James Heald of FFII tells me:

"First indications are that the Irish presidency has secured political
approval for a new draft of the controversial software patents directive
in a meeting of the Council of Ministers today -- by 4 votes.


Belgium (5), Denmark (3), Italy (10), Spain (8) and Austria (4) refused
to support the new text.

Estonia (3) voted against.

That made 33 votes refusing to support the text -- a mere 4 votes short
of the 37 needed to block it.


The support of Germany, with 10 votes, was crucial.

The Irish were only able to get their proposal through with the support
of Germany, which had been previously been pressing for much tighter
restrictions.

It is believed that an amendment was found to satisfy German concerns,
but the details are still emerging."

So Germany voted for, in spite of previous speculation. And James later corrected this sligthly to say Estonia voted for and Spain actively voted against the proposal. ZDNet have a report on the vote.

Ian Brown at FIPR is asking for support on the issue of the EU software patents directive, which the Irish presidency of the EU is currently trying to push through. Incidentally, Bertie Ahern's interest in software patents, it seems may stem from a little (just a little) bit more than his 'pass as many EU laws as you can' stance to the presidency. I undertand that Microsoft are sponsoring the Irish presidency, not that I'm implying that such sponsorship is anything other than above board and purely public spirited, of course.

Ian writes:

The UK government position has been set for some time as generally pro the original Commission proposal. The best thing to do now if you are
concerned about the directive is:

(a) Sign the EuroLinux petition:
http://petition.eurolinux.org/index_html?LANG=en

(b) Write to your MP (see http://www.ffii.org.uk/council.html for a
guide on the best way to go about this).

(b) You can see how your MEP voted last September on the directive at
http://www.ffii.org.uk/uk_meps.html. If your MEP (listed at
http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.htm) voted along the
lines outlined by the FFII (as did Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert
(Green), Jeffrey Titford, Graham Booth and Nigel Farage (UKIP), John
Purvis, Jacqueline Foster, Martin Callanan and Theresa Villiers
(Conservative)) write to support that decision and state that it will
have a strong influence in how you vote in the European elections on 10
June. If they voted against the FFII-supported amendments, write to
politely explain why you hope they will vote differently in the Second
Reading, and that you look forward to their response to help you to
choose who to support in the European elections. The small turnout in
these elections mean that you can make a big difference by doing this!

Many thanks,
Ian.