Curran Clare: Patents Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Patents Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12932. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I want to acknowledge what my colleague Megan Woods said about the importance of a modern patent regime that allows for the fundamental underpinning of our intellectual property system and enables the commercialisation of our inventions and our ideas for the benefit of New Zealand’s economy. That is fundamentally important. There will be much discussion on the Supplementary Order Paper that has been proposed by the Green Party member Steffan Browning which Labour will not be supporting but there will be room for more discussion on that later on as we get through the parts of this Patents Bill.I also want to acknowledge what the Minister of Commerce said when he took a call on this part of the bill Part 1 and the work that has been undertaken to get to the point that we are now and I will elaborate on that in a minute. But I do want to finish the story of how this bill came to be back in this House 3½ years after coming back from the Commerce Committee and with regards to the exclusion—one of the key exclusions in this bill—which is for software to be patentable why that was so important and what happened after it got back to the House. When it came back there was that clear simple exclusion. There were concerns because the bill sat on the Order Paper for such a long time. There were questions to the Minister of Commerce at the time Simon Power about whether there was still a commitment to the intent of the select committee. Those commitments were given. But unbeknown to us on this side of the Chamber the pressure certainly had come on and had come on from those who had not submitted at the select committee and who represented essentially the multinational software corporations notably Microsoft and IBM. Also I have to acknowledge some of New Zealand’s big companies including Fisher and Paykel Appliances which did remain concerned about the lack of definition in the bill of embedded software.As we feared in August 2012 the current Minister Mr Foss who was trying to deal with this situation—and ultimately we would contend at that point made things worse—amended the bill to include as my Green colleague Gareth Hughes said that controversial “as such” language. Although the Minister said in the Chamber today that his purpose was simply to clarify the intention to exclude software patents that amendment proved to be hugely controversial. Our contention then was that the multinationals had in effect won and that they had got a clause that would suit their purposes rather than those of the local IT industry. That industry mounted a concerted push back on that unclear “as such” language that amendment. An industry petition was launched that was backed by groups such as the Institute of IT Professionals New ZealandInternetNZNZRise and the New Zealand Open Source Society. They set that up and it gained huge support almost immediately. That petition called on the Government to remove the ambiguous “as such” language and replace it with a simpler clause that would clarify that underlying intention. I adopted that petition’s proposed alternative clause as a proposed amendment to counter the Minister’s amendment at that time and other MPs in this House got behind that and raised concerns about the lack of clarity in the bill.That was in September last year. It is now the end of August in 2013. It took between then September last year and May this year and the concerted efforts of many people and political pressure for there to be some very good work done on providing what is perhaps now an even better bill—and I say this in the Committee today—than the one that came back to the House in 2010. So I do want to acknowledge that work.The new clause 10A that we are now seeing in the Committee today is very carefully worded. It has wide support. It ensures that we will not go down the European Union path by effectively hard coding those parts of that UKAerotel test which I mentioned earlier. It means that even if the UK approach to patent law does drift towards a more liberal regime to allow more software patents New Zealand will not. I think that is something that all of us in this Committee today can be hugely proud of.I want to recognise the hundreds and hundreds of New Zealand software developers and innovators who worked tirelessly and patiently to explain their industry to us members of Parliament and to explain how innovation in code occurs and how it can be stifled by the might of a multinational that claims the right to a piece of code. It is in effect a mathematical algorithm like a phrase in a book or a piece of music—a series of notes in a piece of music that cannot be locked up in a metaphorical box for if they are we all lose out.I want to acknowledge some people individually. I want to acknowledge Paul Matthews from the New Zealand Institute of IT Professionals and Don Christie and DanielSpector fromNZRise which represents New Zealand IT companies to promote Kiwi innovation. I also want to acknowledge Guy Burgess and Dave Lane experts in this field. I want to acknowledge the Greens for sticking to their guns New Zealand First for taking the time to listen and understand and also theMāori Party and Mana for backing Kiwi innovation. I actually want to acknowledge Peter Dunne. We do not agree on many matters but on this particular matter he did the right thing and it was his vote that actually mattered. Finally I want to acknowledge the work that the Minister has done because he knuckled down with the officials. He listened he knuckled down with the officials and the industry and he worked out a compromise that could see us with one of the best pieces of law in the world in this area of intellectual property.