Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the subject we are discussing here is a difficult subject. There is a big difference between copyright and patent law. That this difference is difficult to define is evident from the amount of lobbying we have been experiencing. I therefore thank Mrs McCarthy, who has managed to clarify the line. Particularly in her briefing to aggressive lobbyists who I think have incorrectly interpreted this and who want to achieve exactly the opposite of what is intended with this directive. That is regrettable. The aim of this directive, in my view at least, is to prevent legal uncertainty. Mr Medina Ortega and many other fellow MEPs have already given examples of this. The European Patent Office in Munich is already using the United States method at the moment and is already patenting software as such. I believe that it is necessary to put an end to this by way of this directive, if we get it. I think that this is also what the lobbyists who want this directive voted down want. I therefore think it is odd that they are calling for this directive to be totally rejected. After all, this would make it possible for the US methods referred to by some fellow Members to remain in place and the Patent Office to continue to issue patents for thousands of software methods. I think that would be a bad thing. We have submitted a number of amendments. A large number of these have been approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market in the debate on the McCarthy report. A large proportion of them relate to the protection of small- and medium-sized enterprises, while the purpose of others is to achieve improved definitions. I therefore think that the report before us is already suitably balanced. I would like to see a number of improvements implemented, however. Among other things, I am referring to the grace period which my colleague Mrs Elly Plooij-Van Gorsel has already mentioned. I think it would be a good idea to establish this in the directive. I would even like to call upon the Commission to go further and include a grace period in all directives pertaining to intellectual property rights we may get in the future. It seems to me to be a good thing for the not-so-powerful inventors in particular to be allowed such a period of time so that they can find out whether there is a market for their products. I have also submitted an amendment concerning new inventions with software that is computer-implemented and which – to put it very clearly – is not patentable per se. This amendment intends to set a limited period for new inventions, if you separate them from the software, which – to put it very clearly – is not patentable. Why? Because with a patent application, even if you do separate it and even if the product is not patentable per se, you have a number of legal procedures at your disposal with which you can keep businesses out of the market for a long time. I think that would be a bad thing. I am also of the opinion that such an approach does not conflict with the non-discrimination policy of TRIPS as it does not exclude a particular sector. I think that it will simply be sending a clear signal. Now a few words about interoperability. Interoperability is necessary, but we must make a clear distinction between standalone inventions and inventions intended for use in conjunction with other inventions. We have applied this distinction in our amendment. I call upon fellow Members to support the directive in any event, in order to prevent legal uncertainty in the future.

Political group: ELDR