Derek McDowell (Labour)

It is the first refuge of an Opposition spokesperson on a Bill such as this one to complain about the delay in its introduction. However, even by the standards of this and the other House, the delay of seven or eights years in progressing the Bill to this stage requires some explanation. I invite the Minister of State to share his thoughts on that subject when he replies.

I checked the website of the Patents Office yesterday and noted it is quite a good one. Among the information it contains is a list of recent applications for patents, of which I will list a number. During September, applications for patents were made for a security access control assembly unit, an apparatus for facilitating the collection of waste, a hand-washing system and an apparatus for the collection of solar energy. Thus, there is a wide variety of applications. It is good to note there are such applications because research and development innovation is vital in our economy.

However, there is another side to the story. I am glad Senator Hanafin, uniquely among the speakers who contributed thus far, mentioned it in the more nuanced beginning to his contribution. It is in our interests to protect the interests of inventors and those who have ideas. If we do not do that, big companies will not spend time, money and effort in exploiting an idea or carrying out research and development, the findings of which others can simply take and use. Therefore we must protect that aspect.

However, our greater interest as a society must be to ensure that good ideas are exploited for the benefit of society. We cannot stand over a position which has happened and will happen again whereby companies, perhaps large ones, will simply patent every idea that crosses their thresholds not with a view to exploiting those ideas down the road but with a view to preventing others from doing so. It is important we strike a proper balance not only in the Bill, because legislation is only one aspect of it, but in the way we operate the patent system. We must strike a balance between encouraging invention, innovation, ideas and trade and in protecting inventors. We cannot stand over a situation where the patents system is used and abused by multinational corporations to prevent trade, which does happen.

It is important to reiterate the point made by Senator Hanafin when he spoke about inventions that are vital for the proper functioning of society. Drugs are by far and away the most important example in this respect. It is important that pharmaceutical companies have sufficient incentive to conduct millions of euro worth of research. If the incentive does not exist they will not do it and invention and innovation will be delayed as a result. Equally, one has to wonder whether we really want to have the market in incredibly important drugs tied up for 20 years and left to be exploited, perhaps exclusively, by one American multinational corporation. Is it morally and politically sustainable or right that, having invented a particular drug, a multinational corporation has 20 years in which to exploit it to the maximum of its commercial advantage? I agree with Senator Hanafin that it is clearly in the interests of society that research information and knowledge is exploited as broadly as possible. I accept we cannot tell pharmaceutical companies that once they have invented a drug, anybody who wishes is entitled to copy it. However, there is a requirement for nuance and balance, which I accept can be imposed at a multinational level only under the auspices of the European Patent Office or the World Trade Organisation.

While I agree with much of what Senators Quinn and O'Toole have said, I suggest they should also examine the other side of the argument, which has not been sufficiently ventilated today. That argument is most powerfully put in the major debate of recent years concerning software. I read some contributions to that debate last night and I assure Senator Leyden, it did not keep me awake. Most of the debate has been between the European Commission and the European Parliament. It is a fascinating debate and one on which literally billions of euro and thousands of jobs potentially turn. It would be naive to say we can allow ourselves to indulge in this argument from an intellectual point of view. The interests of Ireland incorporated are inextricably linked with the multinational corporations which employ thousands of people in the IT sector. The view of our MEPs and Government always has been that whatever Microsoft or other large multinational IT corporations want, they get.

However, I am still attracted by the counter argument, almost idealistic in nature, which suggests that software, ideas, the Internet and the exchange of information and everything connected with that, are so vital to the functioning of modern societies that they should not be patentable at all or, at the very least, there should be serious restrictions on the extent to which they are patented. Again, it is a matter of striking a balance. The European Parliament voted earlier this month to attempt to strike a balance. Having read the resolution that was passed, it appears some further negotiation between the office of Mr. McCreevy, the Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, and the Parliament is required. I hope they have got the balance right. I tend, at least on an intellectual basis, to agree with those who refer to shared human facilities and shared knowledge and who argue that it runs contrary to the original concept underlying the Internet to restrict the availability of software.

Senator O'Toole pointed out that Mr. Bill Gates has made billions of euro and dollars and is now the richest man in the world. Fair play to him but that is not our interest. Our interest is in having software as freely available as possible, throughout the entire world and not just in the developed world. It is not in making Mr. Gates incredibly rich, although in fairness to Mr. Gates, he is more philanthropic than most.