of its laws not fall under the umbrella of doing fine (nor sure if pun intended)?

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only became apparent to me yesterday on another forum how much central Europeans, especially Germans, seem to quite dislike von der Leyen!

She did a lot of dumb shit while we still had her in Germany.

Not a fan of her, but can you name 10 things ("lot of") that are "dumb shit" that she did?

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#45
post #19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by that? Do you seriously think that somebody (who exactly?) is suppressing news about this court? Isn't it _a lot_ more probable that this is simply a highly technical issue that doesn't get a lot of attention? As somebody who is somewhat invested into EU law but not into patent law I have already heard about it by the way. I'm always very skeptical about this sort of vague accusation, implying that…

> What do you mean by that? Well. The less you know about how and what bureaucracy does, the less can you ask yourself why does it exist in the first place. And the more bureaucrats can keep their pointless jobs. It's not so much conspiracy as protection by obfuscation. I bet you don't know why you need even half of documents in your last encounter with it.

> I bet you don't know why you need even half of documents in your last encounter with it.

I guess you loose that bet.

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#46
post #7

As a german i am quite sure they will ratify software patents. The very sad part is the people deciding this have absolutely no understanding what they are doing and that they open the box of pandora. There is currently almost no invest money in european startups, and if everyone of these startups is liable for bogus software patents they will have absolutely no chance on getting big.

With von der Leyen being president, I am pretty sure we make the wrong decision. Yes, some Europeans might think she looks sympathetic, especially those that don't know her well because of language barriers. That she is on the position is testament to the democratic dysfunction of the Union. Officially she is in a conservative party, which eastern European countries liked very much. If we want to take democracy serio…

> That she is on the position is testament to the democratic dysfunction of the Union.

I know almost nothing about her but my impression of the actual decision making in the EU is that it's fairly distributed (by design) and there is not a single person which has the power to do anything on their own. Also there are lots of opportunities for various stakeholders to veto decisions.

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With von der Leyen being president, I am pretty sure we make the wrong decision. Yes, some Europeans might think she looks sympathetic, especially those that don't know her well because of language barriers. That she is on the position is testament to the democratic dysfunction of the Union. Officially she is in a conservative party, which eastern European countries liked very much. If we want to take democracy serio…

Conservative doesn't really mean much anymore on its own. CDU might be considered conservative by Western European standards, but it's liberal by Eastern European standards.

A lot of political labels have a different, often opposite, meaning in Europe compared to the US. A liberal in Europe refers to classical liberalism. We also have many political parties, so a liberal here is not necessary a christian conservative. Politics is more nuanced.

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#48
post #31
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact I think EU should take few steps back: the perfect state was before Lisbon treaty, when EU was basically just a free trade zone. Since Lisbon they try to make it a single country, with unified policy on international affairs, military, etc, which doesn't make sense.

I would say it is the only way it makes sense. The world now belongs to huge nations like USA, China and India. The only way European people can survive with their freedom intact is by banding together.

I think the EU has a very important role to play, like this, but it shouldn't be the case that we have to be an empire to survive - either against other big empires, or mega-corps, both kinds of things have a bit too much power. The mega-corps we can regulate, and (unfortunately) - a powerful EU is needed to do it in this state of the world.

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#49
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The enthusiasts need to temper their dreams and expectations - EU is doing fine, and doesn't need to always become more powerful or more integrated. Especially not now, when citizens don't want it.

> EU is doing fine If it is, why isn't it cracking down more seriously on, say, GDPR violations already? Is giving companies multiple years to adjust still not enough? Or does a serious enforcement of its laws not fall under the umbrella of doing fine (nor sure if pun intended)?

https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ Order by fine, descending.

Re: Germany will violate international agreements with Unitary Patent, says FFII

#50
post #40
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. Most of the EU (indeed most of the Western world) is in a democratic crisis - moving decision-making even further away from citizens by centralizing it in Brussels is only going to exacerbate that, leading to more anti-EU sentiment and more brexits.

First Google result: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-u... >The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. That's simply not true. There are multiple civil society organizations pushing for a closer union. People are voting for parties that are explicitly pro-European.

I don't know who's right but France has some 65M people whereas e.g. Lithuania has 3M people. And France provides 15% of the EU budget whereas (say) Lithuania provides 0.3%. I'm not sure listing all countries on a bar chart as if their opinions have equal impact on the fate of the EU is an accurate way to illustrate the situation?

Would the EU do just fine after losing the UK and a country like France? Would Germans still love the EU so much after they realize they're paying twice as much into the EU as the next country? Maybe you could argue it would, but I guess it seems far from obvious to me.

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