LAST night we wrote about why Germany cannot ratify the UPC. There was far too much noise about it from Team UPC (wolves who guard sheep), and perhaps soon the pathological liars who control the EPO's news [sic] section.
"So the turnout rate was 5.5% (19 out of 20 MPs were not present) and we can imagine what kind of politicians would turn up at 2am to vote on something like that."Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna recently wrote about the UPC lobbying and said that the UPC’s “entry into force is not at all secured,” contrary to what Team UPC keeps saying. Team UPC just uses some truly malicious lobbying tactics. There is nothing they won't do to manufacture a pile of lies, akin to these "Weapons of Mass Destruction" lies that proved to be very costly. They want war. They want patent wars all across Europe. They would profit from it at the expense of all ordinary Europeans, not just producers but also customers who would bear the 'downstream' costs of litigation, patents royalties, monopolies through injunctions (no competitive pricing) and so on.
For us, it's relatively hard to check the facts on Team UPC's claims regarding Spain (fake UPC news there, as even Spaniards confirmed to us after we had posted an article about it). The same goes for Germany, unless one examines long videos and understands German. The UPC vote in Germany, as it turns out, was somewhat of a farce. A reader pointed out to us this morning that regarding "the German Parliament voting unanimously in favor of the UPC, please consider most recent update here." (Stjerna's site).
"Why is the Bundestag even open at such ridiculous hours?""What the [UPC] proponents' tweets do not tell you," the reader emphasised, is this: "The vote took place at 1:30 a.m., with only 35 of 630 MPs participating."
This in incredible. So the turnout rate was 5.5% (19 out of 20 MPs were not present) and we can imagine what kind of politicians would turn up at 2am to vote on something like that. Smells almost like a deliberate plot if not some kind of collusion, not a legitimate vote. Why is the Bundestag even open at such ridiculous hours?
Here is what Stjerna wrote:
On 09/03/2017, the German Parliament adopted the draft legislation on the ratification of the UPCA and accompanying legislation without a debate (cf. the protocol, p. 22262 A, German language). Both drafts were adopted with the approval of all attending Members of Parliament. The vote had been shifted from the originally envisaged time of 8:15 a.m. to 4:40 a.m., finally taking place at 1:31 a.m., attending were apparently only 35 of 630 Members of Parliament (cf. the Parliament TV recording here, German language).
Prior to this, on 08/03/2017 the Committee for Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection had unanimously recommended to adopt the drafts in unchanged form, shared by the unanimous approval of both the Committee on Affairs of the European Union and the Committee on Education, Research and Technological Impact Assessment (cf. the recommendation in Parliament printed matter 18/11451, German language).
Currently, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Federal Council will discuss both drafts on Wednesday, 15/03/2017 (cf. items 5 and 6 on the agenda (date: 09/03/2017), German language). The vote by the Federal Council, which will complete the Parliamentary procedure, may be held in one of the two next sessions on 31/03/2017 or 12/05/2017.
As regards the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the UPC, the Federal Council acknowledged the government’s draft legislation without objections in its session on 10/03/2017 (cf. Federal Council printed matter 81/17 [decision], German language)