I would not propose legislation which, according to my own surveys, 75% of all citizens which made the time and effort to respond to the consultation opposed.
It's exceptionally difficult to argue that the European Union is a useful tool for democracy, human rights, empowerment and cross-border cooperation for a better tomorrow when cross-border cooperation to empower individuals to defend their democracy and human rights seems to have no particular effect. Check citizen response rates in the consultation summary: clearly there were many citizens, from many different member states, who wanted to express themselves on this issue, who took the time to inform themselves of the consultation and the possibility to respond. That should have a larger effect, normally - you can't expect that citizens have to go riot in the streets before the Commission listens.
The trade secret consultation that they did last winter is actually quite devious, because even the responses from SME:s that they received can easily be traced down to something which must be some form of SME campaign - citizens are not the only actors in society that keep track of EU consultations only because they get alerted to it by Brussels-based people.
In the consultation response summary, they explicitly list trademark lawyers associations as NGO:s - a formal truth, probably, but in essence a trademark lawyer association is clearly a group of individuals which have a business interest in a very specific development of law.
The Commission's own study which they commissioned to a law firm which specialises in trade secret cases and breach of confidence cases in the UK argued that trade secrets are in fact not intellectual property in the vast majority of member states (France, in fact, is the only exception). Despite this the Commission makes this proposal as part of their "Single Market of IP" strategy
It's stuff like this which I would not do. Governments and the European Union have no business dealing with trade secrets - companies can protect their own information.
I would not propose legislation which, according to my own surveys, 75% of all citizens which made the time and effort to respond to the consultation opposed.
It's exceptionally difficult to argue that the European Union is a useful tool for democracy, human rights, empowerment and cross-border cooperation for a better tomorrow when cross-border cooperation to empower individuals to defend their democracy and human rights seems to have no particular effect. Check citizen response rates in the consultation summary: clearly there were many citizens, from many different member states, who wanted to express themselves on this issue, who took the time to inform themselves of the consultation and the possibility to respond. That should have a larger effect, normally - you can't expect that citizens have to go riot in the streets before the Commission listens.
The trade secret consultation that they did last winter is actually quite devious, because even the responses from SME:s that they received can easily be traced down to something which must be some form of SME campaign - citizens are not the only actors in society that keep track of EU consultations only because they get alerted to it by Brussels-based people.
In the consultation response summary, they explicitly list trademark lawyers associations as NGO:s - a formal truth, probably, but in essence a trademark lawyer association is clearly a group of individuals which have a business interest in a very specific development of law.
The Commission's own study which they commissioned to a law firm which specialises in trade secret cases and breach of confidence cases in the UK argued that trade secrets are in fact not intellectual property in the vast majority of member states (France, in fact, is the only exception). Despite this the Commission makes this proposal as part of their "Single Market of IP" strategy
It's stuff like this which I would not do. Governments and the European Union have no business dealing with trade secrets - companies can protect their own information.